How many pleats are there in a chef's hat?

The traditional, tall, white, pleated chef’s hat is officially referred to as a toque, which is the Arabic word for hat. While this word has existed for thousands of years, referring to any brimless hat, the French popularized “toque” or “toque blanche” as referring to a white chef’s hat.

Traditionally, the height of the chef’s hat was meant to signify station and rank in the kitchen. The executive chef wore the tallest hat in the kitchen, and the hats got a bit shorter as you go down the line, essentially following the traditional hierarchy in world-famous French chef Auguste Escoffier’s brigade de cuisine. Carême reportedly wore a hat that was 18 inches tall – supported in part by pieces of cardboard – to demonstrate his expertise.

Although this is not always the case in modern kitchens, the tallest hat in the kitchen still usually belongs to the most senior executive chef.

The origin of pleats in a chef’s hat is similar to the height. In the early days of the toque blanche, it was said that the number of pleats would often represent how many techniques or recipes a chef had mastered. For example, a chef would have 100 pleats in his hat to represent 100 ways he could prepare eggs.

Today, many chefs’ hats still contain pleats, but the number of pleats doesn’t necessarily signify a number of skills or anything in particular, other than an ode to tradition.