All the world’s a stage: our guide to internships in the world’s top restaurants

If someone asked you to work for them for free for nine months, what would you say? Nothing that is printable in a respectable publication like this one perhaps. What if it was a three-Michelin-star restaurant - perhaps you might think differently? Whatever your answer, thousands of chefs every year are clambering over each other to do just that – spend months of their lives working long hours in hot kitchens for no money and no benefits except to their experience and their CV. The phenomenon is of course called staging and, with top restaurants like Noma and Mugaritz receiving between 400 and 700 stage applications a month and employing between 15 and 23 stagiaires in the kitchen at any one time, it is becoming increasingly popular with aspiring chefs and top restaurants alike. With so many chefs wanting to do it, The Staff Canteen decided to provide a helpful guide… How can I bag that dream stage? For most places it really is just as simple as getting in touch and asking; the usual method being to send an email with attached CV, but check the restaurant’s website first to see if there is an online application form. Mark Birchall is currently group executive chef of Northern Operations for Rogan’s five restaurants in Cartmel, Cumbria and Manchester. He will be leaving the company on July 31 2015 to launch his own establishment in summer 2016. He is based at Simon Rogan’s two-Michelin star L’Enclume. He has seen both sides of the staging coin, both as an employer and having staged himself at the world’s best restaurant, El Celler de Can Roca. From an employer’s point of view Mark says: “First of all send a literate email with a CV attached – the amount of applications we get that don’t have a CV attached is incredible; also the number addressed ‘Dear sir or madam’ – make the effort to find out the chef’s name; make the email personal instead of making it obvious that this is a generic email sent out to 30 other restaurants.” It may be as simple as dropping the restaurant a line but with hundreds of stage applications a month and waiting lists of several months at the top restaurants (see ‘staging fact file’ below) the initial contact is the easy part: you will need tenacity, perseverance and most of all, patience to secure that stage. Paola Carlini is a sales manager and development chef for suppliers, Wild Harvest. She managed to get a six-month stage at El Celler de Can Roca, where she spent most of her time in the pastry section working directly with legendary pastry chef, Jordi Roca, an experience of a lifetime for any chef, but one that she had to work hard for. “I called up, “says Paola. “ I explained what experience I had and what I had studied and they put me on the waiting list. After that, I probably became one of the most annoying stagiaires that ever went there, as I was calling every other week to see if there were any vacancies. After three months of waiting, I got a place, but only starting five months later! It was a long wait, but it was definitely worth it.” Oliver Stephens, head chef of the Isle of Wight’s Priory Bay Hotel, has a similar tale of how he managed to secure a stage at Pascal Barbot’s three-star Paris restaurant, L’Astrance. “About once every month for six months I’d turn up at the door,” says Oliver, “and every time I turned up, I spoke better French, until finally Pascal said, ‘Well I’d better give you a job then.’” Of course sometimes it’s better to box clever than to box hard, and contacts can certainly be a good way to sneak through doors while everyone else is trying to batter them down; after all, why spend six months travelling to Denmark every week to knock on the door of Noma, when your sous chef is best friends with René Redzepi? As Oliver Stephens says: “Make the most of the contacts you have – if you’re working for someone who worked there or if you know a friend of a friend, use them because it does help.” Ernst van Zyl is chef patron at The Lord Clyde. He has staged at The Fat Duck, Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons and Noma. Initially turned down by The Fat Duck, Ernst found that the contacts option worked for him, this time in the shape of HR departments. When he moved to Etrop Grange and discovered that his human resources manager worked for the ‘Ten out of Ten’ hospitality group, he asked her to arrange a stage with The Fat Duck’s HR department, a move which secured him an offer of a place the very next day. As Ernst says: “Use your HR department – that’s what they deal with at the end of the day so they know what they’re doing and they know people from other HR departments who can help.” If all else fails, why not use Oliver Stephen’s approach and just turn up on the doorstep? They can only tell you to go away. It worked for Oliver at L’Astrance and also doing day stages at Royal Hospital Road and Pied á Terre – both places where he turned up in the early morning and asked to join the kitchen for the day. A word of warning though – times have changed a great deal in the last half-a-dozen years; red tape and health and safety abound nowadays and many of the most sought-after restaurants won’t consider anyone who turns up on their doorstep. Leonardo Pereira, kitchen manager and person responsible for stages at Noma says: “Quite simply we are not allowed to do something like that; every intern that comes by has to register in Denmark's social security system and it is my responsibility to make sure that the Danish Labour Agency receives timely updates on the people travelling to Denmark to participate in our programme.” Adventurous stagiaires take heed: that could be one expensive wasted trip to Copenhagen! How can I get the most out of my stage? So let’s suppose, by hook or by crook, you get your dream stage; what can you do to make the most out of your experience?Hard work, an enquiring mind, politeness and tenacity all seem to be the watchwords of the successful stagiaire. Greg Anderson is head chef at Morston Hall, originally from Scotland Greg has worked in a number of high profile kitchens including the 2 Michelin Star L’enclume in Cumbria, Gravetye