Reality bites: shortage of chefs hits restaurant industry growth
Australia’s booming restaurant scene is at risk of stalling as an international chef shortage begins to bite locally.
Australia’s booming restaurant scene is at risk of stalling as an international chef shortage begins to bite locally.
Restaurateurs say a combination of ever-increasing demand for chefs, inadequate training and an indifference to the long-term advantages of doing the hard yards among young adults means chef positions across Australia have become difficult to fill.
Restaurant operators in several of the developed world’s biggest markets — including the US, Britain and Ireland — are struggling to fill kitchen positions and, as restaurant interest builds on the back of television’s appetite for food and chefs, demand for dining out is threatened by a sheer lack of hands to produce restaurant food.
Australia’s bigger employers of chefs agree we suffer from the same problem. Restaurateurs spoken to by The Weekend Australian agree that kitchens are struggling to find personnel.
Without internationals keen to discover Australia, our restaurant industry would be in massive strife, according to Melbourne restaurateur Philip Kennedy, owner of Pure South restaurant.
“It is real, all right,” says Kennedy. “None of Melbourne’s top kitchens could operate without 457 visas and working holiday visas. We advertise for chefs regularly and there are very few appropriately experienced Australian applicants.” According to Perth restaurateur Scott Taylor, there is a real issue with young trainee chefs wanting to leapfrog years of essential training for “stardom”.
“We had an apprentice sign up at Trustee last year,” says Taylor, who operates three (soon, four) venues in the WA capital. “Four months into her first year, she sat me down and said ‘thanks for the great foundation, I feel like I’m ready to tackle MasterChef and make a name for myself in the food world’.”
From a Perth perspective there is a chef shortage, but not at the top end, says Taylor. “There is a wealth of experienced, qualified, passionate senior chefs operating in WA. The problem lies with the lack of new, young, excited, bright-eyed kids entering the industry. They are there; there is just less of them,” he says.
A “massive” lack of education in most workplaces is part of the problem. “I’m not talking about simple skills; these young minds need to be excited and engaged by great raw product. Across the industry, employers say that the long hours and relatively low wages in the training years have taken the shine off cooking as a trade. The glamorous perception of restaurant cooking created by television is also at odds with the reality, they say.
According to leading Melbourne chef and restaurateur Andrew McConnell, the issue is not new. “It is a serious issue, and it has been for some time,” McConnell says, pointing the knife at the demand created by rapid hospitality industry growth in the past six years.
“It’s just been depleting the ranks. An overhaul of the apprentice system will help. Relaxing of the working visa for the hospit-ality industry will help also.
“Celebrity chef and restaurateur Matt Moran (Aria) says the main reason is a lot more competition. People can choose where they want to work. The solution I think is to market apprenticeships more from the roots up. (Tony) Abbott scrapped the apprenticeship scheme which I think is a massive mistake. There should be more mentoring.”
McConnell, who employs around 300 across six restaurants says the situation puts an onus on employers to try harder with the staff they have.
“I approach the chef shortage by trying to retain staff as long as possible. Offering career development and training incentives has helped keep chefs interested in the one job for longer.”
The problem is restricting economic growth in the regions, says boutique hotel/restaurant operator Alla Wolf-Tasker, in regional Victoria. “It’s always been difficult to recruit for regional areas. The ever-increasing skill shortages at our level — both front of house and in the kitchen — now create a situation where it is no longer possible to grow our business. The customer demand is there — but the issue of delivery is continually a question.
“So we don’t grow business beyond a very conservative capability. For governments that are pledging to expand economic viability in the regions this can’t be a sustainable situation.”