WHAT THEY DON'T TELL YOU ABOUT BEING A PASTRY CHEF

[@Robert-wm8wr]

i worked 17 years in restaurants cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and she's spot on. One con i'll add, you often work short handed cause other staff often calls out or just doesn't show. this adds to the stress a lot. the creative freedom if you have that opportunity, can be the best aspect. And yeah, the pay isn't what it needs to be. Great video, and really enjoy watching your other pastry videos.

[@madisonwilliams7263]

Having worked in the food industry for 8 years I can say everything you said is spot on👍🏼

[@essp3688]

I agree!

[@avni6734]

I'm still young. But this really motivates me. Whatever the situations are, if i want and love the job, i'll be inspired and still motivated.❤ Pastry chef was and is still my dream job. 🤞

[@LLove-th4ju]

I worked in the industry for 10 years then went back to school became a radiologic technologist and worked in a hospital for 23 years. Both jobs were exhausting but working in the hospital was much harder. I had to have back surgery in my 30’s and still have chronic pain.

[@traceydangaard5110]

Spot on to the T. Im a chef now working in a bakery as a pastry ish chef cause of that reason i wanted my social life back. And i now have the afternoons free to study as im going to uni to get out of cheffing as you said it my body is taking a toll on me being in the industry for 2 decades now. I was suprised to hear about nerve damage in your feet i get that to a lot didnt know what it was from thought it was from playing netball now i know its from work. Custom Inserts for your shoes helps and not having them tied so tight helps as well.

[@gnudidoodie]

As a chef with 11 years in the industry, I can say that this occupation owns my life. The pay gets better with experience though. At a great restaurant I get to work at 11am and work until 10 pm 5 days a week. The work is often hyperfocused and meticulous. The mental strain of perpetual focus is draining. My first day off is usually dedicated to recovery. On the second day off, you get caught up on errands, and all of the little things you needed to do during the week. At my job eating involves rapidly devouring a granola bar or stealing some cold potatoes from a speedrack and shoving them in my mouth while I'm grabbing ingredients from the walk-in. I am incredibly passionate about food and cooking, but this industry is just not worth it.

[@brianaaaaaa]

i really dislike when ppl say “this industry is not worth it”, even though you’re being honest it just discourages ppl like me that want to be a pastry chef. now we start to over think & most of the time ppl will find a different career 😢😅. but i’m still going to continue to work my way to becoming a pastry chef & owning my own bakery!

[@gnudidoodie]

@@brianaaaaaa Maybe i should have said it isn't worth it for me. There are very few happy chefs. Pastry is even more complicated now because many places don't hire pastry, they allocate a few deserts to the prep person, the chef throws something together, or they buy deserts from a third party. It might be worth it, but if I were 50%as good at plumbing, electrical engineering, software development, paralegal, etc, I would make more money and my quality of life would be better. i love cooking more than anything else in the world. The industry itself is what gets in the way of me and the thing that I love. for me, I would rather make more money and have an actual life by partaking in another profession. i would then have the time to cook for the people I love. Sorry to discourage you, but this has just been my experience. I have one of the top 5 culinary resumes in my city, and I was recently offered 42k, or 20$ an hour to leave my current job. By comparison, an entry level fast casual server makes more money, in less time.

[@harkatdz]

Im pastry chef by experience i prefer to work in bakery or patisserie as french call it you have more free time for your social life but i prefer french patisserie which im working on it

[@lunaroyale4555]

Thinking about doing college for pastry chef. Thank you for the feedback! ❤

[@r4aincandy]

thank you for this! i'm working on an interview for class, this helped so much.

[@annabellemitchell9008]

this just makes me want to go into the industry even more :)

[@geraldynson753]

Be careful what you wish for….. it’s a hard work

[@penguinilinguini3309]

Especially spot on with the social life part. I've had to try and explain this to friends and they still blamed me for not having time. It sucks, but oh well. Friends won't make me money, they won't necessarily help me build my experience, so sorry, but if I wanna make bigger $$, then work has to come first. She's right to an extent about the physical bit. It can be tough, but doing it for a long time, you kinda build the muscle in the legs, and good insoles will be your best friend. I'd personally recommend a massage at least once a month to help with the muscles, stretching helps too.

[@ntinaamr6773]

That's my life right now

[@cultusdeus]

The real question at hand: What can I do, that I like, that I'm good at, that makes enough money for me to live on comfortably so that I can afford to have a car and house?

[@madisonwilliams7263]

Preaching to the choir, i ended becoming a physical therapist to pay my bills. I loved the food industry and really miss it sometimes, more and more often recently.

[@s.r6331]

I can assure you that this field is not it

[@pandaish1771]

You can if you found your own restaurant and stuff you know

[@cultusdeus]

@@pandaish1771 Good luck, and make sure the dessert menu is top notch. That's what I look at first usually anyway.

[@gacha.annamation]

Man idk, if you get a good reply let me know bc I also have zero clue on what career I want

[@MikaylaRoseDaly]

I love your channel! So helpful!

[@jonny5738]

Bang on, great video made me revitalised to keep baking 👍🏼

[@vishakhathakur1629]

Honest opinion! Spot on.

[@TheLittleThingsAroundUs]

You will have no social life. Me, an Introvert: "Hehehehe YES" 🤭

[@Chrisfeb68]

I waited tables throughout college and I thought the restaurant business was pretty rough and demanding. It's a job for young kids, I can't imagine working in a restaurant in your 40s or older even 30s would be challenging.

[@traceydangaard5110]

Oh yeah cons, if you dont smoke i found it harder to take breaks and its male gender dominance so yeah you get bullied sometimes as being a female and mistreated pending on where you work. I get targeted a bit being a chef working in a bakery. But i have found from both sides of experience cheffing is harder as multi tasking in service is fast and hard as your the first line in the food orders no time to prepare those dishes an hour early. And your yelled at more as a chef keep that in mind.

[@johnphillippabayon5278]

Can i just suggest? It's better if you could put subtitles or any visual text to make your video more entertaining even if you talk the whole vid so that people will not get bored. Anyway, I'm a fan and I want to learn more from you. Hope you read this. Thank you! ❤️😊

[@leolee7349]

WOW you are a great pastry chef

[@stevocanuck]

i don't care about the cons, i love working on the line.

[@lilithcrow6675]

Love the new opening

[@emeraude_s]

Amazing video, so insightful!

[@julie0071000]

very helpful! thx~!

[@ToxicPurpleSharpie]

Great info, thanks! I'm curious if you, or anyone else who sees this, knows if the long hours is only an American thing or if it's like that all over the world? I have worked in hair my whole life and because it's a service industry, a lot of the points you covered overlap with hair, but in other countries I know that barbershops and salons can have pretty short hours.

[@amantletamajobe8986]

I’m in Botswana and I worked in the food industry for a bit, I believe it’s everywhere. I relate with everything she said.

[@mindupingu]

I'm from Spain and I work 10/12 hours in a kitchen too. Here it's common to have even longer shifts if you are a waiter or waitress but I believe chefs work a lot of hours too.

[@Georgechatzi]

If you have as you say fun working environment you are lucky.! Because our job usually has bad working environments...

[@gratzia]

How are you supposed to present yourself in the cooking industry? Do they expect makeup and hair done, perfume? I'm new to this. :)

[@MiaBakes]

Hi sorry for the late response! Normally I go with light makeup just to make myself feel good but no one really cares lol the industry is so diverse! Also anything heavily scented messes up your senses when tasting your food so I’d advise against perfume ♥️

[@griffenlancer]

If you work in a hot environment you don't want makeup on, it melts and you can get sweaty while working.

[@meganhorsburgh4147]

@@griffenlancer Wouldn't the makeup go on the mask if working in a hot environment

[@leljan6471]

Oh you say one of the cons is drugs and alcohol. I'm really considering to enter this kind of industry as a pastry chef but the fact the I have a stomach hyperacidity makes me think twice because I need a rubbing liquid menthol from time to time to put on my abdomen to ease the irritation caused by hyperacidity in my stomach. So that's my only concern right now if I'm not really allowed to bring a rubbing menthol with me while on duty? Thanks...

[@brentdundee]

I worked as a qualified Pastry chef for 20 years here in Oz I enjoyed the work and creativity as I specialized in recipe development. But I got sick of the Early hours and changed industries for a better family and social life...now I bake at Home and create artwork as my hobby and passion and I would not change this and go back into the Industry...No thanks

[@iHeartPolarBears]

I'm a baker and valentines day is our busiest day of the year as well!! It's also my birthday. My first year with the company I had it off and after my coworkers were eaten alive that day, I no longer get it off lol

[@murdockbarakus9753]

In Hawaii, it's Mother's Day.

[@bellebriscoe3274]

Love your videos this was really helpful! If you can answer, I’m wondering your tips on getting a entry level pastry position with no school or experience yet? To get my foot in the door.

[@Vladigraph]

Check with the neighborhood bakeries in your city. They often employ people without previous experience, but of course at minimum wages. They will train you on the job.

[@robelaleligay8770]

hope that working in this pastry industry won't be just a "dream" for me😌🙏🏻

[@valeriasworld123]

Same! I’m going to college for it soon. I hope it is truly what I want to do

[@minodirandeniya8146]

very useful

[@marchie3314]

do you know where you got your intro from? Or did you make it? Also I love your videos as a person who wants to be a pastry chef in the sometime future :)

[@MiaBakes]

I got it from a creator called Magjim on fiverr.com!

[@marchie3314]

@@MiaBakes thanks :)

[@elenik.6308]

What- can you please explain to me what do you mean drugs? Like the People in that industry like to do drugs alot?

[@madisonwilliams7263]

I worked in the industry for 8 years and not including myself almost all the line cooks smoked weed or sold pain killers. They never push it on you if they know your not into it though. With the stress that comes from being in the kitchen for so many hours I think they just did it to take the edge off a little. All really cool people though and all sorts of personalities, you’ll never get bored.

[@elenik.6308]

@@madisonwilliams7263 ah thank you for responding💕So you believe that all this time working is worth it and that the People there make it easier and more enjoyable? Cause the payment for all this hours its not it

[@madisonwilliams7263]

@@elenik.6308 Definitely. The money isn’t the best but my advice would be to learn everything you can about how to run a successful restaurant. Learn about cost of goods sold, how to properly count inventory, learn how much each menu item costs you to make, etc. This way maybe one day you can open your own successful restaurant and actually make money to do something you love. Working as a chef in someone else’s kitchen is a great way to learn but the pay is so low you’ll always struggle to make ends meet.

[@caprisanzari1959]

Yes! Lots of drugs. It’s a stressful industry, long hours and lots of time away from loved ones and friends. Where I worked lots of people used alcohol and cocaine to get through their shift

[@brianaaaaaa]

@@caprisanzari1959 wow 😯😳

[@harshmandlekar4285]

Can you please tell how much do pastry chefs generally earn in a month?

[@Chanhee]

I wonder if the reason pastry chefs look so young is bc they decided to change jobs

[@katherinecaronis4790]

where do you work???

[@lathika9976]

if work limits time with friends then you can *befriend your coworkers* ✨👀

[@Hareedy_A.H]

Visit Egypt

[@SerengetiSausage]

Very interesting insight. Do you get paid for all the hours you work?

[@wakeupwaffles3473]

you do not get paid overtime in most cases

[@Vladigraph]

@@wakeupwaffles3473 it really depends on the local laws. In California, for example, if you are paid by the hour, anything longer than five 8-hour days, or 4 10-hour days would be paid at 1.5 to 2x the regular rate. If you are salaried then typically you don't get paid overtime. And then of course there are employers who simply break the law, and the employees are too scared of filing a complaint about them.

[@christianramirez6443]

❤❤❤

[@omarchef4296]

👏👏👩‍🍳💐

[@murdockbarakus9753]

May you kindly tell us the difference between a "regular" pastry chef and a "professional" one?

[@deo3367]

FYI: You can insert Nurse instead of chef for this. Except I would love to work 10-12 hour shifts with an hour lunch break. In 7 years I have maybe took 50 30min breaks. And a chef doesn’t deal with poop, and better food.

[@naguib94]

nurses make way more money tho

[@Jas-tk6rc]

no one cares Rachel

[@Topo_Gigio007]

I would pay to have monday and tuersday off and doing 10hrs🤣 i’m about 6/7 (sometimes even 7/7) and 15 even 17hrs. Welcome to the club tho🙈

[@jillphillips8117]

Your video is good. It looks like you are a hard worker. You and the rest of the crew, should be wearing gloves though. Food doesn't look as appetizing with someone's dead skin cells in it.

[@isvedygoot]

Hi please shut up thanks

[@allansalve2170]

hi chef do you have Instagram...