Top Bucharest chefs can make €10,000 a month

Specialists indicate that paying a chef more than a hotel CEO is normal, since the fame of a restaurant is highly dependent on its chef.

The highest salaries are usually paid to expats coming to Romania for short-term (3-6 months, or 1 year) contracts. However, Josef Hadad, Romania’s best-paid chef, has been working at Casa Vernescu luxury restaurant for some 10 years as Executive Chef.

“There are about 6-7 luxury chefs in Bucharest. Few restaurants can afford to employ such a chef. At least three chefs in Bucharest have net salaries exceeding €10,000, plus benefits - car, apartment,” according to one of the most famous head-hunters on the local market, George Butunoiu, for Business Standard.

Butunoiu is also one of the 20 shareholders of luxury restaurant Heritage, also known as “the banker’s restaurant”.

The place is hoping for a Michelin star in two years. Only 400 restaurants worldwide have been granted this quality award.

Expat chefs coming to Romania earn more than they would in France or Germany, where the competition is tough, according to Butunoiu.

Heritage’s chef, David Contant, came to Bucharest in September, 2006, and is going to work here for at least two years, until the restaurant obtains the Michelin star. He previously worked in Germany, Uruguay and Bahrain.

“For this job, one has to travel a lot, one needs experience, one needs to know lots of things,” Contant said. Experts say an apprentice needs about 10 years to become a chef at a famous restaurant, because he has to graduate from a gastronomic academy (the most famous are in France and Switzerland). To earn a significant salary, the chef must go through training stages in several restaurants, and needs to have experience abroad or on cruise ships. Western chefs are best paid in Arab countries, the United States and Russia.

Chefs at high class local restaurants are paid some €2,000-3,000, compared to €4,000-6,000 abroad. However, a famous chef can earn as much as €25,000/per month, according to TV host Mihai Tatulici.

“It’s not recipes that make the difference, they are not even secret. The difference lies in the way chefs chose their tools and ingredients,” Butunoiu said.