I currently work as an investment banker in New York and hate my job. I've always loved cooking and food...

I currently work as an investment banker in New York and hate my job. I've always loved cooking and food, and I think I'd be a lot happier working in a kitchen as a chef in the long run. Any tips on breaking into the industry? Where is the best place to start?

Get a job as a dishwasher or fry cook and try that for a few weeks. Go from there.

Either start out in fast food or be a dishwasher for some restaurants, the likelihood is that some dishwashing jobs make you do a little bit of food prep too so you can put down that you did food prep so you can eventually be a line cook, be a line cook long enough I think eventually you make it to cook.

I never understood this "dishwasher" thing
Here in Germany you start by looking for an apprenticeship somewhere, you go to school for a third of the time and after 3 years, you're a qualified whatever job
You can't just fucking be a chef unless someone literally just lets you or you have a lot of money to open your own

>i got into an analyst job in new york
>how do i break into cooking
you could not lie about your career and just ask your question you know

have fun working the same number of hours for a tenth of the pay

>investment banker
just use your banker money to score primo coke and hang around chef bars saying shit like 'let's get BROCKED' and namedrop high-level shit like 'apprenticed at elbulli but it was too structured'
you'll get a JBF Award and a TV show eventually.

in the US kitchens just hire drug addicts and homeless people

You already landed a cushy job, you retard. You're gonna get paid less for actual physical work instead of jewing for corporations for a living for a long ass time. You're not gonna become a celebrity. Best case scenario you're gonna end up ordering around a bunch of cokeheads and alcoholics who want to kill you almost as much as they want to kill themselves. You're still gonna be sweating your ass off, and you're still gonna get paid less for the privilege.

I'll tell you a little secret. 99% of the population hates their job, if it was enjoyable then they wouldn't need to pay people to do it. I'd much rather work in a bank than in a kitchen (but I'd rather be operating heavy equipment than either of them)

Teach me how to do your job and I will make you great in the kitchen. I will also suck your dick and cook for you. Pls respond

That's because Germany has a sensible and well-funded public education system. America does not.

>I'll enjoy working in a restaurant because I have fun cooking at home!

>if it was enjoyable then they wouldn't need to pay people to do it.
This is a shitty argument. You can't eat or pay your bills on enjoyment. I agree that most people hate their jobs though.

The US spends more per student than almost every country in the world. Apprenticeships and other programs along those lines were deemed "racist" due to different groups and ethnicities tracking differently in terms of career paths. Now everyone has to go to college and people can't be directed towards trades and other good careers while in high school

>are an investment banker
>want to be a cook for some reason

God damn dude, talk about a retarded career choice. The only people who are cooks are people who can't do anything else. The hours are shit, the work is physically demanding and super stressful, there are shitloads of injuries, the pay is a fucking joke... Honestly I can't fathom why you'd want to change from where you are to working in a kitchen.

If you're stupid enough to do it you'll hate it and it's gonna ruin cooking for you for the rest of your life, I guarantee it

THIS.

Imagine a pissed off mexican goblin scream at you about burned chicken while 3 or 4 pillheads meddle around barely helping put plates together. And then imagine doing that for at best 20% of what you're making now.

>at best 20% of what you're making now

The real hard to swallow pill happens when the "this is my life now" realization sets in, and you're just doing the same exact routine, day in and day out, except that it's always stressful because of the shitty profit margins and unpredictability of the market/the employees, and the cherry on top is ultimately realizing that as hard as you work there's literally nowhere to go upwards anywhere near making a decent life for yourself, let alone a family (unless you're from like Guatemala).

I mean what do you want? Michelin star line cook or the owner Frank's Gourmet Bratwurst?

perhaps starting up a food truck would satiate op’s needs

Is this really much easier than starting a restaurant?

Rent and overhead will definitely be less then any physical location in NYC.
Just go where the people are.

this

>I currently work as an investment banker in New York
If this is true the first bit of advice I'd give you is sock away as much money as you can before jumping off the cliff to change careers. Because even if you make it as a successful chef the chances of you ever making the kind of money you're making now are close to zero. Use the fact that you're in your current position to acquire the kind of nest egg that your desired career will not allow you to put away. Then jump off the cliff.

>chef
bruh you'll be a bottom of the barrel scrub ads cook for a good few years before you can start saying that kinda shit
fuckin chef, you wanna be chef? blow me you're a fucking roach

Oddly enough I have a friend that was in your position and met a few others like you guys while working in restaurants. My friend was a stockbroker at Morgan Stanley before he quit 2 years ago and went to culinary school. Now he's working as a line cook in Flatiron making 12 bucks an hour. Last time I spoke to him he was broke as shit but loving his job.

You can't start off as a chef right away, but you can easily start out in food prep or as a line cook if you take a 6 month culinary course (definitely the easier route). Otherwise, start as a dishwasher and work up. There's a difference between a chef and a cook. A Chef is the chief of the kitchen, who not only creates the menu, but commands the rest of the line in military style. It's a title of respect that only the people in charge have. You become a chef by working your way up--you can start as food prep, line cook, or dishwasher, but MUST work under an experienced chef and earn your way up to that position. The line will never give respect to someone who hasn't done so. By the time you become a chef, you'll have cleaned the nastiest messes in the restaurant as a dishwasher, prepped more food than some people will ever eat in a lifetime, and made the same dishes over and over until they no longer look like food to you. A Chef has the respect of the people below him because he's done everything they've ever done and more. If you can't do the same, there's no future for you as a Chef.