Line Cook Interview Questions

"Cross-contamination is when bacteria transfers from one person, object, or place to another. For example, cutting meat contaminates that knife. If you use it to cut something else without cleaning it, cross-contamination will occur. To prevent it, I constantly wash my hands and the surfaces I work on. I keep raw meat separate and clean anything that touches it thoroughly."

"To clean my prep station, I remove any debris, such as crumbs, and wipe the space down with dishwashing liquid and hot water. Once it's clean, I will disinfect it with a mix of chlorine bleach and water that is approved for food use and let it air dry."

"Broiling and frying are two different ways to cook a variety of food. Broiling exposes the food to intense, direct heat, typically in an oven. It only cooks one side of the food at a time, so you will need to flip it. Most people broil different meats to give it a nice char. Frying is when you submerge the food in hot oil to cook it. There are many deep-fried foods, such as fries and onion rings."

"I see my self working in a kitchen in five years, but not as a line cook. I love cooking, but I want to pursue a higher position in the future. I would like to be a chef and then an executive chef someday. However, I would like to stay at one restaurant for the rest of my career and believe this would be a good place to do so."

"I've been to your restaurant multiple times and every time I come, I get the fish and chips. It's a great dish and one of the best fish and chips I've ever had in Canada. The fish crunchy and flavourful and the cooks fry the chips to perfection. I know you make the tartar sauce in-house as well and it's excellent."

"My greatest skill as a line cook is my cooking abilities. Of course, every line cook is able to cook, but I have been working with food since I was young. My dad is the executive chef at a restaurant downtown, and he taught me how to cook from when we were at least four years old. I grew up eating delicious food until I could make it myself, so I think my cooking abilities set me apart from other candidates."

"I have had a customer send back a meal once because they asked for no carrots in their dish and I still put them in accidentally. It was a busy night, and I missed the note on the server's order. I remade the dish as quickly as I could and brought it out to the customer personally to apologise. In the future, I always double-checked every order to ensure I didn't make the same mistake again."

"I always prioritise making food perfect, especially when the customer requests different specifications. Ensuring they get their food in a timely manner is important, but if I make incorrectly the food and it's sent back, I lose more time."

"When I don't have any orders, I prepare popular ingredients I know we'll use throughout the day. For example, I will cut or peel vegetables and marinate meat. If there's cleaning to do from my last round of orders, I'll do that as well and disinfect my space."

"Food needs to reach 74°C when it is being cooked or reheated to kill most bacteria. It can then go down to 60°C at the lowest when serving it. Bacteria grows and multiplies the most between 4°C and 60°C, so you should always keep food out of this temperature range or it will make customers sick. To stop bacteria from growing on any food you don't need right away, you can freeze it at -18°C."

"I disagreed once with a colleague about the ingredients in soy sauce. We make one of our popular dishes with soy sauce and a server told us that the customer is severely gluten intolerant. I told the cook preparing her meal that he couldn't use soy sauce because it has wheat in it and he disagreed. We checked the ingredients, and he realised that soy sauce does have wheat in it. We brainstormed and replaced the soy sauce with Worcestershire sauce."

"I have a culinary skills certificate from George Brown College. I completed a one-year programme where I learned core cooking and baking skills. I also learned how to plan a nutritious menu, great knife skills and cooking techniques. I have my food handler certificate as well, so I can safely work with food."

"As my parents are both Mexican, I grew up cooking and eating Mexican food. Despite my many years of experience with the cuisine, it's still one of my favourites. My family thinks your restaurant has the best Mexican food in the city, which is why I want to be a line cook here."

"One of my biggest challenges as a line cook was the need to multitask and focus on ten different things at once. I had a hard time at first, especially during our dinner rush, but I quickly adapted and learned how to multitask efficiently. I also learned that properly preparing my station ahead of time and getting ingredients ready saved me time later on, so I implemented that at the beginning of every shift."

"I worked at a restaurant in Downtown Toronto for three years. The restaurant was near an office building, so we would always have huge lunch and dinner crowds. To meet the demand, my team and I all had to work efficiently. It was tiring, but I really enjoyed it. Being in a fast-paced environment makes time go by faster, so I never felt like I was working too much."