Preparing and arranging ingredients, tools and service items before cooking or service begins.
Mise en place, French for “put in place”, is the preparation done before cooking or service begins. In the kitchen, Le Cordon Bleu describes it as organizing and preparing the ingredients and every other component in advance: vegetables washed and chopped, meat thawed, trimmed and marinated well ahead, and pots, pans, ladles and knives within easy reach at the workstation. In a restaurant kitchen, every station may spend hours on its mise en place earlier in the day, which saves time and ensures that no ingredient or seasoning is forgotten.
The dining room has a mise en place too. Onisep, the French careers service, describes the maître d’hôtel checking the mise en place carried out by the chefs de rang and commis, then, after service, having the room put back in order and prepared for the next one. Outside hospitality, everyday French uses mise en place for putting anything in working order, so in a French office listing it can simply mean setting something up.
In job listings
Mise en place appears in back-of-house roles from commis and culinary interns to pastry chefs and butchers, including station mise en place, and in front-of-house roles such as fine-dining servers and barbacks, who prepare the room or the bar for service. See current mise en place roles.
