The Hygiene Habits I Never Skip

People ask me sometimes what separates a kitchen that's merely clean from one that's actually safe. The honest answer is that it isn't the deep-clean once a week, or the inspection-day polish. It's a small set of habits repeated without exception, service after service, until nobody in the kitchen even has to think about them anymore.

Wash Hands Like It's a Ritual, Not a Rule

Twenty seconds, hot water, soap worked into every finger and under the nails — and it happens after every single task change, not just when hands look dirty. Raw protein to vegetables. Phone to prep board. Trash to plating. Every switch is a hand wash, no exceptions, no matter how busy the pass gets.

Colour-Code Everything, and Never Cross It

A separate board and knife for raw poultry, another for fish, another for vegetables, another for ready-to-eat food. This isn't about looking organised for an inspector. Cross-contamination is one of the most common causes of real illness in a kitchen, and colour-coding removes the need to remember — you simply can't reach for the wrong board without noticing.

Temperature Is Not a Guess

A probe thermometer lives in my pocket, not in a drawer. Chicken to 74°C. Cooling food down through the danger zone in under two hours, not left to cool slowly on a counter. These aren't preferences — they're the actual line between food that's safe and food that only looks fine.

Clean As You Go — Every Task, Not Every Night

A station wiped down between tasks, not just at the end of the night, keeps bacteria from ever getting a foothold. It also, unglamorously, makes service faster — a clean station is a station you can actually think in.

The One Nobody Talks About: Rest When You're Sick

The hardest habit, and the one most cooks break, myself included when I was younger. A kitchen running short-staffed feels like an emergency. Someone cooking while unwell is a much bigger one. This is the rule I've become the strictest about as I've gotten older — for my own kitchens and for myself.

Why It Matters to Me

None of this is complicated, and none of it requires special training beyond what any professional kitchen already teaches. What it requires is repetition until it's no longer a decision. That's true whether you're running a five-star kitchen or cooking dinner for your family tonight — the habits are the same size, just the stakes are different.

Every recipe I publish assumes a kitchen run this way — not out of paranoia, but out of respect for the people eating what comes off the pass.

The same discipline runs through every recipe in French Knife, Asian Fire — Volume I: The Wok & The Whisk: thirty-five dishes where French technique meets the Chinese wok, written for a real home kitchen. Available now in paperback and on Kindle.

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