How to become a successful French chef

Every serious hobby cook has dreamed at some point to open a restaurant, preferably in France. What does it take to do this successfully? Of course, economists have the answer.

Olivier Gergaud, Valérie Smeets and Frédéric Warzynski study the careers of 1000 French cooks over more than twenty years and find that late starters do not have a chance. So much for us hobby cooks. To become a successful French chef, you should start with an apprenticeship in the best place, and the quality of the restaurants you work at is generally declining after that. It is like ofter in sports: you need to find the right coach to get successful right away, and then things only go downhill.