The Lean Commercial Kitchen

In this post I would like to go culinary, and look a bit at the history of professional restaurant kitchens and how lean the top restaurants of the world are nowadays. The key influence here is Auguste Escoffier, who created the modern French kitchen.

Before Escoffier

Before Escoffier, a commercial kitchen was a rather rowdy and disorganized place. It was messy, it was loud, it was unsanitary, and it was chaotic. People were drinking, the straw or sawdust on the floor caught (most) spilled liquids and other stuff, and people did all kinds of jobs in whatever sequence they became necessary. A chef cooked an entire meal from the beginning to the end, preparing everything that went on the plate.

As such, it was inefficient and a lot of time was wasted. Food safety was far from guaranteed, and even then if the guy who prepared your dessert just roasted a duck, your dessert possibly had a note of duck in it.

But all that changed with Georges Auguste Escoffier (1846–1935).

About Escoffier

Escoffier was born the son of a blacksmith in Villeneuve-Loubet, France, in 1846. He learned cooking from his grandmother and worked as a teenager in the restaurant of his uncle. Then he worked in a nearby hotel kitchen, and then in the Petit Moulin Rouge in Paris as a saucier. In 1866 he was drafted into the military and began cooking for the generals before being captured by the Germans during the Franco-Prussian War.

After the war, Escoffier worked in different restaurants before opening his own place, Le Faisan doré. He married, had three children, and worked in different places before working for César Ritz, a famous hotelier (you may have heard of the Ritz Carlton Hotel? Yes, it is that Ritz!). This was a very fruitful cooperation, and he was active in many famous hotels, like the Savoy Hotel in London, the Hôtel Ritz in Paris, the Ritz in London, and more, all among the top hotels of the world. (At one point, one of his kitchen aides was a young Vietnamese, later better known as Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnamese revolutionary and later president of Vietnam).

The Modern French Kitchen

The modern French kitchen is known for its cuisine, on which Escoffier also had a large impact by creating recipes and dishes, and he is considered the founder of the Grande Cuisine, the French kitchen, together with Marie-Antoine Carême. However, here I would like to talk more about the behind-the-scenes production process of preparing the food.

It was during his work with Ritz that Escoffier revolutionized the modern French (and by now many other cuisines) kitchen. In lean terms, he used division of labor and specialization. While before, a cook prepared everything on the plate, now different specialists took care of different components, and a senior chef would assemble the parts then on the plate. This is the Brigade de cuisine (or the kitchen brigade) with lots of specialized jobs.

• At the top is the Chef de cuisine, or head chef. He is the top manager, in charge of everything in the kitchen, managing the staff, ordering the ingredients, and more. Sometimes he has an assistant manager, the Sous-chef de cuisine.
• A Saucier makes the sauces. As these are a key for the flavor, this is often considered the highest position after the chefs.
• A Chef de partie is sort of a department manager, in charge of a sub-area of the kitchen for larger restaurants. Depending on the size and the cuisine, there may be a fish chef, a sauce chef, a roast chef, a grill chef, a fry chef, soup chef, entree chef, vegetable chef, pantry chef, pastry chef, and more.
• The people actually preparing (parts) of your meals are the cooks, or Cuisinier in French, and the junior cooks (Commis). Again, depending on the size and the cuisine, there may be a fish cook, roast cook, entree preparer, pastry cook, butcher, baker, and more. For very large restaurants this may be even more divided. For example, instead of a pastry cook, there may be a confectioner for candies, glacier for frozen dishes, decorator for the decorations, a baker, chocolate specialist, and cheese specialist—all with their French names. (Can I be the Chocolatier, please?)
• Bussers take care to clean the tables.
• At the bottom of the hierarchy you find the Plongeur, the dishwasher (sometimes even divided into specialists for plates, pots, etc. ).

Overall, it is highly specialized, almost like an assembly line for food. And this specialization makes it easier to become truly excellent at what you do. If you do nothing but sauces all day long, you will become really, REALLY good at making sauces. Hence, you can make sauces both faster and better, and in high-end fine dining especially, the quality can make or break a restaurant. (At this point, also thanks to my wife for introducing this country boy to the world of fine dining. I have eaten so much truly excellent food in so many world-class restaurants thanks to her!)

Escoffier also demanded silence from his staff, and there is not much noise in a professional kitchen (albeit there are still many unprofessional ones). The open kitchen in the photo above is from the Merdeka Grill of the Park Hyatt Hotel on the 75^th floor in the Merdekka 118, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the second tallest building in the world. Sitting right next to the kitchen, I could not hear any conversation or noise.

As a restaurant customer, you are probably also delighted to hear that Escoffier also demanded a high level of cleanliness from his staff, as well as discipline. There was no drunk cook in his kitchen.

Wrap Up

Escoffier worked in kitchens until his retirement in 1920. While he was obsessed with cooking, he was much more relaxed with money, especially other people’s money. He committed major fraud by manipulating prices and quantities of purchased items, and it is claimed that he caused damages of £16,000 to the Savoy (around £1.7 Million in 2026), of which he paid only £500 back.

In any case, Escoffier had a huge influence on how modern kitchens are run, improving both quality and efficiency, and making the food so much better. His books are still published, especially Le Guide Culinaire  from 1903. He died on February 12, 1935, at the age of 88. He is buried in the family vault at Villeneuve-Loubet.

In my next post I will look more at kitchens, but the focus will be on the influence of lean on the home kitchen. Now, go out, take some loved ones along, enjoy some high-class food in a restaurant of your choice (depending on your budget constraints), and partake in the fruits of a superior kitchen… I mean organize your industry!