Who makes the gravy in a professional kitchen?

In a large classical kitchen organised according to Auguste Escoffier's brigade de cuisine, gravy does not necessarily belong to one person.

The simple answer is the saucier — the chef responsible for sauces — but there is an important exception. A gravy or jus made directly from a roast can fall to the rôtisseur, the chef responsible for roasted and braised meats.

So, in a full Escoffier-style brigade:

The distinction matters because the brigade was organised around responsibility for parts of the meal, not simply around modern ingredient categories.

The brigade de cuisine¶

Escoffier developed the brigade de cuisine around the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth as a way of organising the enormous kitchens of grand hotels and restaurants.

Instead of several cooks independently preparing whole dishes, the kitchen was divided into specialised stations. Each station was headed by a chef de partie, with the work coordinated by the sous-chef and chef de cuisine.

A simplified hot-kitchen hierarchy looks something like this:

Chef de cuisine
      |
  Sous-chef
      |
      +-- Saucier      — sauces and sautéed dishes
      |
      +-- Rôtisseur    — roasted and braised meats
      |
      +-- Poissonnier  — fish
      |
      +-- Entremétier  — vegetables, starches and related dishes
      |
      +-- Pâtissier    — pastry and desserts

Larger brigades could divide these responsibilities much further, while smaller kitchens combined several jobs into one.

The saucier¶

The saucier, literally the sauce cook, is the station most obviously associated with gravy.

The saucier traditionally handles sauces, reductions and sautéed dishes and may also be responsible for stocks, broths, stews and braises depending on the organisation of the kitchen.

It is one of the most technically demanding positions in the classical brigade. A saucier has to control reduction, seasoning, consistency and temperature while coordinating with the cooks producing the meat, fish and vegetables that the sauces accompany.

For a prepared gravy made from stock, roux, demi-glace, meat juices or a reduction, the saucier is therefore the natural owner.

The rôtisseur exception¶

Things become more interesting when the gravy is inseparable from a roast.

The rôtisseur is the roast cook. In the classical brigade the station is responsible for roasted and braised meats and, in many descriptions of the system, the juices, pan sauces or gravies that accompany them.

Imagine a large hotel kitchen serving roast beef.

The rôtisseur has the beef, the roasting tray, the rendered fat and the caramelised deposits stuck to the bottom of the pan. Those are exactly the materials required to make roast gravy.

It would make little sense to transfer the roasting tin across the kitchen merely because its contents are about to become a sauce.

A traditional roast gravy might therefore remain the responsibility of the rôtisseur:

1. Roast the meat.
2. Remove it to rest.
3. Pour off or separate excess fat.
4. Deglaze the roasting pan.
5. Add stock or other liquid.
6. Reduce or thicken the resulting juices.
7. Serve the gravy with the roast.

This is why descriptions of the brigade sometimes appear to contradict one another. One source may say that the saucier makes gravies, while another says that the rôtisseur makes the gravy served with roasted meat.

Both can be correct.

Sauce versus roast gravy¶

The boundary is easier to understand if the gravy is considered part of the cooking process rather than simply a substance in a jug.

A separately prepared beef gravy¶

A large quantity of brown stock is reduced, thickened and seasoned before service.

Responsible station: saucier.

Pan gravy from roast beef¶

The roasting tray is deglazed using the juices and browned deposits left by the beef.

Responsible station: rôtisseur.

Madeira sauce for a steak¶

The steak is sautéed and a reduction is prepared to accompany it.

Responsible station: saucier.

Jus from roast lamb¶

The lamb's roasting juices are deglazed and reduced.

Responsible station: rôtisseur.

There would inevitably be overlap, particularly in smaller brigades.

What about the stock?¶

Gravy also creates a second complication: somebody has to make the stock before anybody can make the finished sauce.

Stocks and foundational sauces may be produced well before service and can be the responsibility of the saucier or of cooks working under the sauce section.

The poissonnier problem¶

The same overlap occurs with fish.

A poissonnier is responsible for fish and seafood. In a sufficiently large brigade, sauces specifically associated with fish can be made by the fish station, while in another kitchen that work may be performed by the saucier.

This is a reminder that Escoffier's brigade was a framework rather than an immutable list of job descriptions.

Stations expanded, contracted and combined according to the size and menu of the kitchen.

Who is senior?¶

Among the chefs de partie, the saucier was traditionally a particularly senior and prestigious position.

Sauce making sits at the intersection of several fundamental kitchen skills:

• stock making
• reduction
• emulsification
• deglazing
• seasoning
• thickening
• temperature control
• coordination during service

A poor sauce can spoil an otherwise perfectly cooked piece of meat, so the station required an experienced cook with a good palate.

What happens in a modern kitchen?¶

Few restaurants today operate every station of a grand Escoffier brigade.

A modern kitchen may have only:

• head chef
• sous-chef
• grill
• sauté
• fryer
• cold section
• pastry

The responsibilities once divided between several chefs are therefore commonly combined.

A cook on the meat or sauté station might roast the meat, make the pan sauce, finish a prepared demi-glace and plate the entire dish.

The terminology nevertheless survives. Saucier is still understood as the sauce station, even if there is no employee whose sole job is making sauces.

So who makes the Christmas gravy?¶

Put a traditional British Christmas dinner into an enormous Escoffier-style hotel kitchen and the answer becomes surprisingly specific.

The turkey would fall naturally within the roasting section. The rôtisseur would have the turkey, roasting tin, fat and cooking juices, so the pan gravy produced directly from the turkey would most naturally be associated with the rôtisseur.

However, the stock, concentrated sauce base or other preparatory work used to turn those juices into gravy could have come from the saucier's section.

The jug arriving at the table might therefore contain the work of both stations.

The short answer¶