The role of KP – Kitchen Porter – is one of the least publicised and understood of all roles in the catering industry. As the nation’s eateries emerge from their COVID-enforced hibernation, I hope to use my time working as KP in one of the country’s busiest and most iconic restaurants – Brighton Pier’s revered Palm Court Restaurant – to give readers the insider scoop on the pros, cons, and oddities of the kitchen’s hardest but most essential job.
What does a kitchen porter do?
We’ll begin with the fundamentals: What is a KP, and what do they do? As mentioned above, KP stands for Kitchen Porter, and is the entry-level role in most kitchens. A simple title for a simple role… or is it? To the untrained eye, a KP’s role seems straightforward: wash the dishes, wash some more, then wash them again. Although any KP will, undeniably, spend a great deal of time inside a dishwasher, to call your KP a mere ‘potwash’ does a great disservice to one of the kitchen’s most varied roles. On any given day, KPs can be involved in overseeing deliveries, managing kitchen storage, purchasing ingredients, basic food prep and – the grand finale of any KP’s day – the post-service deep clean.
But what is it really like? Unless you have previous experience working in a kitchen, the tasks described above mean little; any part of the kitchen beyond the shiny, spot-lit pass is an unknown abyss to your average restaurant-going punter. I’ll start with the more insalubrious aspects of the job, saving the abundant but little-known perks of the job till later on.
First, the bad news…
First: sweat. Besides working behind a deep fat fryer, no other kitchen job will expose you to oppressive heat and subsequent perspiration like KP will. Kitchens are hot and intense places regardless of your role, but standing behind an industrial-sized dishwasher for ten hours at a time places the KP at the epicentre of the inferno. In this sense, the job can be both testing and unglamorous; the literally unending stream of kitchenware, crockery, and cutlery puts a physical strain on the body and soaks the hardiest of chef’s whites to saturation. During my time on the pier, the hottest day of summer peaked at thirty-six degrees Celsius outside, with the kitchen peaking at ten degrees higher. Being a KP requires physical and mental stamina; you need to be tough, and you need to hydrate.
Many people complain that the job is too unglamorous, that the KP doesn’t receive nearly enough thanks (or pay) for their hard graft; for those people, I have some hard truths. If praise, thanks, and glamour are important to you, then catering is not for you. I cannot emphasise this enough: nobody in a kitchen receives this kind of praise. During service, even the most high-class kitchens descend into perfectly-synchronised pandemonium; each person focuses intensely on their work, at times you almost enter a trance state, particularly when surrounded by dishwasher-steam in summer heat. This intensity breeds high-running emotions. To paraphrase the late Anthony Bourdain: if you’re not comfortable hearing about what your Mother may or may not have done with any number of farm animals [whilst you’re simultaneously polishing four hundred dessert spoons], kitchen work is not for you. However, the moment service ends and the collective pressure comes off, you form a bond with kitchen co-workers that I’m yet to experience in any other place of work; if you can handle the heat, this atmosphere can be immensely rewarding and provides the perfect opportunity to build up the thick skin required for any career in the industry.
Kitchen porters are a vital cog in the wheel
This brings me to my next point: despite its lowly appearance, KP is one of the most important jobs in the kitchen. This means it simultaneously provides one of the best opportunities for proving your potential to move up the ranks. In George Orwell’s 1933 book Down and Out, he describes the job of potwash as ‘a job which offers no prospects, is intensely exhausting and at the same time has not a trace of skill or interest’. Times have changed. Michel Roux Jr. started out as a KP and knows that ‘good food starts with a clean pan’. No matter how good the food, if the plate is dirty, it comes back to the kitchen. Gary Lee, head chef at The Ivy, summarises: not only do KPs ‘learn about self-motivation and self-discipline’ and develop a ‘killer work-ethic’ that serves them well in any industry, but they are just ‘as important as the chef’. KP is an ideal position to cut your teeth in the culinary world and prove yourself as deserving of more.
The perks of being a kitchen porter
My time as KP offered one unique perk that too often goes unmentioned. The KP works at a unique intersection between front of house and the kitchen staff. These two teams operate with a friendly but passionate rivalry, quick to blame the other when things go wrong, quick to ensure that credit goes to whichever side of the pass you’re standing on. By taking dirty dishes the KP shoulders a responsibility that, in another world, could fall to the waiters or chefs themselves; as such, the KP becomes exceptionally popular with both. This, combined with the KPs unofficial role of agony aunt for both sides – often hearing the latest sob-story of customer rudeness or report of the Head Chef’s most recent and devastating insult – means the KP has the chance to build unique and intimate relationships with the entirety of the restaurant’s team. Whether you see these relationships as a route to advancement or simply an end in themselves, they transform a gruelling job into a genuinely fulfilling experience.
In ads for KP work, promised skills are listed as follows: ‘communication’, ‘stress management’, ‘ability to work quickly and effectively’, ‘physical fitness’. All of these are true, but hopefully my time on the pier proves that the role can offer significantly more than that… if you’re hard enough.
Finlay Mead, ex Kitchen Porter, Fry Chef and Dessert Chef at Palm Court on Brighton’s Palace Pier.
Would you like to work as a KP?
If you think you’ve got what it takes and would like to find out more about the temporary or permanent kitchen porter roles available currently via Summerley Recruitment then call us on 01243 979735, or email hello@summerleyrecruitment.co.uk. Alternatively you can register as a candidate and we will invite you into the office for a coffee and chat, to see what roles we have that may suit your requirements.