Democratic Kitchen

I completed my externship at Vanille Patisserie in Chicago, IL. Coming on to the team as an extern I didn’t have a voice about what was going on in the kitchen until about half way through my externship. Once the team got acquainted with the externs they began to ask them about there opinions and takes on new flavors coming up season wise, or new architecture on desserts. Externs reported to the employees or sous chef, who then reported to the executive chefs. However, our executive chefs were married and had twins; needless to say they were not around very much. They let most of the decision making up to, Moon, our sous chef. She often ran the kitchen very democratically. She allowed everyone to have an opinion and try all of the new desserts as they came out, or create a new entremets if there was any free time in between making different components of the other various entremets. However, when Dimitri Fayard was in the kitchen it was his way or the high way. Messing up or dropping an entremet would result in the price you had cost the company yelled across the kitchen. He was very confident in himself, as he should be, and if something wasn’t up to his standard or wasn’t to his liking it was going in the trash. I feel that between the two types of leadership I encountered they both worked well in balance with each other. It was necessary to keep the standard up with how the product came out and how the employees carried themselves. By giving everyone a chance to participate and create new entremets and try the new flavors they felt like they were getting more out of going to work that just to get a paycheck. Everyone taught everyone new things if they found a new recipe or technique. However, there was always that sense of power from the bosses that kept everyone in line.