For whatever reason, breaking your work routine can make a huge difference to your life. Victoria Stewart talks to five women about what happened when they stepped away from the stove.

Imagine you’ve left a highly demanding job in a kitchen, bar or restaurant with a view to finding a site in which to open your own place, having a baby or taking a breather while you work out what to do next.

This in between period has the potential to be both liberating and disarming – the conundrum of knowing you need to keep your eye on the industry and to continue making use of your skills whilst not taking on a full time job.

It’s not as if there’s an industry blueprint for advice on this. Technically you could easily find cover positions, but do you want to follow somebody else’s rules again?

Thankfully, because the industry has changed a lot, opportunities have widened. Pop-ups, residencies or collaborations play a huge role now. It’s almost considered a right of passage for talented chefs to trial ideas and venues and spaces, such as Carousel in Marylebone, that offer rotating cooking opportunities. Meanwhile there are chances to do private cooking jobs, and to consult or do recipe development for brands. But how to balance it all?

Here are five voices from the industry who describe how they’ve made it work.

To read the article, which appeared in full in the March edition of Code Quarterly, buy it here.