F & B
“ In the kitchen for the Rockefeller Room at the Virginia-based Colonial
Williamsburg Inn .”
LIFE after
CHEF
NEWER , FORWARD- LOOKING F & B MODELS DON ’ T NECESSARILY REQUIRE AN ALL-POWERFUL EXECUTIVE .
Contributed by KATE KASBEE
When the executive chef at Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa in Kuala Lumpur was let go , the hotel didn ’ t replace him . Instead , John Tage Nielsen , at that time the property ’ s F & B director , decided to put the chefs of each outlet in charge of their own operations .
“ It worked brilliantly ,” says Nielsen . “ Suddenly I had given ( the chefs ) the freedom to perform .” Without an executive chef making high-level decisions , the specialty chefs were given more control and responsibility , which Nielsen says increased their job satisfaction .
This change in structure was addressed by HOTELS blogger Stéphane Bellon in a recent post , “ Are executive chefs going the way of the dinosaur ?” In his piece , Bellon , a consultant and founder of Geneva-based Studionomie and former vice president of F & B at Kempinski Hotels , asks hoteliers whether the role of the executive chef is shifting and if it ’ s time for a change . Could a hotel operate just as well , or better , with no executive chef and , say , three chefs de cuisine , one in each restaurant ?
“ I think all of society is moving away from this
October 2018 hotelsmag . com 31