If you enjoy meeting people, relish daily challenges, and seeing smile on people’s faces, a culinary career could be for you. There are several types of culinary careers that direct food preparation and plan cooking activities in commercial kitchens and restaurants. Chefs and cooks prepare, cook, season, and arrange a variety of foods served in restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, and other food-serving establishments. Chefs are typically employed in restaurants, hotels, bakeries, food commissaries, catering companies, cruise ships, healthcare institutions, vacation resorts and similar establishments. Celebrity chefs are only one aspect of the new waves hitting the culinary and hospitality world. Your culinary and hospitality studies could help you find a traditional role in the field or launch you into one of the latest culinary trends. Chefs are responsible for creating recipes and ensuring appealing presentation, while other cooks and food preparation workers prepare individual foods for meals, with duties such as peeling vegetables and monitoring temperatures.

Hospitality rests on the host-guest relationship. Humanity (and weary travelers) have long depended on good host-guest relationships. In ancient Greek times, when hotels and restaurants did not exist in the Western world, the host-guest relationship was especially sacred, so much that it was believed that bad hosts would be struck down by Zeus. In today’s world, those making careers in hospitality fear vanishing customers, not Zeus’s lightning bolt. But the desire to make guests feel welcome remains a factor in culinary and hospitality careers.

According to the latest numbers, chefs, cooks, and other food preparation workers were employed in nearly 3.1 million positions in restaurants, fast food establishments, cafeterias, and in private households. About two-thirds of all chefs work for restaurants, 15% are employed in schools, universities, hospitals, and other institutional facilities, and the remainder work in grocery stores, hotels, or other venues.

Culinary arts and hospitality careers are expansive. Jobs include:
- Chefs, cooks, and kitchen assistants
- Servers, bartenders, bussers, and hosts/hostesses
- Hotel desk clerks and concierges
- Restaurant, hotel, and casino managers
- Bakers, cheesemakers, and wine consultants

Salaries can vary greatly depending on geography, the type of establishment, and the level of skill.

• Chefs and head cooks: $38,770
• Median annual wages range from $29,050 to $51,540
• Food preparation and serving supervisors: $28,970
• Median annual wages range from $22,530 and $37,290
• Restaurant cooks: 21,990
• Median annual wages range from $18,230 and $26,150
• Food preparation workers: $18,630
• Median annual wages range from $16,180 and $22,500

Roughly 245,000 jobs will be added to the food service industry. Chefs, head cooks, first-line supervisors and managers will see employment growth of between 6 and 7% (though as usual, competition will be keen for head chef positions in high-end restaurants). Employment of cooks and food preparation workers is expected to increase by about 6% through 2018.