00:00:03:23 – 00:00:05:08
My name is Marvin.

00:00:05:08 – 00:00:09:00
I work as a sous chef in All Star Lanes, which is in Westfield,

00:00:09:00 – 00:00:10:10
London, in White City.

00:00:13:21 – 00:00:15:09
I’ve been working in the company

00:00:15:09 – 00:00:18:09
now for just gone 17 years now.

00:00:18:13 – 00:00:21:16
All Star Lanes is a restaurant chain.

00:00:21:16 – 00:00:25:10
We have five restaurants in London and it’s

00:00:25:21 – 00:00:28:16
a mix of a restaurant and an American diner,

00:00:28:16 – 00:00:30:00
and we have bowling as well.

00:00:30:00 – 00:00:33:24
Sous chef is – I’m in charge of a small team, basically

00:00:34:00 – 00:00:37:10
we get everything ready for the service in the evening,

00:00:38:13 – 00:00:42:04
doing the ordering and stuff like fruit, veg, meat, that kind of things.

00:00:42:12 – 00:00:46:20
Checking deliveries, making sure all our food temperatures and

00:00:47:19 – 00:00:50:04
stuff are all up to date. The best thing

00:00:50:04 – 00:00:53:00
is we change our menu regularly,

00:00:53:00 – 00:00:56:02
so always we’re learning, the new dishes and stuff like that.

00:00:57:06 – 00:00:59:01
Meeting new people as well.

00:00:59:01 – 00:01:01:11
Sometimes it can be long hours.

00:01:01:11 – 00:01:04:16
Maybe like 12 hours or more. Ten hours.

00:01:04:18 – 00:01:05:03
Yeah.

00:01:05:04 – 00:01:06:05
It depends on how busy we are.

00:01:08:19 – 00:01:09:23
To start off, you need

00:01:09:23 – 00:01:13:10
good knife skills, follow recipes and stuff like that.

00:01:13:22 – 00:01:16:11
Sometimes being able to work under pressure as well.

00:01:19:09 – 00:01:22:00
I only did my English and maths.

00:01:22:00 – 00:01:25:11
I always knew I wanted to be involved in catering.

00:01:25:18 – 00:01:28:18
My family’s massive cooks as well.

00:01:28:19 – 00:01:32:06
My mum was a chef as well. From school I went into college,

00:01:32:10 – 00:01:35:10
got my GNVQ in

00:01:36:00 – 00:01:36:20
catering.

00:01:36:20 – 00:01:40:18
My basic food level course as well.

00:01:40:18 – 00:01:44:00
Then I’ve done the level two food level course as well.

00:01:44:03 – 00:01:45:02
And then after that

00:01:45:02 – 00:01:50:20
I went to a training centre and I did a catering training course there as well.

00:01:50:20 – 00:01:52:08
The course ran for maybe

00:01:52:08 – 00:01:53:19
six months or something like that.

00:01:53:19 – 00:01:55:24
And we had loads of different placements.

00:01:55:24 – 00:01:59:02
So one was in – I think the first one

00:01:59:02 – 00:02:02:10
was in a small cafe. That time I was just basically,

00:02:02:10 – 00:02:04:11
I started as a kitchen porter.

00:02:04:11 – 00:02:08:03
I started to take more interest into doing basic

00:02:08:03 – 00:02:11:04
food prep, like chopping vegetables and that kind of thing.

00:02:11:23 – 00:02:14:03
And then slowly I started to work on

00:02:14:03 – 00:02:16:13
the dessert section and the salad section.

00:02:16:13 – 00:02:18:03
Then I just moved up from that.

00:02:18:03 – 00:02:21:14
After I did my training I got offered a job in the

00:02:21:14 – 00:02:25:01
Victoria and Albert Museum and that became my first proper job.

00:02:25:07 – 00:02:28:10
Then from there I went to working in pubs by myself.

00:02:28:12 – 00:02:29:12
A few other restaurants,

00:02:29:12 – 00:02:31:07
and then now I’m in All Star Lanes.

00:02:31:07 – 00:02:34:00
Our previous manager, our head chef

00:02:35:01 – 00:02:36:24
suggested this job for me.

00:02:36:24 – 00:02:41:05
But then she had a friend in All Star Lanes

00:02:41:05 – 00:02:44:03
and then they offered me a job here. Basically, All Star Lanes is where I learnt

00:02:44:03 – 00:02:45:22
pretty much all my skills.

00:02:48:07 – 00:02:51:06
The advice I would give – try to look for,

00:02:51:06 – 00:02:55:07
like I went to a training centre, training in catering.

00:02:55:07 – 00:02:58:20
And then you can get work placements as well, or work experience,

00:02:59:15 – 00:03:03:16
and then hopefully if you do well some of them will lead onto to a job as well.