Making Experts Accessible to All

Question 1

Who are we?

Our Mission

Making Experts Accessible to All

Answer

Xpert - is a social learning app to help you learn from the best. We are not your regular online course, but rather an experience that is beyond regular classes, lectures & assignments. We have India's top experts across each profession share their experiences, opinions, techniques & advice accumulated over the lifetime of their careers.

Question 2

What is Cooking?

Answer

Food production is a branch involved in food preparation. A method in which the raw materials for making a dish are prepared, mixed and transformed. In India and abroad, the reach of Food Production has been expanding at a faster rate. Food Production department comprises of main kitchen, banquet kitchen, soup section, pantry section, pastry section, baking & confectionary section, and vegetable section. Sections may vary based on the scale and star category of a hotel or hospitality establishment. A Chef does more than cooking and has to handle many responsibilities.

Question 3

What are the qualities of a Chef?

Answer

A great chef has to be passionate about food and cooking. They have to genuinely enjoy the whole process of procuring, preparing, cooking and serving food and have to be able to design menus too. It is the chef who is responsible for the kitchen. They have to be able to give direction to their team and maintain an amicable atmosphere in their kitchen. Every aspect of the job has to be planned out be it the proper utilization of staff, the traffic flow of the kitchen especially during rush hours, the kitchen layout and the food preparation or its plating.:

Question 4

Who are the top Chefs?

Answer

India is a country full of cultural heritage and so much talent. Their unique methods of cooking have put India on the global culinary map. These Indian chefs are bound to be celebrated since they have created history in their own way. Here they are: Sanjeev Kapoor (Khana Khazana), Vikas Khanna (Junoon), Floyd Cardoz (The Bombay Canteen), Vineet Bhatia, Atul Kochhar (Benares), Gaggan Anand (Gaggan), Vicky Ratnani (Pizza Express), Manish Mehrotra (Indian Accent), Vivek Singh (Amaranta), Heston Blumenthal (The Fat Duck), Megha Kohli (Lavaash by Saby), Urvika Kanoi (The Daily), Himanshu Saini (Tresind), Hussain Shahzad (O Pedro), Kezang Rai (The Oberoi), Balpreet Singh Chadha (Andaz), Pankaj Sharma (Syah), Rahul Gomes Periera (Pass Code), etc.

Answer

"
When you acknowledge, as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, then the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear: to make people happy, that is what cooking is all about.

-Thomas Keller, Chef, The French Laundry
"
We're hoping to succeed; we're okay with failure. We just don't want to land in between.

-David Chang, Founder, Momofuku
"
If you want to become a great chef, you have to work with great chefs. And that's exactly what I did.

-Gordon Ramsay, Owner, Gordon Ramsay Restaurant
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Although the skills aren't hard to learn, finding the happiness and finding the satisfaction and finding fulfillment in continuously serving somebody else something good to eat, is what makes a really good restaurant.

-Mario Batali, Chef, B&B

Question 5

How can you start as a Chef?

Answer

Knowing how the kitchen and restaurant works is vitally important to becoming a chef. But be warned, this first job might include the most mundane things, including washing dishes and taking out the trash. However, the exposure to professionals in the kitchen is what matters, and over time a fresh new chef will work their way up the ladder to the more appealing tasks. While formal education isn’t required to become a chef, the specialized knowledge and skills learned during the program can serve aspiring chefs in good stead when honing their kitchen work. Often those who have earned their culinary degree can quickly earn positions with greater responsibilities – always a plus for any chef.

Question 6

What are the challenges of being a Chef?

Answer

Running a kitchen is a whole different ball game – a game that too often takes a person away from what he or she started in this industry to do – to cook. A chef, when the term is used correctly, is a manager and a leader. This is the person who builds teams, nourishes a restaurant concept, defines the standards, manages the execution of cooking, leads the business forward, and sets the stage for profitability. Of course the passion for food and the teaching of others does allow the chef to cook, but not at the same level as those who work the line every day. To reach the pinnacle of a cook’s career and become a chef means that a new set of skills, challenges, and opportunities rise to the surface.

Question 7

How can you learn
Cooking at Xpert?

Answer

Xpert enables you to learn from a Chef who are at the top of their game. It is the Experiential Method of Learning that we focus on. We deliver learning via the real life challenge, failure and success stories of the geniuses who have battled their way upto the top. They share as to how challenging their first step was, what was their first failure, what happened when their best bet failed, who did they recruit initially, what was the first year of joy like, the times when they felt like giving up, the hope that made never made them loose, etc. It's their journey, techniques and opinions that we share with aspiring entrepreneurs to help them closer to their dream. We intend to equip you with all the right information directly from geniuses to help you in your journey.