The demand for experienced restaurant staff has put salaries on a fast boil – with pay skyrocketing as much as 75% and one recently hired chef scoring a $400,000 deal, Side Dish can report.
The salaries are soaring thanks in large part to a labor shortage and rising demand to dine out after pandemic lockdowns, according to interviews with chefs, restaurant consultants and headhunters.
“I think there is a new standard,” said Alfred Ehrlich, a chef turned executive search/personnel consultant who heads Kitchen Maestro. “The people I represent are earning 20 to 75 percent more than normal. The pendulum swings one way or the other, and labor has the upper hand now — especially for highly skilled chefs.”
“If it’s the season and a restaurant wants to open, they have to pay. They can’t afford not to or they will shut down,” Ehrlich said.
Don Evans, a restaurant consultant known as the chef whisperer who is helping to produce Taste of Summer – six Hamptons food events with more than 70 participating restaurants – said there has never been a higher demand for skilled chefs.