u/IllPanic4319

Edit: Just to clarify, this isn’t me dismissing fine dining or saying there’s no value in those kitchens. I just think different styles of cooking and different roles can hold equal value.

Has anyone else in the chef world reached a point where they stopped aspiring to fine dining or “impressive” food and just wanted to make genuinely delicious food that people actually love eating?

I became a head chef young, did supper clubs, tasting menus, events, high volume pizza, all the constant creativity and pressure. But now honestly I’m far more drawn to things like pizza, deli food, pasta, bakery, comforting food done really well.

I don’t really care anymore about putting a “twist” on things for the sake of originality or designing plates around how they look by the end. I still care massively about quality, flavour and technique, I just don’t feel the need to constantly prove ambition through complexity anymore.

Part of me worries people view that as laziness or lack of ambition, especially family who already don’t fully respect hospitality work, but honestly I feel more fulfilled making food people genuinely crave and enjoy than trying to impress other chefs.

I’m just tired of every tart or cheesecake needing to be “deconstructed” instead of just being a really good tart or cheesecake.

Would really appreciate advice from people with experience writing online professionally.

I’ve started writing a series of longform food essays/memoir-style pieces as a chef and I’m becoming a bit conflicted about where they should actually live.

Part of me likes the simplicity of Substack, but honestly I’ve had basically no growth there and I’m starting to worry about putting some of my best writing out publicly without really understanding whether I’m accidentally “using it up” in a way that could stop me doing something bigger with it later.

The pieces are very personal and interconnected and feel more like a body of work or portfolio than casual blogging/content.

I think what I’m struggling to understand is:

• whether Substack is actually still worth investing time into if you don’t already have an audience
• whether writers normally keep stronger pieces private initially
• and whether there are actual places/publications/websites that take this kind of reflective food writing or essay writing through pitching etc.

Basically I’m trying to figure out whether I should:

1. just keep publishing publicly and improving
2. build a proper website/portfolio instead
3. or start learning how pitching/publication works properly

Would genuinely appreciate hearing how other people approached this.

I stepped away from cheffing about five months ago. I let my family think it might be for good, but in my own head it was always more of a break.

At first I really enjoyed being out of kitchens. The last job I had was probably the worst of my career, so I think I just needed distance. But over time I’ve realised a lot of the things I didn’t like are kind of true of most jobs anyway. And I genuinely miss the feeling of doing something I know I’m really good at. There’s nothing quite like it. I also think that last place was just uniquely bad, which probably skewed things.

The only thing putting me off going back is the physical side long term. I’ve seen how hard it can be on your body.

For anyone who’s left and gone back, how did it feel? And have you managed to stay healthy doing it?