chef has a pow wow in kitchen (new york) and....

Yeah, I'm gonna have to take the wayward on this and trust my instincts that this chef may be abusive and was called on it. All things are subjective in text, but there were a few flags that I'll leave to others to interpret. I'll follow this thread to see if my opinion is swayed, but for my once-over reading, this reporter seems to have caught him in a an abusive act. It's not okay to treat employees like sewage, and it happens when noone is looking more than people like to discuss.

Chefs will always be abusive.. at least if they are good at what they do.The point being that you never will know where they are coming from...

Totally disagree, Stevo. A fraction of our society abuses, and a lot of them do it behind curtains, yet it's so adorable when it comes from the inspired chef? I'm about to throw up at the idiocy of this thinking. I don't watch the crap on TV that glorifies this and I'm happy I have a voice here. I've had the pleasure of meeting Chef Gerhart recently and he gets my nice chef award - tell me he's abusive, Stephen. Give me one example of this alturistic man treating employees poorly. Or Todd Richards? I find that very hard to imagine. Or Anoosh, or Bruce, or many many others. A lot of them get hot headed, for sure, but hateful to the point that a reputed reporter... nevermind, I just want to hear what other people think, but wanted to spin the prespective in a way that doesn't glorify hateful chefs treating staff like animals. Happens in any industry, though, I'm sure. It's part of our culture.

Don't get me wrong. Nice guys finish first. My point being that that chef was hitting the ceiling for a darn good reason and the reporter was on the outside looking in. It has very lttle to do with how that chef behaves towards his familly 99.9% of the time. Truth is, at that exact point in time, he felt that cook needed to hear what he had to say- and with vigor (what I meant by the abusive comment before.) And not unlike Pai Mei, the sensei from Kill Bill, this chef's tutelage will be looked back fondly over the next generation's life- especially when they are buried alive and need to get out of that box...

Chefs will always be abusive.. at least if they are good at what they do. The point being that you never will know where they are coming from...

No no no no no no no.
I don't care if he's Da Vinci with a spoon, no one as the right to be abusive. Was the reporter wrong to go in the kitchen? Absolutely. Should he have told the manager about his discomfort? Yeah maybe, but I think most would agree that that would have been a waste of time. If the chef is so abusive he could be heard in the dining room tell me exactly WHO will tell him to quiet down because of the patrons?

If it had been me? I simply would never have dined there again. I don't care how utterly fantastic the meal is, could be, might be or whatever. I may not be courageous enough to confront abuse every time I see it by I will not condone it or support it. I have no respect for those that think they are so bloody talented that simple rules of decency don't apply to them. If you can't lead by example and inspiration, if abuse is your only skill to teach than you're not much of a leader or teacher.

Both were wrong. End of story.

If it had been me? I simply would never have dined there again.

That is what we did at Ray Parella's. On our last visit, we were greeted by Ray ripping some girl a new one and he didn't seem to care about us seeing it. We did go ahead with our meal, but never returned.

It's NEVER OK to be abusive in the workplace, particularly to a subordinate employee...on the other hand, in the spirit of I should practice what I preach, I've had the privilege of ripping a couple of my former supervisors a new ass on a couple of occasions...but always behind closed doors and with no witnesses

Here's a link to the Daily Show interview with Mario Batali from last week.

His opinion relevant to this discussion is around the 4 minute mark in the video.

Pretty interesting comments from a great Chef. I can imagine all it takes from Mario is "the look" and things get turned around in a hurry. No need to scream and holler.

I've ripped a few nurses, residents, and medical students in my day. I've been ripped by a few nurses, residents, medical students, and attending physicians.....there is a strange symetry to that I think.

I think what make some of us chefs seem more apt to be viewed by people in other occupations as "assholes", is our constant desire for perfection and little tolerance for anything less. I know I have flown off the handle more times than I care to remember. All we really want to do is to put smiles on the faces of people that are patronizing our establishment and I have been known to sometimes get vocal when there is the probability of falling short of the customers expectations.
It's easy to pass judgement when you haven't ran a kitchen that is falling behind on a busy night.

For example....When the grill cook over cooks what was supposed to be a medium rare that is now medium well on a ten top that is clogging up the pass and you have 5 deuces you can get out as soon as the big top is done and now he has to cook another steak; I may have a few words for them that would definitely be considered inappropriate in any other profession when I think the ship may be sinking fast. You have to have some pretty thick skin to be in this business to begin with. However, anytime I've gone off the deep end at someone I always make a point to apologize at the end of the shift for it.

The worst wrath is usually saved for servers who almost always deserve it.
Things like eating food off plates, yanking plates out of the pass that aren't for their orders, hiding out back smoking when they have orders sitting in the window are just a few things that would generally make me lose my shi#&!

I think what make some of us chefs seem more apt to be viewed by people in other occupations as "assholes", is our constant desire for perfection and little tolerance for anything less. I know I have flown off the handle more times than I care to remember. All we really want to do is to put smiles on the faces of people that are patronizing our establishment and I have been known to sometimes get vocal when there is the probability of falling short of the customers expectations.
It's easy to pass judgement when you haven't ran a kitchen that is falling behind on a busy night.

For example....When the grill cook over cooks what was supposed to be a medium rare that is now medium well on a ten top that is clogging up the pass and you have 5 deuces you can get out as soon as the big top is done and now he has to cook another steak; I may have a few words for them that would definitely be considered inappropriate in any other profession when I think the ship may be sinking fast. You have to have some pretty thick skin to be in this business to begin with. However, anytime I've gone off the deep end at someone I always make a point to apologize at the end of the shift for it.

The worst wrath is usually saved for servers who almost always deserve it.
Things like eating food off plates, yanking plates out of the pass that aren't for their orders, hiding out back smoking when they have orders sitting in the window are just a few things that would generally make me lose my shi#&!

This is bringing back bad memories of my not-brief-enough server days (well, half-year).

I'm trying to figure out what the reporter's motivation was - ethics, care, indignation, ego, righteousness? Whatever it was, there's absolutely no way the chef was going to give one-flip about whatever argument/rationale/cause the reporter brings to the table, I mean kitchen. Seems that once a chef (or father, or coach, or military leader) has lost his cool, it's probably best just to stay away from him for a bit. The reporter should get a Darwin award for overlooking two important facts - 1)reasoning doesn't work with angry people and 2) chefs have super-sharp knives.

Neither of the men was in the right, but man, the reporter was just stupid.

My knee jerk reaction was that the Chef was right - the person he was yelling at had probably done something either incredibly stupid or something he has been told about numerous times. This, I speak from experience. Let's face it the reporter was definitely wrong to go into the kitchen, not his place at all. However, on reflection it reminds me of a time when I was working for an Attorney. He was at Court and told me that a client would be coming in to pick up her file and to make photocopies. . I guess she was dumping him and getting a new attorney. Anyway, I got the file out made photocopies and she came in and picked it up. Five minutes later he comes striding in and yells at me to get the clien't file. I told him she had already collected it. He yells again for me to get him the file and storms off into the conference room. Where my desk was situated I coiuld not see that he had met her outside and that she had accompanied him back into the conference room. When she left, he came into my office and yelled at the top of his voice "I'm you're f*****g boss, I then stood up and said. "Well, you can keep your f*****g job and walked oiut. So, I guess what I am trying to say is that yelling abuse at an employee is never acceptable.

I watched the Mario Batali bit and his insight is right to a point. Getting a good staff with what most restaurants can afford to pay and still make amiserly 7% profit margin is a daunting task at best and unfortunately, the self-loathing Chef Batali described is also caused by wanting perfection, but not being able to always adapt to the weaknesses in your staff. I am guilty of that. I have chilled out over the years and rarely do I even raise my voice in a kitchen, but I still have the occasional shift, where everyone on your staff is hung over from the night before, you have a busy night ahead and you see a disaster waiting to happen from your staff's lack of focus. A good arse-ripping can motivate the rest of the staff to get their sh** together and I usually buy the offended party a drink after the shift if they improved their performance throughout the night. I want to state that calling people names and humiliating them is not a good idea, but sternly giving criticism and even yelling is okay if it is used properly. I catch 99 out of a hundred flies with honey, that 1 out of 100 needs a flyswatter.

The worst wrath is usually saved for servers who almost always deserve it.

LOL Dan, the age old "BOH vs. FOH" feud. This kitchen perspective pretty much sums it up haha.

No but seriously, stay out of the kitchen. Even if you "know the chef".

Valid point, but I'm still not down with it. I've read the links twice, worked yrs in hot kitchens, and have seen egos swirl in all cases stated. None of the abuse is ever justified, in my opinion. There's always a better way to handle it and I don't cut slack for tense moments.

The chef mentioned that it wasn't like he was going after a "helpless waitress", he was dealing with a runner who had been in the business for 15 yrs and he bought him a beer later to apologize. Great, I feel better knowing that he chose a veteran that had already dealt with enough abuse he no longer had an alternative, even though the reporter alleged the runner brought the bread with the sad posture of somebody who just got "dressed down". I know that's dramatic, but after reading the accounts and seeing things I've seen in life, I give this behavior zero value and believe it may have happened exactly the way it was told despite the response. This chef sounds like a classic hot headed shit bag to me. He and others really think it's okay to be a d!@k because they're perfectionists and the job is stressful. Well I'll tell you what - EVERY job is stressful.
And I take NO issue with the reporters courage to walk into the kitchen. He doesn't entirely say so, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't afraid of being thrown out. Kudos for his nads.

Some of that behavior is one of the reasons I got out of the restaurant biz and went to the "calmer" EMS world!!

Hey, Steve! Mario is full of it. Read 'Heat' by Buford. Mario is a maniac, or at least was. I've never seen so many F-bombs dropped on one page...

Hey Jackie! The following words are not a retort. You are the glowing optimist, a breath of fresh air in the stale room and we need more, not less of you in this world of weight on shoulders! I just thought of a funny story of relevance...

Anytime I am called downtown, I make sure to pop into Fusion. It's my way of keeping in touch with the fam. I park in the garage upstairs and walk the extra (x) blocks to do so. Covering the Julep Ball on Oaks night, I knew they would be busy...

I'm guessing it was 9:30. I don't wear a watch. Ever try to batter fish with a watch on? Or toss bottles? Habit, I suppose. Still, before entering the kitchen through the back door, I made sure to ask a server if the chef was busy. She calmly stated they were cool.

'Are you sure?' 'Yes.' She seemed pretty sure on this and I guess in her perspective they were, as I'm guessing her tables (if any) were wrapping up.

So, I walk into this kitchen that I know I have a 'kitchen pass' to, thinking I would be greeted with hugs and 'howthehellareyou's.'

Wrong again. As I approached the line, I saw the signs. A chef furiously digging out, with two managers behind him, patiently waiting to run the last trays of food for the night. My confident gait slowed, he caught me out of the corner of his eye and turned to me:

'What are you doing here?!?!?!'

Now he didn't scream. If you know Dallas, he's as even-tempered as they come. I don't think the man raises his voice when he stubbs his toe. Yet, I was not to be there at this time. I should have known better. Oaks night? Really? Doh!



I quickly turned and walked out, the fam giving hugs and kisses on my way out the door.

Nothing changed between that house and me, even though it was a bit of a tense moment. Like Dan said, you gotta have thick skin. Don't get your feelings hurt when you screw up and chef feeds you it.

He still loves you