Michelin-Starred Chef Elizabeth Haigh on What Young Chefs Get Wrong About the Back of House

Elizabeth Haigh

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[en-GB] Michelin-Starred Chef Elizabeth Haigh on What Young Chefs Get Wrong About the Back of House

Discover 10 hospitality and restaurant management lessons from Original Flava Kitchen on commercial kitchen operations, efficiency, hygiene standards and P&G PRO cleaning.

Michelin-Starred Chef Elizabeth Haigh on What Young Chefs Get Wrong About the Back of House  | P&G PRO

Dear Liz, 
What you think is energy is actually chaos. 
You might think the kitchen runs on adrenaline, but it actually runs on order. The chefs you admire—the ones who look impossibly calm at the pass while everyone else is sweating through their aprons—aren’t just relying on talent alone. What sets them apart is precision: how they stay composed, structured, and in control even in the most high-pressure moments. 
Their boards are wiped between every prep. Their handles are turned in. Their bins are emptied before they overflow. What you are reading as energy is actually chaos, and chaos is just bad planning in a louder costume. 
Your head chef is going to drill this into you, and you are going to resent him for a while. He will make you re-clean a section that looks fine to you. He will make you degrease the hob before service and again after, and he will not accept it as almost clean. One day, it will click: a clean station is a fast station. A fast station is a safe station. A safe station is where the cooking actually happens. 
The Tools That Give You Time Back 
The tools matter more than you think they do. A proper degreaser like Deepio PRO cuts through the build-up on your hob and extraction in a fraction of the time you currently waste scrubbing, while Fairy PRO cuts through grease on pots, pans and prep bowls, turning them around fast enough that service does not stall on a missing sauté pan. These are not glamorous things to care about. They are the things that give you back the minutes you actually want, the ones where you get to taste, season, plate, and feed people. 
Years from now, you will open Mei Mei. You will care about every grain of rice that leaves the kitchen. And the only reason you will be free to care about that is that the back of the house is spotless, calm, and running on its own quiet rhythm. 
So turn the handles in. Wipe the board. Clear the station before you reach across it. Discipline is the foundation. Creativity is the building. You cannot put up the second without the first. 
Love, 
Liz

Michelin-Starred Chef Elizabeth Haigh on What Young Chefs Get Wrong About the Back of House-text

●	Clean, structured stations directly improve speed, safety, and service quality 
●	High-performing chefs prioritise order: turned-in handles, wiped boards, and empty bins 
●	Cleaning systems and products significantly impact kitchen efficiency and timing 
●	Long-term culinary success relies on discipline before creativity 
●	Efficiency in cleaning thanks to products like Fairy PRO and Deepio PRO directly increases time available for cooking and service