Master Chef Sheik Abdullah, MWMCS is clear that a chef’s responsibilities have now increased since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Hygiene is part of our routine in kitchen culture, however customers now want to know all about our hygiene standards and how we monitor the process. It is not only cooking, controlling food costs, managing people, following HACCP procedures and vendor meetings. It is now our responsibility to keep our staff, customers and guests safe.

“Taste alone is no longer enough to attract and maintain customers, chefs should be masters in colour combination, photogenic imagination, and understand digital looks for plating. Chefs also need to think about customers’ food habits and psychology as well. Due to globalisation, people are travelling more frequently around the world than ever and their food knowledge is becoming wider. They are so much more sophisticated in their attitudes to authentic foods and their history. There was a time when people just added extra spices to make Indian or Mexican food. Long ago, Madras chicken curry in the western world was just made with béchamel sauce, curry powder and curry leaves. Chefs must continually update their culinary knowledge to keep up with the trends. Chefs also have to be knowledgeable in healthy trends. Customers are frequently asking for suggestions on diet programmes, paleo or intermittent, keto or vegan, and more often now they are asking the nutritional value and calorie count of foods. Chefs must be prepared to answer all these questions. It’s fair to say that chefs have a lot of responsibility to define the new “normal” chef’s life!”