Chefs speak out about the role of mentoring in inspiring and educating

“The value of mentoring is to get you from where you are to a higher level, and the job of the mentor is to ensure that’s done in a positive and uplifting way.”

So speaks chef Paul Rifkin, who after spending 17 years as executive chef at Campbelltown Catholic Club moved into consulting to foodservice operations, which increasingly led to him taking on a mentorship role to many young chefs and foodservice teams.

Mentoring should be boostfest, not boastfest

 “Sometimes mentors make the mistake of boasting about what they can do rather than helping their mentees – it becomes a boastfest instead of a boostfest! I mentor executive chefs, head chefs, the catering managers who run these businesses, and I’m always very conscious that the end of our interactions they have to feel that they have been empowered.”

Paul explains that his mentoring work is a natural progression of his kitchen audits which he conducts across clubs, pubs and foodservice operations. “It usually starts with a website enquiry or phone call saying ‘we’re interested in your kitchen audit - these are our issues, when can you come in?’ I can’t go in and mentor a chef or their team until I’ve done a full analysis of the operation and know what needs to be addressed.

“You really have to unpack everything that’s positive and that which needs work for that particular business or person – you need to take a forensic approach. Thanks to my 45 years of experience in foodservice I can virtually smell the problems as soon as I walk on site – I can say ‘I bet this will happen in the middle of service’ and boom, there it is!”

He emphasises, “there are a lot of nuances for a head chef or an executive chef in communicating effectively within a commercial kitchen environment. No two kitchens are the same, so you can’t take one style of approach and expect it to work across the board. You need to know who the team are, how they react and how modifying your behaviour will make them respond in a more positive way.

“One of the biggest challenges which I spend time on as a mentor is to teach chefs how to delegate effectively. I myself was a terrible delegator for decades and it’s not unusual that the more Chef’s Hats or Michelin Stars your business gets awarded, the more you start thinking that every single thing that happens in the kitchen will reflect upon you and that your reputation is at risk. So you struggle not to be there every minute that the business is open.

“What a good mentor teaches the chef to do in this situation is to put in place some duplicatable processes to facilitate delegation. It’s about ensuring that your staff can do why needs to be done to an appropriate level of compliance. If you want 100 per cent compliance you’re going to need to be there all the time, because no one will do 100 per cent of what you tell them. But if you can set processes in place to achieve 80 per cent, you’re going to have an acceptable level of consistency.”

Paul usually checks in with the chefs and teams he’s mentoring every six to seven weeks – but adds “often at about the three week mark people can revert to their habitual behaviour, so then we might introduce a weekly phone call or fortnightly Zoom meeting. Every case is different because it depends how motivated your mentee is – I have some where I come back to their business three months later and they’ve implemented every action point and are 100 per cent on target. A good mentor will tailor what they do to meet the personality and receptiveness of the chef – there’s no one size fits all solution.”

In developing his approach to mentoring, Paul was inspired by those colleagues who mentored him when he was starting out. “Just yesterday I popped in to see Ken Burgin, who used to run training courses that I went to decades ago – when I was starting out as a mentor myself I would constantly phone him up and ask for advice.

“Another is Toni Clarke, who I engaged as a consultant about 25 years ago and through that interaction I learned about how to approach that type of work. When I broke into consulting I flew to New Zealand for a private mentoring session with her and asked all kinds of questions. And of course it’s a cyclical process – I now have chefs I once mentored asking my advice because they’re looking to move into mentoring themselves.”

WOHO’s Mentoring Program helping more women achieve in a male-dominated industry

“Our mentoring program is at the core what we do,” says chef and restaurateur Claire Van Vuuren, one of the founding mentors of Women in Hospitality (WOHO), a foundation to further the career development of females in the industry. “When you look at the statistics, there are more females in the industry than males, but still proportionally more males in the higher positions – there are many more male head chefs than female head chefs. So women are not rising through the ranks into the senior roles – and the question is, if the industry is more than 50 per cent females, why are they not getting through into those higher positions?

“The fact is females are notoriously not confident in putting themselves forward for senior positions like executive chef, so this is a way of ensuring women are putting themselves forward so they can get the respect they deserve in the industry.”

Claire says the great value in mentoring is “you’re getting assistance from someone who’s been down that road before you – they’ve jumped through the hurdles you’re experiencing, and often you just need the confidence to be guided in certain directions or find the right mentor for you. It’s all about having someone on your side to give you confidence and guidance. And just by being part of the WOHO program, you’re online with a bunch of people who you can look up to, so it widens your network and there’s value in the community all supporting each other.

“The process with every mentor and mentee takes its own organic path – we set up a guiding structure which is quite informal and that’s had the most success for us. In the past few years WOHO’s reach has broadened and we’ve seen a shift in the areas where females are really making their presence felt in the industry. We have noticed a big increase in women interested in brewing and distilling spirits, so for this year’s mentee intake we’ve partnered with Pink Boots Society, which encourages advancement for women in the fermentation industries.”

Each year’s WOHO intake runs for six months and the latest matched 22 mentees with mentors, many of whom are men. “We put a lot of effort into the matching process, trying to find the best fit for each mentee and we’ve had a lot more male mentors putting their hands up – we’ve had John McFadden and Jamie Gannon, and it’s really nice way to connect the industry together. We’re always looking for more mentors so we can grow the program further, and everyone we approached this time said yes which was fantastic.”

Amanda Fuller, Group Executive Chef at Sam Prince Hospitality Group, has been a WOHO mentor in 2020 and 2021 and now sits on the board. She says, “It’s lovely to be able to empower other women with knowledge and information and help set goals and targets that align with your personal philosophy of being better tomorrow than you were today, and, cheesy though it might sound, following your dreams. Being a mentor is a skillset that isn’t often recognised – there are some great chefs but they aren’t necessarily great at inspiring others. Having said that, there are many inspirational people out there. WOHO is an incredible program and the more people we can get involved in it, the better.”

Mentoring the next generation to make them Proud to Be a Chef

For the past five years, chef Mark Normoyle has been resident mentor for Anchor Food Professionals’ Proud to Be a Chef mentoring program, which supports the development of apprentice chefs to become tomorrow’s culinary leaders. He says, “I know from my own experience that building connections with my peers and others in the industry opened doors and gave me the chance to meet some high calibre chefs, and that was really beneficial to me in my career. Now each year, myself and the other two Proud to Be a Chef mentors help give our finalists access to professional kitchens and chefs at the top of their game. It’s fun, it’s enjoyable and it’s an insight into busy, creative environments without the negative aspects and pressure which we sometimes hear about.”

Mark explains that the mentoring side of the program starts well before the 32 finalists meet each other in Melbourne each February where they undergo a four day experiential journey. “We have a WhatsApp group where we talk to the finalists about how to prepare, what equipment they need to bring and so on. And even after the program’s finished the mentoring doesn’t stop – I’m still in contact with our finalists and get asked questions and support with advice.

“The program builds a network which goes on forever and it’s really rewarding for me to receive an email or text from a finalist thanking me for opening their eyes to what’s achievable – I’ve even had people who’ve wanted to give up, but after completing the program have said it’s given them a new perspective on their career and where they can go through hard work and dedication.

“Everyone is motivated differently, and a good mentor needs to be able to tap into that – sometimes you’ll have someone really keen who needs to be pulled back a bit and learn certain skills, while others might need to be encouraged to come out of their shell a little bit more. The focus is to get everyone to push beyond their comfort zone.

“Finding mentors is an interesting thing, because not everyone is a perfect match – there has to be some connection there, and remember no one mentor knows everything and no one is perfect. So when we’re looking at mentors we need to cherrypick the good and leave the rest behind. That’s how you start to build your own skillset and style, and before you know it you’re becoming a mentor yourself for the apprentice or the sous chef. You may not even realise it but you are mentoring by guiding them; even leading through example is a kind of mentoring.”