Cooking competitions are good, but TV shows, while fun to watch, have negative effects. People have a very different idea of this the profession as it is in reality. It takes a lot of work, a lot of humility, a lot of tolerance to reach the desired standard. The other problem is that guests sometimes have unrealistic expectations based on what they see on TV, and this can lead to conflicts in the hospitality industry," says John Bull Pub in Szeged kitchen manager, Zoltán Sörfőző, who started working in the hospitality industry in the late nineties.
How did your career start? Did you decide as a child that you wanted to be a chef?
I always wanted to be a chef. I don't know where the idea came from, as there are no cooks or restaurateurs in the family. My parents supported me, for example, when I was preparing for a competition, I would cook the competition food so many times that we would eat it at home for a week. It's interesting that I didn't eat any vegetables as a child, so even the stew my mother had to prepare so that the vegetables didn't show. But later, in catering school, it somehow „grew” on me, because when I started cooking with a very wide variety of ingredients, I realised that vegetables were delicious.
Did the vocational school give you a good foundation for your career, for being a chef, for kitchen management?
The school was good, but when I got out of there, I realised that the reality was completely different. What we learn from textbooks is just too much for the outside world, and we don't use the same procedures and recipes. It would be better to learn the basics during training, not specific recipes. At best, they can be used in the canteen...
Where did you first start working, in which restaurant?
Unlike many people, I did not go abroad. I started working here in Szeged, in the Kálvária restaurant in 1999. I was lucky because I was working with chefs who had just returned from 8-10 years abroad. I learned a lot from them, from the chef's craft to the attitude, the thinking about food and hospitality. Back then we worked very hard, often up to 300 hours a month. We went in in the morning and were there until closing time, often six days a week. My next job was at the Szeged restaurant. There I became a shift manager, but I saw that I couldn't move up the ladder, so I moved on. At that time I thought a lot about going abroad, but in the end I decided that I wanted to make my mark at home. I graduated from hospitality college and planned to make a nice step forward, which I did.
Is there a food you are very proud of?
I'm not necessarily proud of complete dishes, as the vision changes over the years, and often I find only a detail or a complementary element of a dish to be very well done. I'm more proud when every dish comes out of the kitchen the way I expect it to. My most important task is to find and correct the mistakes. Although I do praise people, mistakes should always be discussed. If something new is added to the menu, it is preceded by a joint tasting. Everyone gives their opinion and we adjust accordingly.
What's your restaurant's main dish at the moment?
Guests love the stuffing, a favourite is the chicken breast from Kiev, but the premium products are very popular, the shrimp, a salmon, a steaks. Beef cheeks are one of our favourite dishes. Our guests are not so price-sensitive. In addition to the menu, we also have menu cards with 8-10 dishes. We change these every two or three months. In the past we also had wine dinners, where guests could taste more special ingredients, but now they are more likely to find them on our menu cards. You can also ask for dishes that are not on the current menu but were on it before. If we have the ingredients, we will prepare it. Have you never planned to open your own restaurant? Yes, I did, and it almost happened, but we missed the application deadline by a day, so they rented the space out to someone else. I don't really regret it, because being an employee has its good side, but we haven't given up on owning our own business. My wife and I are still working on something, but that's still in the future, so it could be in the next five years.
