Master and Apprentice
Today, haute cuisine is considered a veritable art form. Either through the use of new techniques, tools, and ingredients, or by interacting with other forms of expression, chefs are creating new ways to interpret the art of cooking, and have become true celebrities, acknowledged by cultural prizes and celebrated by art exhibits.
In high cuisine, just like in other forms of art, critics play a fundamental role in classifying and giving meaning to the eating and esthetic experience proposed by chefs in their restaurants. Food critics act as middlemen between chefs and their customers, and interpret and evaluate the experience offered by restaurants by means of reviews published on magazines and restaurant guides (the most important being the Michelin with its very-hard-to-earn stars), therefore determining the reputation and ultimate success of a chef.
Starting from the idea that apprenticing, just as mentoring, sponsoring, and other types of collaboration, are ways of giving legitimacy to the creative offer produce by new artists, an article of ours on Organization Studies investigates how chefs work as apprentices with great masters to enter the world of high cuisine. During the time spent with a master, the apprentice-chefs learn their craft, by observing and listening to the master chef's teachings, as well as attending specialized classes. Apprenticeships with a given master produce expectations among critics produce expectations on the characteristics of the dishes that will be offered by the former apprentice turned chef. This process of raising expectations is helped by the chefs themselves, who on their websites highlight the celebrity chefs they have worked with or the starred restaurants they have cooked for.
Critics see the culinary offer of the new chef through the lenses of the old master's cuisine. In order to receive a positive evaluation, as expressed in number of Michelin stars, new chefs must provide a supply similar to their old teachers' in terms of the ingredients, techniques, and names employed, but also express traits of differentiation and uniqueness. Similarity with the master's work enables critics to decode the complexity associated with interpreting a new creative product while understanding it within a known framework. On the other hand, a certain level of differentiation is deemed necessary, so to verify the originality and ability of a given chef and hence certify his/her artistic status.
Other two variables play a role in the relation between dish similarity and ranking earned: the master's relative prestige and the career stage during which the aspiring top-chef does his/her apprenticeship. In particular, former apprentices of top-class chefs are not expected to differentiate with respect to the master. In fact, these apprentices get better evaluations if they conform to their master's cuisine as closely as possible. Reproduction of the master's cooking style is also important for ex apprentices who have studied with masters at an advanced stage of their cooking careers. In this case, food critics interpret the choice of doing a post-experience apprenticeship as way for chefs to reposition themselves in the cooking arena by totally embracing the creative identity of the master chef.
Whenever individual work is evaluated by external people, previous collaborations become the lens through which that appraisal is given. Our study suggests that people should pay attention to how to position themselves with respect to prior collaborations in order to obtain the best possible evaluation.