Behind the Line

Behind the Line: What It Really Takes to Run a Professional Kitchen

By Chef Carlton

Cooking great food is only part of becoming a great chef. Behind the Line takes you beyond recipes and into the real-world skills required to lead, organize, manage, and operate a professional kitchen.

Drawing from real kitchen leadership experience, Chef Carlton breaks down the lessons that cooks and aspiring chefs need as they move from working a station to running the operation.

Inside, you'll learn about:

• Kitchen hierarchy and the transition from cook to chef
• Mise en place, station setup, prep lists, pars, and forecasting
• Ordering, receiving, FIFO, inventory, and waste control
• Portion control and recipe consistency
• Running service, managing ticket times, and controlling the expo line
• FOH and BOH communication
• Training, coaching, accountability, and conflict management
• Handling call-outs and short staffing
• Scheduling and controlling labor
• Food cost and menu development
• Vendor relationships
• Food safety, sanitation, and inspections
• Managing sous chefs and developing future leaders
• Delegation and administrative responsibilities
• Communicating with senior leadership
• Making decisions under pressure
• Preventing burnout and building a sustainable culinary career
• Building a kitchen culture people respect

Throughout the book, you'll also find Chef Carlton's Kitchen Rules and practical “Take It to Your Kitchen” exercises designed to turn each lesson into something you can immediately apply on the job.

Whether you're a line cook, lead cook, culinary student, sous chef, kitchen manager, or aspiring executive chef, Behind the Line is designed to help you understand something recipes alone can't teach:

What it really takes to lead a kitchen.

45 practical chapters

Real-world kitchen leadership lessons

Kitchen leadership tools and checklists

Bonus QR code to Just Good Cooking with Chef Carlton

Stop thinking only like a cook. Start learning how to lead like a chef.