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Chef jobs and salary in Japan? 2017/1/23 17:18
I'm a commis chef with a 1 year experience in a 4 star hotel in the US. I also plan on taking the vocational courses offered in the Tokyo Sushi Academy and hopefully get a sushi chef diploma.
How likely would I get a chef job in Japan? and how is the salary?
by Miso (guest)  

Re: Chef jobs and salary in Japan? 2017/1/23 19:10
I also plan on taking the vocational courses offered in the Tokyo Sushi Academy

Those kind of schools are just for fun or for tourists, it takes years to become a real sushi chef.
by Gaby (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Chef jobs and salary in Japan? 2017/1/23 22:00
Read this.

http://www.tokyoimmigration.jp/eng/ryouri.html

Come back in a decade.
by Dainichi Heater rate this post as useful

Re: Chef jobs and salary in Japan? 2017/1/24 00:07
If and when you do move, I don't know how much knowing Japanese cooking will increase your chances of employment by. Of course it will make you a little more attractive to any employer, but really you want to take advantage of your position as a foreigner to perfect cooking styles not native to Japan. There are a million Japanese who can make sushi, but only a small handful who would even know how to begin making something like escargot.

It's not impossible for a foreigner to become a Japanese chef, but it doesn't seem like a particularly attractive option to me when so many other opportunities exist. Frankly most Japanese would probably rather eat sushi made by a Japanese chef anyway.
by Liz (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Chef jobs and salary in Japan? 2017/1/24 08:02
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2010/10/17/general/making-the-cut-at-...

Salary as a chef (or any other job) is pretty bad - others might comment, but 200k/month might be a starting point (under USD2k/month).

Of course, you might spend the first five years in a job learning how to cook rice properly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itamae
by JapanCustomTours rate this post as useful

Re: Chef jobs and salary in Japan? 2017/1/24 14:12
As implied, I knew some foreign chefs who managed to make a living in Japan, but they already had enough experience in their home country, cooking their own cuisine. These were, for example, a French chef utilizing his French cuisine technique for a French-style bakery or a Spanish chef working at a Spanish food restaurant in Japan.

If you're just a commis, I'm afraid you practically have no advantage. When it comes to employement, you're pretty much the same as any person with no cooking experience. You can start from the bottom, peeling potatoes, which of course is not impossible but does not allow you to earn much money for the hard work.

The other thing is that I'm not sure if there is much demand for foreign sushi craftsmen. The type of sushi that is popular in Japan is quite different from what is popular in the U.S.

I also must note that restaurants are often hesitant to employ foreign people, because the way they handle kitchen utensils and the food taste they prefer tend to be different. But again, if it were in a foreign cuisine restaurant, that's a whole different story.

But if you already have some kind of a working visa in Japan and know basic Japanese, it's not that hard to find a job washing dishes or waiting tables. If food is what you like, then you still might enjoy working hard in those fields.
by Uco rate this post as useful

Re: Chef jobs and salary in Japan? 2017/1/24 14:22
My knowledge on this is limited, but I have had some discussion with an aussie chef who was married to a local. He worked at a smaller but medium end fusion restaurant with a large western clientele in Yokohama. He has worked there for a while and spoke/wrote pretty good Japanese. Let's just say that the wage was pretty low (200/300K) and he was a qualified chef in his home country.

I also agree that your western qualifications will be more useful than learning Japanese cooking since they are a dime a dozen in Japan.
by mfedley rate this post as useful

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