What is a Corporate Chef?

The foodservice industry is full of more careers and positions than you can imagine. So whether you’re fresh out of school or have been in the game and are seeking a change, you need to know what all your options are. If you live for cooking but don’t see being a restaurant chef as your dream job, you have other opportunities. On the equipment side, manufacturers hire chef’s too. This raises the question of what is a corporate chef?

Chef Frank Barrett-Mills has the answers. After an exclusive interview with Parts Town, he gave us the scoop on what a corporate chef does, why he loves it and what he’ll miss most when embarking on his retirement after years in the game. 

Frank was the executive chef for a number of Middleby brands at the Middleby Innovation Kitchen before his retirement. He entered the world of cooking as a young boy when he would help his grandmother in the kitchen. His Irish roots helped play an influence into his love for food. From there it evolved to catering the Boston marathon to private meals and that’s when he knew he found his game. 

What is a Corporate Chef?

A corporate chef can work for an equipment manufacturer to help test units, create menus and more. 

Operations is very different from the world of a corporate chef. You’re typically at the same restaurant every day doing the same menu for prolonged periods of time. Whereas a corporate chef can often get to travel to new places, see new food styles, cook new meals every day. It provides that thrill of day-to-day change to keep the job interesting. 

There also isn’t a front of house or back of house in a corporate chef’s kitchen. This means the group touring for the day can see everything while you cook. It isn’t just chefs coming to see what you do. Everyone in the restaurant game can come gather round and learn more about the work that goes into creating each dish with the different pieces of equipment you use. 

Some tips from Frank for someone looking to become a corporate chef include picking a company that believes that producing food on their equipment is important. You don’t want the brand that’s only selling you bells and whistles. The end result should always be the greatest value. Then you can work it backwards on the unit for how to make the equipment create that for you with programs and more.