A Passion That Began During Difficult Times
Looking back, I can trace my love for the kitchen to when I was around eleven years old. Lebanon was still living through the difficult years of the civil war. However, despite everything happening around us, there were moments of kindness that would quietly shape the rest of my life.
Discovering the Butcher Shop
Every summer, French families welcomed children from my hometown for a peaceful holiday away from the Lebanese civil war. I was fortunate to be one of them.
The father of my host family was a butcher. His butcher shop was located directly beneath their home.
While many children spent their days playing, I found myself downstairs, fascinated by everything happening behind the counter.
With great patience, he taught me the basics of meat cutting. He explained the different cuts, their characteristics, and how to prepare them properly.
I wasn’t simply learning a new skill. For the first time, I experienced the satisfaction of transforming raw ingredients into food for others.
At the time, I didn’t realize how important those moments would become. Looking back today, I know those hours in the butcher shop planted the first seeds of a passion that would stay with me for the rest of my life.
Finding Joy in the Pastry Shop
A few years later, another experience strengthened my passion even more. During one summer, I helped my uncle in his pastry shop in Beirut.
Each morning, I walked into a bakery filled with the aroma of fresh pastries, warm bread, and melting butter. It was unlike anything I had experienced before.
I loved watching simple ingredients transform into beautiful desserts. It was even more rewarding to see customers leave with smiles on their faces.
Little by little, I realized that my passion went beyond cooking or baking. I found joy in creating food that brought happiness to others.
Preparing food gave me a sense of purpose unlike anything I had experienced before. That feeling grew stronger with every passing day.
Almost everyone around me encouraged me to choose another career. They warned me about the long hours, physical demands, and personal sacrifices.
They spoke from experience and genuine concern. Everything they said was true.
Working in professional kitchens requires commitment, discipline, and resilience. It often means missing weekends, holidays, and family celebrations.
Surprisingly, those warnings never discouraged me. Instead, they strengthened my determination.
Long before I wore my first chef’s jacket, I knew where I belonged. I had already fallen in love with feeding people and creating meals they would remember.
The First Time Food Became More Than Food
When I look back on my childhood, I realize that my passion for cooking didn’t begin in a restaurant or a professional kitchen. It began at home.
A Kitchen Filled with Love
I was fortunate to grow up with a mother who was an exceptional cook. At the time, in our hometown, fast food restaurants and food delivery simply weren’t part of everyday life. My mother prepared every meal in our own kitchen using fresh ingredients, endless patience, and an incredible amount of love.
Ours was a family of seven—my parents and five children—yet my mother somehow managed to make every meal feel special. Looking back, I now understand that she wasn’t only feeding us. She was creating moments that brought us together around the table, and without realizing it, I began to associate good food with happiness, comfort, and family.
Two dishes have remained especially close to my heart throughout my life: Mloukhieh and Moghrabieh. To this day, no matter how many restaurants I have worked in or how many recipes I have created, the versions my mother prepared remain among my favorite meals. They remind me that the simplest dishes, when prepared with care and love, often become the ones we never forget.
When Passion Became a Dream
As I entered my teenage years, I gradually realized that cooking had become much more than a hobby. The excitement I felt when preparing food for others was unlike anything else. I enjoyed the process of creating something with my own hands and watching people enjoy it.
At the same time, another dream was growing inside me. I wanted to build a successful career, provide for myself, and become financially independent at a young age. While many people around me saw the culinary profession as difficult and demanding, I saw an opportunity to turn the passion I had discovered as a child into a life filled with purpose.
That dream would soon lead me to make one of the biggest decisions of my life: leaving my hometown at an early age and moving to Beirut to begin building the future I had imagined.
Discovering That I Loved the Process, Not Just the Meal
My First Step into a Professional Kitchen
Choosing to become a chef meant leaving the comfort of my hometown while I was still very young and moving to Beirut in search of an opportunity. It wasn’t an easy decision, but I knew that if I wanted to build the future I had imagined, I had to take that first step.
That opportunity came when I joined Al Giardino, the Italian restaurant at Al Bustan Hotel. Walking into a professional kitchen for the first time was both exciting and intimidating. Everything moved at a pace I had never experienced before. Every station had its own responsibilities, every ingredient had its place, and every member of the team worked with precision and discipline.
Falling in Love with the Craft
Until then, I had loved food because of the happiness it brought to people. But working in a professional kitchen taught me something even more important: I fell in love with the entire process behind every plate.
I became fascinated by knife skills, ingredient preparation, cooking techniques, timing, organization, and the teamwork required to serve hundreds of guests while maintaining the same level of quality from the first plate to the last. I realized that exceptional cooking wasn’t based on talent alone. It was built on discipline, repetition, attention to detail, and a constant desire to improve.
Of course, the journey wasn’t without mistakes. Like every young apprentice, I had moments that taught me unforgettable lessons—some of them quite expensive. One particular mistake has stayed with me throughout my career because it completely changed the way I approached responsibility in the kitchen. I share that story in my article, The Most Expensive Mistake I Made as an Apprentice Chef, because it became one of the defining lessons of my professional life.
Looking back today, I understand that those early days at Al Giardino did far more than teach me how to cook. They taught me how to think like a chef. From that moment on, I no longer loved food only for the pleasure of eating it—I loved the discipline, creativity, and craftsmanship that transformed simple ingredients into memorable experiences.
Learning Under Pressure
The Kitchen Was My Greatest Teacher
The transition from a home kitchen to a professional one was unlike anything I had imagined. At home, meals were prepared with patience and without deadlines. In a restaurant, every second mattered. Orders arrived one after another, dozens of dishes had to leave the kitchen at exactly the right moment, and every plate had to meet the same standard of quality.
It was demanding, and there were days when I wondered whether I was truly capable of keeping up. But instead of discouraging me, those challenges motivated me. I wanted to improve every single day.
Professional kitchens have a unique way of shaping your character. They teach discipline, organization, teamwork, and resilience. You quickly learn that success is never achieved alone. Every chef, every cook, every dishwasher, and every member of the brigade plays an essential role in delivering an exceptional dining experience.
Looking back today, I realize that those early years weren’t simply teaching me how to cook. They were teaching me how to think, solve problems under pressure, stay calm when things didn’t go as planned, and constantly strive for excellence.
Every Mistake Became a Lesson
No chef begins their career without making mistakes, and I certainly wasn’t an exception.
Some lessons were small, while others stayed with me for the rest of my career. Each one made me more attentive, more disciplined, and more respectful of the responsibility that comes with preparing food for others.
One of those experiences became so important that I later dedicated an entire article to it: The Most Expensive Mistake I Made as an Apprentice Chef, that you can find in my Chef’s Journal. Even after more than three decades in professional kitchens, I still remember that lesson as clearly as if it happened yesterday. It reminded me that mistakes can become our greatest teachers—if we are willing to learn from them.
Every Kitchen Became a Classroom
Learning Never Stopped
One of the greatest gifts this profession has given me is the opportunity to keep learning.
Every restaurant I joined introduced me to different techniques, ingredients, cultures, and ways of thinking. Every executive chef I worked alongside had a unique philosophy. Some taught me precision. Others taught me creativity. Some demanded perfection in every detail, while others encouraged innovation and experimentation.
I learned that becoming a chef is not something that happens after graduating from culinary school or receiving a promotion. It is a lifelong journey. Even today, after more than thirty years in professional kitchens, I still discover new techniques, ingredients, and ideas that inspire me.
That continuous learning is one of the reasons I have never grown tired of this profession. The kitchen constantly evolves, and there is always another skill to master or another flavor to explore.
More Than Recipes
Many people think chefs spend their careers simply following recipes. In reality, recipes are only a small part of what we do.
Many people believe that chefs spend their careers simply following recipes. In reality, every successful dish begins long before the food reaches the plate. I learned that creating an exceptional meal means choosing the right ingredients, understanding how flavors work together, organizing the kitchen efficiently, managing time under pressure, leading a team, maintaining consistency, solving unexpected challenges, and making sure every guest enjoys the same high standard of quality.
Over the years, I realized that being a chef means becoming part craftsman, part teacher, part leader, and part problem solver. The food on the plate is only the final result of hundreds of small decisions happening behind the scenes.
The Sacrifices Behind Every Plate
The Reality Few People See
People often see the beautiful dishes, the elegant presentation, and the smiles in the dining room. What they rarely see are the hours that happen before the first guest arrives.
The culinary profession demands commitment unlike many other careers. Long shifts become normal. Weekends and public holidays are often spent at work instead of with family. Birthdays, celebrations, and special occasions sometimes have to wait because restaurants are busiest when everyone else is enjoying their time off.
There are also the physical demands: standing for hours, working in hot kitchens, moving quickly, lifting heavy equipment, and collecting the occasional burn or cut that eventually becomes part of every chef’s story.
Why I Never Walked Away
People often ask whether all those sacrifices were worth it.
For me, the answer has always been yes.
No challenge was ever wasted. The busiest services taught me resilience, unexpected setbacks taught me humility, and every obstacle helped shape both my character and my approach to cooking.
Whenever I saw guests enjoying a meal that my team and I had prepared, the long hours suddenly felt worthwhile. Knowing that something I created could become part of someone’s celebration, family dinner, or unforgettable memory reminded me why I had chosen this profession in the first place.
The Moments That Made Every Sacrifice Worth It
More Than Serving Food
As the years passed, I discovered that success in the culinary world isn’t measured only by promotions or job titles. Of course, becoming a sous chef and later an executive chef were milestones that made me proud, but the greatest reward was always much simpler.
It was seeing guests genuinely enjoy a meal.
There is something deeply satisfying about watching someone smile after taking the first bite of a dish you helped create. Long before social media made it easy for people to leave reviews or share photos of their meals, we relied on something much more meaningful: the expressions on our guests’ faces and the empty plates that returned to the kitchen.
Those moments reminded me that cooking has never been just about food. It is about creating experiences, celebrating special occasions, bringing families together, and making ordinary days a little more memorable.
Opportunities I Never Expected
When I decided to become a chef as a teenager, I simply wanted to build a successful career and become financially independent. I never imagined how many doors this profession would eventually open.
Throughout my career, I had the privilege of working with talented chefs from different backgrounds, helping restaurants grow, contributing to the opening of new establishments, and leading kitchen teams through both busy services and exciting new projects.
Each experience challenged me in a different way. Some taught me leadership. Others strengthened my creativity. Many reminded me that no matter how experienced we become, there is always something new to learn.
Looking back today, I realize that the kitchen gave me far more than a profession. It gave me confidence, lifelong friendships, unforgettable experiences, and a purpose that continues to inspire me every day.
Sharing What the Kitchen Taught Me
A New Kind of Service
For many years, my greatest satisfaction came from serving guests in restaurants and hotels. But as my career progressed, I began to realize that there was another way to serve people.
Instead of preparing one meal at a time, I could teach thousands of people how to prepare those meals in their own homes.
That idea stayed with me for years until I finally decided to begin sharing my knowledge online. After spending decades learning from talented chefs, overcoming challenges, making mistakes, and discovering techniques that only experience can teach, it felt natural to pass those lessons on to others.
Teaching cooking became an extension of everything I had learned throughout my career. Today, every recipe I publish, every article I write, and every video I create carries a small piece of the journey that began when I was an eleven-year-old boy fascinated by a butcher shop during a summer in France.
If you’re interested in learning more about that chapter of my life, I share the full story in my article, Why I Started Teaching Cooking Online, where I explain what inspired me to exchange part of the professional kitchen for a camera and a community of home cooks around the world.
If I Had to Choose Again
People sometimes ask whether I would choose the same profession if I could go back and start over.
My answer has never changed.
Without hesitation, I would choose the kitchen again.
It hasn’t always been easy. There have been long days, sleepless nights, missed holidays, and countless challenges that tested both my patience and determination. But every experience, whether joyful or difficult, helped shape the chef—and the person—I am today.
The kitchen taught me discipline when I needed structure. It taught me humility when I made mistakes. It taught me leadership when others depended on me, and it taught me that the greatest satisfaction often comes from serving others before yourself.
Most importantly, it showed me that food has a remarkable ability to connect people. A single meal can comfort someone after a difficult day, become the centerpiece of a family celebration, or create memories that last for generations.
That is why I chose a life in the kitchen.
And after more than thirty years, I still wake up excited to learn something new, create another recipe, and share everything this incredible profession has taught me. If my journey encourages even one person to cook with more confidence or discover the same passion that changed my life, then every step of that journey has been worthwhile.
This is only one chapter of my journey. Throughout my Chef’s Journal, I share the experiences, lessons, successes, and mistakes that shaped me into the chef I am today. I hope they inspire you, whether you’re pursuing a culinary career or simply cooking for the people you love.
Chef François El Aaraj is a corporate chef and culinary consultant with more than 30 years of experience in professional kitchens and restaurant openings across Lebanon and abroad. Through this website, he shares authentic recipes, cooking techniques, and chef secrets designed to help home cooks create flavorful meals with confidence.
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