Are We Training Chefs for the Wrong Careers? | Adrian Woodhouse

Culinary school taught you bechamel. It didn't teach you how to prove you're capable of anything else.
In this episode of Fugitive Chefs, I sit down with Adrian Woodhouse, head of school at Otago Polytechnic in New Zealand, to talk about why culinary education is still built around a narrow, traditional idea of what a chef becomes and why that no longer matches the industry.
Adrian has spent years helping experienced chefs prove their capabilities without another degree, decolonizing a curriculum still rooted in French tradition, and rethinking what "industry readiness" actually means for graduates entering a food system that now includes R&D, food styling, social media, AI, and far more than restaurants.
In this conversation we discuss:

• Why so many chefs default to more degrees and credentials before feeling legitimate outside kitchens
• The imposter syndrome chefs carry when they step outside traditional kitchen paths
• What "fair work" is, and why it shuts down growth in professional kitchens
• Why some of the best chefs never stop thinking of themselves as apprentices
• How culinary curriculums are (slowly) being rebuilt around real industry needs
• What capabilities kitchens develop exceptionally well — and what they fail to develop at all
• The future of culinary careers: food styling, product development, AI, and beyond
  

Learn more about Adrian's work:
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrian-woodhouse-89267636/
🎧 Fugitive Chefs explores how culinary expertise creates value across the modern food system.
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