I'm registerd with a very good agency who looks after my career path for me. They told me about the job at the Tower Hotel Dublin, and that it would suit me. They organised the interview. I had 2 interviews with the CEO of The Tower Hotel Group -Eric Rothchild and Ms Nora Wyse - GM of The Tower Hotel Dublin. The job offer was made to the agency and I had to accept it through the agency. Using the agency took a lot the stress out of the whole process.
What are the main tasks and responsibilities?
My responsibilities are the complete running of the kitchen from quality of food to budgets, HACCP (Food Safety Management System), waste management, rosters, financial control and the general running of the food production of the kitchen.
What are the main challenges?
These would be trying to put the best product on the plate for the best price possible and trying to keep running my kitchen in harmony so that we can produce food that reflects the harmony of the kitchen.
What's cool?
What is cool is that I'm the Chef and there can be only one Chef in the kitchen. How cool is that!!
What's not so cool?
That I have to take all the responsibility for all of the other chefs and problems whether I'm there or not there.
What particular skills do you bring to your workplace?
The most obvious - you need to be a very good cook to be a good chef. You need to be a good motivator and manager. You also need a very good financial and logistical head. You need to be the most relaxed person in the kitchen so that people can see you can take the pressure.
Describe a typical day?
A typical day for me starts at about 8-8.30am in the morning, when I come in I check with the breakfast chef that everything has gone ok for breakfast then it's the pastry chef to see how he is getting on.From about 9am until 11.45am it's meeting and office work i.e checking e-mails and going over yesterdays business. Then from 12noon it's lunch service until 2pm, After lunch it's office work again for another hour or so.Then it's a briefing for the chef's that are working in the evening to let them know whats going on i.e how many people are booked for dinner or if we have a function. I normally finish up at about 7ish if we're not too busy.
