In 1998, Jason Atherton heard about a restaurant on the Catalan coast which was attracting chefs from around the world to work up to six months for free. Ambitious and eager for new experiences, he wrote to the restaurant, El Bulli, several times, even paying for his letters to be translated. Atherton was not unqualified – he had trained in London under Marco Pierre White and Nico Ladenis – but he got no response from El Bulli’s head chef Ferran Adrià. So he saved up, packed his rucksack and got on a plane to Barcelona.
When he turned up at the door, having slept rough the night before on a beach, Atherton was told to go home as he couldn’t speak Spanish. “I begged Ferran for half an hour,” he recalls. “I said I’d wash the plates, clean the floor, do whatever they needed me to do.” They relented and he ended up staying for the rest of the season. Today, Atherton, who owns 17 restaurants on three continents, describes his half-year at El Bulli as one of the most important phases in his career.
The practice of doing a “stage”, or working for free in a respected kitchen in exchange for experience and mentoring, isn’t a new phenomenon: it has its roots in the medieval apprenticeship system. But when Atherton made his pilgrimage to Catalonia, it was unusual for chefs to travel long distances at their own expense to do menial jobs for months at a time, often without being paid.
Now many high-ranking restaurants attract willing “stagiaires” from all over the world. Noma, which employs 25 full-time chefs, usually has up to 30 interns in the kitchen at any one time. (At El Bulli, before it closed in 2011, stagiaires outnumbered paid kitchen staff by more than two to one.) If young chefs were to suddenly stop criss-crossing the globe and offering their labour for free, some restaurants would struggle to make it to the end of service.
There is intense competition to secure a stage at places such as Noma, which receives 200 to 300 applications each month. Would-be apprentices in Mexico, Japan, England or Australia toil away in paid jobs at home, saving money so they can spend weeks or months working for free abroad. If you factor in travel, accommodation and living expenses, the whole exercise can cost thousands of pounds – but when weighed against the skills and creativity they hope to acquire, and the prestige that comes from working in a world-famous kitchen, many deem it worthwhile.
You don’t have to do a stage if you have grand ambitions for your cooking career, but most high-profile chefs will tell you that they, too, paid their dues. René Redzepi, Andoni Luis Aduriz and Nuno Mendes all completed stages at El Bulli. And even after they become established, some chefs continue to do stages – Brett Graham of The Ledbury recently spent a few days at Piazza Duomo in Alba brushing up his knowledge of Italian cooking.
A good stage can broaden your culinary horizons, and even if you don’t learn much you can always make friends from different food cultures. The Swedish chef Niklas Ekstedt also did a stage at El Bulli in the late 90s and had a terrible time – he felt his experience was “close to slavery” – “You might as well have been picking strawberries or peeling potatoes. We even had to pay for the staff party, it was horrendous.” The one saving grace, he tells me, was that he got to know a lot of interesting people.
Jason Atherton had a much better time – he learned innovative techniques such as gelification – but he wonders if his younger self would be able to do the same thing today. As costs of living shoot up, chefs are finding it increasingly hard to survive on normal wages, let alone no money at all. “I worry about the future of high-end cuisine in general,” he says, “but it’s the restaurants that rely on unpaid labour that are the most vulnerable. I think it might signal the end of the stagiaire at some point.”
For those who can still afford it, however, Atherton maintains that doing a stage can be enormously rewarding. He had to open countless scallops and break down a lot of pigeons during his six months in Spain, but he came out of the season on a high. “When I got on the bus back from Barcelona,” he says, “I was like, ‘Wow, that was the best experience ever.’ The fact that I’m still talking about it nearly 20 years later says it all.”
‘You never stop, and you’re always stressed – it’s really good’
Matija Bogdan, 23, Croatia
Working at The Ledbury, London
When I started in restaurants in Zagreb a few years ago, all I wanted to do was get better at cooking. If it meant working for free, as I did for a year at Dubravkin Put [a well-regarded fish restaurant], that was OK by me.
The first stage I did abroad was at Coi in San Francisco. I spent four months there, then went home to earn more money so I could do another stage. In April I came to London to work at the Ledbury. It was only meant to be a month but as soon as I arrived I knew I was going to stay. At some restaurants the cooking you do as a stagiaire is very robotic, but at the Ledbury they want you to learn. Brett [Graham, the head chef] is passionate about teaching all of his staff.
You can’t imagine how crazy the kitchen is when you first arrive and how many things you have to do. This is definitely the hardest kitchen I’ve ever worked in. It’s all about pushing the limits, doing it better and faster, and nothing can be just very good, it has to be perfect.
When I first came here, they were baking beetroot in clay and I wondered why they didn’t just wrap it in aluminium foil but after you taste it, the clay makes perfect sense.
At the moment I’m running the cold starters section, so I do the same hours as the employed staff. We come in around 7.30am and usually I start by unpacking the vegetables. Then we do mise en place for lunch, which is the hardest because you have three different menus to cover. Straight after lunch, it’s on to dinner service and getting ready for the next day. You never stop, you have to push, you’re always stressed – it’s really good.
The financial reality is hard. I have a friend who lets me stay for free, but I’m not sure how much longer I’ll last. It’s a struggle, but I’m determined. They’ve offered me a job and I’m applying for a visa so I can start working properly.
‘The big challenge is leaving your country, and your family’
Alexis Bijaoui and Manon Fleury, 26 and 24, France
Working at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Pocantico Hills, NY, USA
Alexis I studied language theory and communications in Paris. But while studying I started to cook and before long I knew it was the path I wanted to take. In 2011, I worked for four months at Le Chateaubriand in Paris and it changed my whole vision of cooking. I became interested in where the produce comes from and started working with friends who were farmers, helping them grow vegetables, raise chickens, bake bread. My dad was thinking of me more as a financial success boy, and although my mother always supports me, she wanted me to do something more normal, behind a desk. I’m kind of doing this on my own.
Manon I was always interested in food. I studied literature for a year but then changed to a culinary school in Paris. We had to do six months of staging every year – last year I worked at L’Astrance, which was a very good experience. When we decided to go abroad, Blue Hill was the first place we applied to. If they had only accepted one of us, we would have looked for something else.
Alexis Manon and I are quite similar in our approach to food. Maybe I have fewer boundaries than she has, because I didn’t go to culinary school. Whereas she’s more organised. In Paris we used to work in different restaurants and we didn’t really see each other a lot. If your girlfriend is a cook too and doesn’t have the same days off, it’s not very rewarding to see each other for only 10 minutes each day. So being here together has been good, even though we are working very hard [Manon and Alexis are paid by the restaurant as trainees but are covering their own accommodation].
Manon The kitchen here is very big compared to the kitchens I’m used to and it’s really intense – not a relaxed kitchen at all! But the biggest challenge is leaving your country, your family.
Alexis We arrived at the beginning of January. Our first impression was the cold, all the snow. For the first week I was on an easy station so I had the chance to see all the produce. Blue Hill is a big place for food research as well as cooking, so we work a lot with breeders, with farmers. Then I moved to a different station where I do most of the vegetables, the garnishes for the meat. I do a few bread courses as well.
Manon We are all encouraged to learn how everything grows, how the fields evolve. I like seeing how you can harvest something in the morning and cook it the same day. This morning we picked some corn and found a fungus on it that I’d never seen before. Instead of throwing it away, we used it.
Alexis Manon says I think too much about food but it’s hard for me to do anything else.
Manon We’ve found something we love doing. But on our time off, I’d rather see an exhibition than talk about food.
‘I’ve learned that you can do something stunning with just three ingredients’
Caitlin Koehler, 26, USA
Working at Relæ, Copenhagen, Denmark
I arrived in Copenhagen to do a three-month stage in June and things started happening very quickly. First I worked in the butchery at Bæst [Relæ’s sister restaurant] and I managed to get something on the menu – it was based on a Danish dish called leverpostej, or liver paté, and the chef said it reminded him of what every kid in Denmark eats growing up.
Then I moved over to Relæ, and after a week they offered me a job. Straight away I started running the cold station. Now I’m waiting to hear back from the government about my visa application. Technically I’m still a stagiaire, which is funny because now I have an apprentice – I don’t think it’s normal for a stagiaire to have a student.
My experience has helped. I was sous chef at Bar Tartine in San Francisco. I’m kind of a nerd about food and that’s where I really fell in love with food science. I also learned how to manage people. It got to a point where I was still continuing to learn but I wanted to travel. Bar Tartine and Relæ have a close relationship so I decided to go to Copenhagen. I was quite nervous but my mom was very supportive.
The hardest part is working for free. I spent three months saving up so I’m still OK, but you can run out of money very quickly – unless you’re smart about it. I know people who have staged around for a year or two without going broke, just by staying with friends and spending as little as possible on food.
It was more intimidating at the start than I expected it to be, because this company is like a close-knit family, but that’s what makes it such a nice place to work. Copenhagen is quite easy to integrate into. It helps that everybody here speaks English.
Relæ is fast-paced and feels quite punk rock, but the plates are small and refined compared to Bar Tartine. Right now, one of my favourite dishes is cauliflower, bergamot and cod. It sounds very simple but texturally it’s very thoughtful: the bergamot is salted, the fish is lightly poached and flaked so it has a buttery texture –
the whole dish is amazing. I’m learning that you can put just three ingredients on a plate and make them stunning. Their yogurt, lemon and salted egg yolk dish is probably the best dessert I’ve ever had.
It’s very inspiring here. I keep a journal and write down ideas that pop into my head. And I get to contribute some of my food science knowledge. The sous chef Jon [Tam] will come up and say, “Tell me what you think of this”, or “How do we make these acidic Danish grapes more palatable?” That’s really rare in a stage.
I’d like to have a restaurant of my own at some point, but not any time soon. I want to be equipped with the right knowledge before I start imparting it to other people.
‘Nothing in the kitchen is random. If it’s not exactly right, it’s no good’
Andrea Amore, 21, Malta
Working at L’Enclume, Cartmel, UK
Since I started training as a chef, aged 15, I’ve been following what Simon Rogan is doing at L’Enclume. A chef I work with in Malta was always talking about his experience here, so I wanted to come too. I’ve been waiting to do this for a long time.
Most of my career has been at the Hilton hotel in Malta, and when this stage is finished I’ll go back. I’ve been here for three weeks out of four, and it has exceeded my expectations. It’s not only the cooking, it’s the way the kitchen works. You’d think the way stuff is stored isn’t that important but it makes such a difference. Nothing is random, everything is 100% organised. If it’s not exactly right, it’s no good.
The food at L’Enclume is so different to anything I’ve cooked before. The dishes are daintier. There are a lot of tiny details that only someone who really knows about cooking will notice. So we need to take care of the small things, the things behind the flavour. Even little jobs like cleaning a tiny carrot have to be done carefully.
They do things here that we’d never think of doing back home, like putting flowers on the plate – ah, why didn’t I think of that? We have nasturtiums in Malta but no one ever uses them. I made a nasturtium purée and I had no idea how good it would taste.
The biggest challenge for me is plating dishes – they’re so delicate and I need to see it being done two or three times before I understand how it works. It’s also quite strange living in this little village in the countryside. There’s not much to do in Cartmel apart from sleep and watch TV, so on my days off I usually go into the restaurant.
Simon Rogan has been in a couple of times since I arrived and I talked to him once or twice, but I’m quite shy so we didn’t have a long conversation. I prefer to just put my head down and work hard. It’s only after a few weeks here that I’m getting used to talking to the other chefs.
Going back to my old job will be difficult. It’s not that they don’t care about food in Malta, it’s that they’re not used to this type of food – it’s better to go out and eat a plate of pasta for £10. The food culture is changing at home but it takes time.
‘A hunter came and said: “These birds are for you. I shot them an hour ago”’
Kylie Millar, 28, Australia
Working at Mugaritz, San Sebastián, Spain
My first big challenge was the language – I didn’t speak Spanish. On top of that, I had never worked in a high-end kitchen before. I studied exercise science at university and only started cooking professionally after doing MasterChef Australia in 2012. Before Mugaritz, I was working in a pastry shop in Melbourne.
I staged here for a month last summer and loved it so much that I applied for the full nine-month internship [both unpaid], which started in mid-March. My responsibilities have increased this year. As well as overseeing the meat and fish station and the plancha, I’m also in charge of our accommodation [which Mugaritz pays for]. There are 30 stagiaires and the majority live in a shared house about 20 minutes from the restaurant. As I’m one of the oldest, I’m responsible for the upkeep. I’m like the mum telling them to make their beds in the morning. Luckily for me everybody’s pretty respectful of one another. What I don’t enjoy is having to tell people to hurry up and clean at the end of a service. Come on guys, start scrubbing the pots!
I’ve found that, instead of relying on recipes, you need to rely much more on your taste because ingredients can change from week to week. Tomatoes towards the end of the season are going to taste different from when they’re at their peak. So you have to learn to taste and adapt. The produce in the Basque region is incredible and everything turns up so fresh. A hunter came in the other day with some little birds that I’d never seen before and said: “These are in season now, I shot them an hour ago, they’re for you.” That’s amazing.
The dishes at Mugaritz are very beautiful. One that stands out is a dessert using pith of lemon rather than the flesh or the skin. The lemon is soaked in a calcium bath and then a sugar syrup to get to the pith without breaking it. It’s served with lemon ice cream, limoncello, a powder of lemon and some really acidic herbs from the garden. It is refreshing and so beautiful to look at. Another favourite dish is loin of lamb with a cultivated fur on top. The lamb is smoked over eucalyptus wood and I thought, “That’s Australian, isn’t it?” When I smell the eucalyptus smoking in the Josper grill, it takes me back to summers in Australia and the smell of bush fires.
It is tricky being so far away from home. But I won’t be going there for a while yet. Every year Mugaritz invites some of the stagiaires back when the restaurant is closed to help develop the menu for the following year and I was lucky enough to be asked. So I’ll be here again from January to April. Their R&D kitchen upstairs is at the forefront of developing techniques and using new ingredients, so being able to spend time there is sort of amazing.
‘If you keep your eyes open in the kitchen, you can learn a lot’
Carlos Vargas, 21, Mexico
Working at Osteria Francescana, Modena, Italy
I started cooking when I was 10. My family is full of lawyers and nobody cooks that much, not even my grandmothers, so my interest was a surprise for them. But my dad has always been so supportive. He went looking for the best culinary school in Tijuana and even took some courses before I entered so he could make sure the school was good enough.
I’d heard of Massimo Bottura [the chef-owner of Osteria Francescana] and how he’s been revolutionising Italian food – how at first he was a don’t-go-to guy, because he played around with classic dishes, and now he’s a go-to guy with the second-best restaurant in the world.
I sent in my application a year in advance and they emailed me two days later and said, “Yeah sure, come in August 2015.” Whoa! It seemed too easy – at first I thought it was a fake. My boss at the restaurant was like, “Oh man, you’ve got to go.” My parents weren’t so relaxed. At first they went crazy: “You think we can spend all this money sending you to Italy?” But when I told them my accommodation and food were covered, and that it was the second-best restaurant in the world, they said they could make it work.
At Francescana they make you feel like a real person – you’re actually here to cook and learn. Everyone is so open to getting to know you. We go partying outside work, but when service starts, it’s total focus. Do it good and you’ll be fine, but if you mess up we’re going to let you know.
They don’t yell at you or humiliate you, though. Instead they take you aside and say: “You did this wrong, here’s the right way, do it better the next time.” That’s much more effective.
When Massimo is around, you can really feel his presence. Everybody gets super-serious and perfect isn’t good enough, it has to be 10 times perfect. On my first day he was like, “Oh, you’re from Mexico, I love Mexico.” He’s really supportive and his wife, Lara, is such a nice person.
It was stressful at the start because I didn’t know any Italian. But the chef I’m working with knows a bit of English, so we get by speaking a weird English-Italian mix. I’ve been on the bakery section, so I’ve learned to make all the breads and different types of pasta. And by looking at the other guys I see how they’re making the desserts. If you keep your eyes open and look around you in the kitchen, you can learn a lot.
The most difficult thing is being away from my family. Relationships are hard, too, when you’re a chef. I was just starting a new one when I heard about this stage. I had to say to her, sorry I’ve got to go to Italy, maybe this isn’t a good idea. She wanted to keep it going long-distance but I knew it wouldn’t work. It’s heavy – but hey, it’s worth it.
Jason Atherton’s guide to doing a ‘stage’
First, get some experience
Spend your first five years in paid employment in the place where you live. Learn the basics: all the stuff no one wants to do – washing the veg, cleaning the fridges. By the end, you’ll have all the skills you need.
Choose wisely
Write down the names of your favourite chefs, and think about the style of food you want to cook. Then you can choose the restaurant on that basis. Don’t just pick the latest hot chef. You’ve got to do it for you.
Write a letter, not an email
I’d always pay more attention to someone who writes me a handwritten letter: anyone can fire off an email, right?
Learn everything you can about the restaurant, including who does what
Do as much research as possible. Find out about the chefs and know their names in advance – people like to be recognised.
Find accommodation in advance
Don’t do what I did and end up sleeping on a beach on your first night.
Brace yourself
There will be days when you think, “What am I doing here?” You’ll be lonely and penniless so take some good books.
Think before you speak
Never talk to a chef in the middle of service, it’s the most annoying thing ever. If you have a question, make a note of it – I still carry a Moleskine notebook with me everywhere I go – and just ask it at a quieter time.
And finally…
Keep your nose clean and your head down. Once you’re part of the team, normally after two or three months, people will be happy to show you things.
Jason Atherton is chef owner, Pollen Street Social, Berners Tavern, Social Eating House
