Go from home cook to a chef with our commercial cookery courses!

You have a passion for food, and an eye for flavours. For years, you’ve experimented in the home kitchen, cooking up all manner of new, exciting, and challenging recipes.

You love cooking, plain and simple.

So, why not make a career out of it?

Many of the students who enroll in our commercial cookery courses at our Melbourne and Brisbane campuses cite this love for cooking as a driving force behind their enrollment decision.

Their friends and family love it when they cook, and they already know their way around the kitchen.

And we think it’s fantastic that you’re leaping at the opportunity to turn your passion into a career!

It’s important to remember that a commercial kitchen and the home kitchen are vastly different environments – while the utensils and techniques may be broadly similar, the experience is not.

Before enrolling in Academia’s commercial cookery courses, explore how a commercial kitchen differs from your own kitchen at home, and how you can enjoy a rewarding and exciting career working in a top hotel, restaurant, or even a cruise ship!

5 differences between commercial cookery and home cooking

1) Home cooking is more laid back

Cooking at home is a joy.

You get to dictate the pace, and you get to work at your own speed. You can even get away with popping an episode of your favourite sitcom on and relaxing while you wait for timers to go off.

While you still won’t want to keep your family waiting for long, there’s considerably less time pressure to contend with (unless your in-laws are coming over, of course!)

In short, home cooking is more easygoing. You set the pace, and there’s less need to scramble.

By contrast, commercial cooking is all about timing, and optimally using the precious time you have.

You have customers that want their food to come out in a timely manner – you’ll learn to accurately manage time and keep your team running efficiently in a commercial environment.

Not to mention, a commercial kitchen is always busy.

Many people thrive in this type of fast-paced, energetic environment, and find satisfaction in tearing their way through lots of orders as the dinner rush gains pace!

Either way, this is an important difference, which you’ll need to know about before you make the leap from the home kitchen to the restaurant.

2) The utensils are different

Any cooking lover no doubt has a huge range of different utensils and gadgets in the kitchen.

You might have a fancy onion cutter, egg yolk separators or even a pasta maker in the kitchen, so streamline processes and make things more convenient.

By comparison, most kitchens don’t use many fancy gadgets. They’re just another thing to store and clean – as such, many commercial kitchens forgo them unless absolutely necessary. Instead, you’ll be using your sheet talent to prepare plated works of art!

While the big-ticket items in a commercial kitchen, like deep-fryers and cooktops, are much more impressive and powerful than those found in the home, in terms of the utensils you’ll be using, commercial kitchens can feel pretty spartan.

A professional chef can prepare almost any dish with little more than a sharp knife and some pots and pans.

Luckily, you’ll learn how to work just as quickly and efficiently using only basic kitchen utensils when learn the tricks and perfect the techniques in our commercial cookery courses!

3) You’ll work with bigger equipment

The first thing you’ll notice when stepping into a commercial kitchen for the first time is that all the appliances simply feel bigger.

The cooktops are hotter, the deep fryers have considerably more volume, and the oven heats up in seconds as opposed to minutes.

All of these make your job considerably easier – however, they also require a bit of readjustment, as you get used to the new pace and learn how to safely work with bigger and more powerful equipment.

Not to mention, there’s a lot of kitchen equipment that you may have never worked with at all, which you’ll have to learn your way around.

4) Teamwork matters in commercial cookery

In the home kitchen, you’re usually the only person at work at a time. While you may occasionally have the assistance of a relative, for the most part, it’ll just be you.

Not so in commercial kitchens!

In a commercial kitchen, you’re just one part of a larger team. You’ll work with other chefs, dishwashers, kitchen hands… the list goes on and on.

In order to ensure that orders are coming out in a timely manner, good teamwork is essential.

You’ll need to be able to work independently yet alongside all these positions, delegating and helping each other out as needed to ensure orders are being completed on-time.

You’ll also need to be able to keep out of each other’s way.

Kitchens can be cramped spaces, especially with so many people running around. Some people will be carrying sizzling pots and pans around, so good communication is crucial to avoiding injury.

The only way to learn this is through first-hand experience. Luckily, that’s exactly what Academia’s commercial cookery courses in Melbourne offer.

Each of our cooking classes features practical lessons carried out in workshops similar to professional kitchens.

Our experienced instructors will also hand down their personal tactics and tricks to help you work efficiently in a bustling commercial kitchen.

5) Not all recipes scale up

Most recipes you cook at home serve 3-5 people – just enough for the entire family. Sometimes, you’ll be cooking for more. An easy way to scale up is to simply double the recipe!

In some commercial kitchens however, you’ll be cooking for hundreds of guests. For example, commercial cooks working at buffets need to cook huge servings, all at once.

The problem is, not all recipes scale up easily.

A recipe that serves 4 can’t always be scaled to serve 100 simply by multiplying each of the ingredients 25 times. For example, linearly scaling up alcohol can overpower other flavours, as larger amounts of alcohol don’t completely burn off.

This is something that only comes with experience and constant trial-and-error, testing and perfecting your recipes and techniques.

Take the first step towards your career with our commercial cookery courses!

If you want to turn your love for cooking into a career, you’ll need to understand the key differences between a commercial kitchen and the home.

And of course, you’ll also need the right training and qualifications!

Practical workshops and work placements with our industry partners give you a feel for what working in a commercial kitchen feels like, helping you thrive in your new career.

As a mid-sized tertiary institution, you will benefit from increased one-on-one time with your teachers and tutors. Unlike other institutions, you won’t get lost in a sea of names and faces.

You’ll be learning directly from instructors and staff who’ve won multiple industry awards for the education we provide.

We offer a range of different qualifications and certificates in the hospitality sector, where you can choose to major in commercial cookery, hospitality management, or patisserie:

Finally, we have campuses in both Brisbane and Melbourne, giving you the option to choose between locations!
If you’re interested in studying our commercial cookery courses in Melbourne or Brisbane, make an enquiry online today or feel free to give us a call on the following numbers:

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