Why There Are Too Few Cooks For New York City's Elite Kitchens

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:?There are some good restaurants on Wall Street and lots of other places in Manhattan. At last count, more than 6,000 restaurants and has long been considered the?epicenter?for all things?culinary.

New York has the most three-star, Michelin-starred restaurants in the U.S. - closing in on Paris. Still, some cooks have begun to go elsewhere to make names for themselves. Chefs' obsession with local ingredients is making smaller cities a lot more appealing, but that's not the only reason. As Jane Black explains.

JANE BLACK, BYLINE: In the good old days, which weren't actually all that long ago, it was easy for chef Peter Hoffman to find experienced cooks. Lately, though, its become something an extreme sport.

PETER HOFFMAN: I began to ask myself the questions like: What is going on? Where has everybody gone?

BLACK: Hoffman used to post ads on Craig's List for his farm-to-table restaurant, Back Forty West, in New York's Soho neighborhood, and then watch the resumes roll in. Now he says it's often like this...

(SOUNDBITE OF CRICKETS CHIRPING)

BLACK: That, or he gets a slew of applications from people with just a few months of experience - at restaurants like McDonald's.

(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD CHATTER)

HOFFMAN: I sat down in certain desperate moments and sent an email to every single cook that I knew, you know, food person in the business here and just said, we're looking, we need people. And what I got back, for the most part, were, sorry, dude, wish I could help you, I'm in the same boat.

BLACK: No cooks in Manhattan? Careers in food have never been more fashionable. It feels like you can't turn on the TV without seeing a pack of cheftestants battling for a chance at stardom.

(SOUNDBITE OF FOOD NETWORK AD)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Three of Food Network's biggest stars will lead 12 finalists through a competition where one will win the ultimate prize, their own show on Food Network. The winner...

BLACK: But for those who don't make it, cooking in the big city is no picnic. The going rate for cooks in Manhattan is $10 an hour - $12 if you're lucky. And the commute to a place you can actually afford to live on that kind of money can be long.

Shanna Pacifico, the head chef at Back Forty West, has lived in the city for 14 years. Over that time, she has shared apartments in cheaper neighborhoods. And now, she finally has her own one-bedroom - though she's about to be kicked out and is struggling to find a studio for less than $1,700 a month.

Pacifico still thinks it's worth it to be in New York. But she does dream of greener pastures - which would be what, exactly?

SHANNA PACIFICO: A New York City with cheaper rent and an easier lifestyle...

(LAUGHTER)

PACIFICO: I don't know. Can you tell me where that is?

(LAUGHTER)

PACIFICO: Utopia?

BLACK: For many chefs though, Utopia doesn't look like New York. It's a smaller, more affordable city with their own vibrant food culture - Austin, Madison, Chapel Hill. Those places have the added advantage of being more connected to the farms they buy from - something that is a badge of honor in today's restaurant world.

As Clark Wolf, a restaurant consultant based in New York and Sonoma County, puts it...

CLARK WOLF: I used to say, if it grows in Manhattan, scrape it off.

BLACK: David Levi, a native New Yorker who cooked most recently at a restaurant called Perry Street in Manhattan's West Village, has moved to Portland, Maine. Later this year, he plans to open his own restaurant that will forgo kitchen staples, such as lemon and even sugar, for exclusively local foods. To build it will cost him, he says, just one-tenth of what it would in Manhattan.

DAVID LEVI: Because rent is just so much lower, it just gives you a lot more freedom to not drive yourself completely crazy and take a few more risks.

BLACK: Still, chefs like Levi will miss New York - a little. It's why he says he's keeping his New York-cell phone number.

LEVI: It's the only part of New York that's affordable.

BLACK: For NPR News, I'm Jane Black.

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