Thats kind of a black-or-white question. How do you judge a Chef? You can have a classical trained Chef running a school cafeteria, I know of several. The food is creative and fresh, but definately not elaborately garnished, the place is clean and well run, staff friendly and knowledeable, yet no one--including the Chef--works more than 8 hrs per day, the place makes good money, food cost is below 20% , labour below 25%. Yet the average guest cheque is below $8.00, and the guests are happy campers. Is this Chef succesfull? Yes. True, he's not putting out 5 star food, but he's doing everything right. Put the same Chef in a 5 star kitchen and he'd probably get plates thrown back at him. Everbody's different and will find their niche, and when they do, they succeed.