Career As A Chef Part-II

• Train to be a chef: Route 1

The first option is to do a course in hotel management at a reputed professional institute. The 19 institutes registered under the National Council of Hotel Management provide excellent training in the field.

Pre-requisites and admission process

• The eligibility for admission to a hotel management institute is 10 + 2 with a minimum of 60 percent aggregate marks.
• You must appear for a two-hour entrance exam comprising English, Reasoning, General Science and General Knowledge.
• This is followed by a group discussion and a rigorous interview in which your aptitude and personality is judged.
• The exam is held in April/ May and the academic sessions usually start by July/ August every year.
• The number of seats varies from college to college. Start doing your research and preparation as early as possible.

• Places of Study

• Army Institute of Hotel Management and Catering Technology, A.Sc. Centre Bangalore 560007.
• Merit Swiss Asian School of Hotel Management, 22, Havelock Road, Ooty 643001, Nilgiris India
• Oriental School of Hotel Management 5/3411, Mangaden Centre, Mavoor Road
  Kozhikode -- 673 004
• National Council for Hotel Management and Catering Technology, Library Avenue, Pusa Complex, New Delhi – 110012. Web site: NCHMCT.
•  Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration, Valley View, Manipal -- 576 119. Web site: WGSHA.
• Indian Institute of Hotel Management (Taj Group), Rauza Bagh, Aurangabad -- 431 001.
• RN Shetty College of Hotel Management and Catering Technology, Kaviraj Nagar, Bilappanavai Nagar, Hubli -- 580 029. Web site: www.rnshotelmgtcollege.com
• Kadandala Krishna Rao Memorial College of Hotel Management, Woodlands Hotel Complex, 5, Raja Rammahan Roy Road, Bangalore -- 560 025. web site :  KKRMC
• Government Institutes of Hotel Management & Catering at Dehradun and Almora and Institute of Hotel Management Catering Technology & Applied Nutrition, IHM&C House, H-239, Shastri Nagar, Meerut - 250 005
• Indian Institutes of Hotel Management (IIHM), Maulana Azad Educational Campus, Rauza Bagh, Aurangabad 431 001
• Indian Institute of Hotel Management, 11, IAS Colony, Kidwaipuri, Patna 1.
• Institute of Advanced Management Hotel Management College, AE-486, Salt Lake City, Calcutta 700 064
• Indian Institute of Sciences and Management, Institutional area, Pundag, Ranchi 834004
• RM Institute of Hotel Management MP-13 Sainik Farms (South), New Delhi 110 062
• International Institute of Hotel Management, EC 37, Salt Lake, Calcutta 700064
• Oriental School of Hotel Management, 5/3411, Mangaden Centre Mavoor Road, Calicut 673004

Institutes under the National Council offer a three-year diploma course while private institutes offer a four-year Bachelor's programme.

Apart from these, there are institutes run by reputed hotel chains and some private institutes with foreign affiliations and approvals from the All India Council for Technical Education.

Courses run by reputed hotel chains are considered more credible because of their infrastructure, faculty and the future prospects offered. They are the best bet in terms of exposure to a working hotel and they enable one to imbibe the exacting levels of service. One may also be absorbed by the parent company post the training.

These institutes are run by three premium hotels graded as best in this category:

• The Taj Group's Institute of Hotel Management in Aurangabad
• Oberoi School of Hotel Management in New Delhi
• Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration in Manipal

Another option is to train at a renowned institute abroad.

Institutes abroad

• The Hotel and Tourism School, Les Roches, CH 3961 Bluche, Crans Montana, Valais, Switzerland. Web site: The Hotel and Tourism School, Les Roches
• Swiss Hotel Management School, CH – 1824, Caux/Montreux, Switzerland, Web site: SHMS
• Leeds College of Technology, Calverly Street, Leeds, Yorkshire, UK, Web site: Leeds College of Technology
• Cornell University School of Hotel Management and Administration, Statler Hall, Ithaca
  NY 14850, USA. Web site: Cornell University School of Hotel Management and Administration

The advantages of joining a professional institute are that many of them have campus placements so one is likely to command a higher remuneration and work with better industry brands. Since you are trained in various hospitality disciplines, this knowledge could come to use when starting your own business venture.

• Train to be a chef: Route II

You could join a Food Craft Institutes which are in cities like Aligarh, Alwaye, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Darjeeling, Delhi, Faridabad, Gangtok, Patna, Pondichery, Pune, Tiruchapalli, Udaipur, Visakhapatnam after Class X or XII. Such institutes exist in many states and provide training in catering and food processing. Courses are generally 6-18 months long.

One can join a hotel at a junior level after such a course and reach a supervisory level in about six to seven years. This is a quicker option and is apt for those who are absolutely focused on becoming a chef and do not want to dabble in other fields of hotel management at all.

The drawbacks of this route are that there is no concept of campus placement. You may not get a job with the best brands and may get a lower salary. However, the course cost and duration is less as compared to at a professional institute. And, of course, your progress would also depend on your own effort and aptitude too.