For once, it's too few chefs spoiling the broth - and migrants saying 'Sous me'
Staff at the Lake House in Daylesford. Back row: Amanda Bestwick, Kate Ryall, Agnes Almeida, Alla Wolf (owner) Abdel Sennani. Front row; Chris Payne, Vanessa Grasso and Gemma Cooper. Photo: Wayne TaylorWalk through Alla Wolf-Tasker's Lake House restaurant in Daylesford as staff go about their daily service and you'll meet what the executive chef likes to call her ''UN crew''.
In the past few years, kitchen staff have arrived from more than six countries including South Africa, Japan and France. They make Daylesford their home and offer Wolf-Tasker the culinary experience she's long been seeking to help get through the industry's exodus of skilled restaurant workers.
Like many other eateries across the country, Lake House has been sponsoring staff to come to Australia. Today, more than 10 of her staff are either on or started with 457 visas, including chefs Kazuki Tsuya of Japan and Britain's Gemma Cooper and Amanda Bestwick, who all started on 457 visas but have become permanent residents.
Others have been interviewed while they were abroad and recently sponsored by the Lake House, such as South African chef Chris Payne and his partner Kate Ryall, who works front of house. Payne studied at a culinary academy, then worked as a sous-chef in a string of high-end eateries and hotels before deciding to work in Australia because he had heard of its emerging food scene. ''It's challenging being away from home, friends and family,'' says Payne. ''But from a professional point of view, it's fantastic because everyone wants to work as a team … and be the best they can be.''
In Victoria, chefs like Payne are desperately needed. Wolf-Tasker describes the industry's chef shortage as being ''at its fiercest''. She says in a time when the industry is expanding rapidly and Australia's unemployment is low, there are ''simply not enough people to fill jobs''.
''It's not just skill shortages, we even don't have enough warm bodies,'' she says.
Unsociable working hours and difficult conditions are also driving cooks out of the kitchen and into other professions.
Industry consultant Tony Eldred says these conditions, coupled with a lower standard of training and hospitality businesses growing disproportionate to the population increase, have created the nationwide shortage.
''There is an acute shortage of cooks and a lot of my clients have filled their kitchens with overseas people, particularly from the Indian subcontinent. It seems to be one way out of the current problem,'' he says.
Eldred says a large part of the trouble is that younger people are not interested in the life of a chef, filled with difficult work and unsociable hours. ''There isn't a very continuous stream of people coming in to replace the older people who are getting burnt out and tired from long hours,'' he says.
According to the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, fewer than four of every 10 cookery apprentices in Australia will actually complete the apprenticeship.
Restaurant and Catering Australia chief executive John Hart said he believed it had become more difficult for restaurants to get cooks and kitchen hands here on 457 visas since the requirement for English increased in 2009.
Mr Hart said the requirements had made it particularly hard for chefs from non-English-speaking countries to come to Australia and that without immigration solutions, the chef shortage would worsen.
Figures show demand for chefs to use the 457 visa, the most commonly used program for Australian or overseas employers to sponsor skilled overseas staff to work here temporarily, is increasing since the global financial crisis.
In the 2008-09 financial year, 1140 chefs came into Australia on sub-class 457 visas. During 2009-10, despite the more difficult English language proficiency requirement being introduced, the number of chefs jumped to 1780.
In the first seven months of this financial year, 1640 chefs have come to Australia.
''It's onerous, it takes a lot of time,'' says Wolf-Tasker of the process of sponsoring an overseas worker. But it is worth it, she says. Wolf-Tasker is still running overseas advertisements for staff and is expecting two more kitchen crew to arrive in May and one senior waiter from France later this year.
''I love it,'' she says. ''We have a very strong staff social club here and staff meals get really, really interesting.''
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