Trusted with a knife in a real restaurant kitchen

On my first morning in the kitchen at La Fleur de Lys, I wasn’t exactly feeling confident.

Even though I love spending time in the kitchen at home, stepping into a professional kitchen was completely different.

I was ready to observe, help… and probably wash a lot of dishes.

Instead, before long, I had a knife in my hand and was chopping onions, carrots, and other vegetables for lunch service.

I was 14, working alongside a team of professional cooks, and from the start, they treated me like I was there to work.

I started with the cold dishes.

I quickly learned how to prepare a good-looking salad plate with all kinds of ingredients: tomatoes, cucumbers, pickles, and more.

These weren’t practice plates. They were going out to customers.

After spending some time on the cold dishes, I moved over to the hot side of the kitchen.

There, I was shown how to prepare and cook filets de perche, a popular local fish dish, and how to arrange them on the plates. Soon enough, I was able to do it by myself. No pictures of this part—I was too busy working 🙂

I also got to help plate my favorite dessert, the café gourmand—a coffee served with a selection of small desserts.

By then, I was starting to realize how much they were actually letting me do.

And that’s probably what surprised me most about the week.

They trusted me.

I was told once to be careful not to cut myself.

That was it.

Nobody kept reminding me to watch the knives. Nobody warned me every time I worked next to something hot. They showed me what to do and trusted that I would be careful and ask if I needed help.

The schedule had its perks too. I had a few hours off between the lunch and dinner shifts, and with a swimming pool right next to the restaurant, some of those breaks were spent swimming before heading back to the kitchen.

Throughout the week, I felt more comfortable there.

Everyone was kind and gave me the time I needed to learn. I never felt like I was in the way because I was younger or didn’t have their experience.

By the end of the week, I had a much better idea of what happens behind the scenes in a restaurant kitchen.

But I definitely learned something else too.

Being given responsibility is one thing.

Being trusted with it feels different.

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