Alternative Jobs for Chefs (That Don't Involve the Restaurant Kitchen)

There are plenty of career paths you could pursue when you graduate with a culinary degree. If you don't want to put on the toque and strap on your clogs, you will be glad to know there are plenty of options that don't involve a restaurant kitchen.

All you have to do is decide where you want to put your culinary prowess to work. Some of these options are rather exciting and give you plenty of freedom and flexibility as you build your career. See what catches your interest!

Chef on an Offshore Oil Rig

If you love the smell of the sea and enjoy getting away from the stresses of shore life, then you can put your skills to work on an offshore oil rig. These huge installations can have upwards of 200 hungry mouths eager to fuel up on food. This job is a tough one with long hours and long days. But after a two week shift, you could enjoy between one and three weeks off to rest and recuperate.

Private Chef

One of the best things about working as a private chef is that you get to develop a strong relationship with your employer, their family, and their closest friends. As a personal chef, you will find yourself preparing everything from breakfast to banquets at their behest. This is the perfect option for chefs who enjoy putting in the time and effort it takes to create perfection on every plate.

Gastronomic Engineer

That is the official title of a chef in the lab. If your skills in biology and chemistry are top notch, this is a fantastic career choice to look into. As a gastronomic engineer, you could spend your days finding the most efficient and effective methods of creating healthy, tasty food that can then be packaged and stored. With Americans eating an ever expanding palette of packaged, pre-cooked, and frozen foods, this is a career that has a bright and stable future.

Culinary Coach

If you enjoy teaching, you could find plenty of opportunities to coach others on how to cook the perfect meal. You can help diabetics develop a dietary plan, teach homemakers how to cook the meals their family members will rave about, teach people how to cook their favorite international dishes, and help young couples build meals that fit within their budgets. There are innumerable possibilities here, so your opportunities are limitless as your own imagination.

Culinary Consultant

The big restaurant chains spend billions of dollars to hone their menu offerings to a fine point. Every ingredient, every preparation, every presentation is carefully considered by professional chefs. As a culinary consultant, you can find work with some of the largest brands in the country.

Conversely, if you want to hang your own shingle, there are plenty of mom and pop restaurants that don't have the budgets of the big players, but are willing to invest in your culinary expertise. If you choose this route, you could help them find the ingredients and make the adjustments that will make your local diner’s chili the talk of the town.

Foodservice Distributor/Sales Agent

If you can make food, you can sell food. As a chef, you could help everyone from restaurant managers to cafeteria operators choose the menu options that will boost their reputation and bottom line. As a distributor or broker, you might travel from restaurant to restaurant helping them determine what works, what doesn't, and what they can do to improve the quality of their menu and the efficiency of their operations.

Wine Merchant

Nothing goes better with a juicy steak or a salmon filet than the perfect bottle of wine. As a chef, you have a deep understanding of flavor which means that you can help restaurants choose the perfect wines for their existing menu. While you will need to undergo a little more training to boost your knowledge of wines, you could already more than half the way there when you graduate with a culinary degree.

Caterer

Birthdays, weddings, graduation parties, retirement celebrations, and baby showers all have one thing in common: lots of hungry guests. When people organize these celebrations, they have plenty of things on their plate and as a chef you can help take one of those things off their list.

As a caterer, you will typically be responsible for everything from securing the required equipment and planning the menu, to setting up and tearing down the eating area in addition to preparing the food.

Are You Ready to Begin your Journey?

Are you interested in studying the culinary arts? If you want to earn an Associate of Applied Science Degree in Culinary Arts, ECPI University’s Culinary Institute of Virginia offers this program at an accelerated pace. For more information, connect with a friendly admissions advisor today.

It could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!

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