Chefs: 'We must address skilled labour shortage'

Desert Palm Dubai's Lionel Boyce.

Marriott’s Baker added that the region needed to find a true identity.

“When you come to Dubai, there’s no real identity — not like there is in the great culinary places like France or Italy or India. We need to give [junior chefs] a reason to want to come here.

“Also there’s been a lot of negative western press recently about Dubai, which doesn’t help when you’re trying to attract people from Europe,” he added.

Desert Palm’s Boyce agreed that the region was still young and lacking it’s own true culinary flavour.

“Dubai doesn’t need big-name chefs from overseas coming in — although good publicity is always helpful to the industry; it needs its own culinary scene to expand, and to become a destination for good chefs wanting to showcase their talents,” he argued.

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“This has to be facilitated with government incentives — and there has to be a change to the current immigration policies, to allow people to come here,” Boyce asserted.

“The criteria should revolve around whether they are employable, not whether they have a job to come to.”

According to Marriott’s Baker, the region would also benefit from greater transparency between chefs regarding salaries and the skill standards of their staff.

“I know some places pay more, some less, but trying to get some realistic idea of the overall standard would be good,” he noted.

“When people poach staff from other properties, all too often they take unqualified people into higher positions that they aren’t ready for. They triple their salary and the junior chef moves, then a week later they’re back asking for their old job.

“If we could all work together more closely, and just be realistic about where our staff are and how they are progressing, it would actually help the industry in the long term.”