LEADERSHIP & KITCHEN CULTURE
International Chefs Day is an opportunity to celebrate the profession. It is also a useful moment to ask what the profession now expects from us—not only as cooks, but as teachers, leaders and custodians of the environments in which people learn.
I published this reflection on 21 October 2025, one day after International Chefs Day. I did not want the date to pass as another message of congratulations. I wanted to pause and consider what it means to be a chef today.
For me, the kitchen has always been more than a workplace. It is a classroom, a stage and sometimes a mirror. Every service, every new dish and every conversation with a young cook reveals something about our standards, our patience and the example we choose to set.
Cooking beyond the plate
Technical skill remains essential. A chef must understand ingredients, heat, timing, organization and consistency. But the role no longer ends when the plate reaches the pass.
Modern kitchens ask chefs to connect many realities at once: the identity of the food, the expectations of the guest, the wellbeing and development of the team, operational discipline, cost awareness and respect for the products we use. Creativity matters, but creativity without responsibility is not leadership.
This is why I believe the strongest chefs are not defined only by what they can produce themselves. They are defined by what they help other people understand and repeat.
Curiosity as a professional discipline
The official 2025 International Chefs Day theme, Food Explorers, was built around encouraging children to discover ingredients, cooking and sustainable food practices. That idea felt close to my own experience.
Curiosity is often treated as a creative personality trait. In a professional kitchen, it is also a discipline. It means asking where an ingredient comes from, why a preparation works, how another culture approaches the same product and what can be learned before deciding to change anything.
Without curiosity, a kitchen becomes mechanical. With it, even a simple dish can become a lesson in geography, memory, technique and respect.
Teaching through taste
At the resort, we marked the occasion with a cupcake-decorating activity for children. There was laughter, a little chaos and the unmistakable concentration that appears when a child realizes that an idea can become something tangible.
We spoke about colour, texture and balance. The activity was playful, but it carried a serious lesson: food can help people become observant. A child who notices the difference between ingredients is already beginning to ask better questions about what they eat and how it is made.
When the children proudly showed their work to their parents, the value of the activity was clear. Teaching does not always begin with a formal lesson. Sometimes it begins with permission to touch, taste, create and be curious.
A chef teaches long before giving a formal lesson. The way we prepare, correct, listen and respond under pressure is already an education.
Cristian Marino
Leadership that the team can see
Cristian Marino
In a professional brigade, people learn continuously from the behaviour around them. They notice whether the chef arrives prepared, whether standards change according to mood, whether mistakes are corrected with clarity or humiliation, and whether pressure is used as an excuse for disorder.
This is where leadership becomes visible. We lead through example, not volume; through presence, not control. Discipline and empathy are not opposing ideas. A well-led kitchen needs both.
Young chefs also need room to develop judgment. If we give them only instructions, they may learn to reproduce a task. If we explain the reason behind the task, they begin to understand the profession.
The modern chef as a translator
A chef translates between worlds: producer and guest, tradition and innovation, creativity and execution, individual talent and collective consistency. In an international resort, that translation also crosses languages and cultures every day.
The responsibility is not to make every difference disappear. It is to create enough clarity that different people can work toward the same standard while still bringing their own experience to the kitchen.
That is one of the most meaningful parts of this profession. Food becomes the common language, but leadership determines whether the conversation is respectful, coherent and worth continuing.
A message that continues after the date
So yes, this reflection arrived one day after International Chefs Day. But the responsibility it describes does not belong to a single date.
Every day we cook, teach, correct, listen and create, we influence how another person understands the profession. We may be shaping a guest’s memory, a child’s curiosity or a young cook’s idea of what leadership should look like.
That is worth celebrating. It is also worth taking seriously.
From the Maldives to the wider culinary community: cooking for today, teaching for tomorrow.
Cristian Marino
Further reading from the Journal
- A Manifesto for Chefs Who Want to Lead With Purpose
- Correcting a Team Member Without Humiliating Them
- Leadership in Hospitality: Lessons Learned and Direction for 2026
About The Author
