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

Patrons should never hear the chef yelling from the dining room. That being said - patrons should NEVER EVEN DREAM of going into the kitchen uninvited.

Chef 1, reporter zero.

I couldn't cast a vote in the poll at the end of the article because it assumes that one of these men was in the right....

Yikes! I have to agree with Matthew on this one; they both seem unreasonable. Chef zero, reporter zero.

Do not come into the kitchen. In a past life that involved much drinking and drugging, I actually got into a fistfight with the dining room manager which resulted in my arm being submerged in the deep fryer, a very unpleasant experience!! This was an open kitchen and all of this happened in plain view of our lovely New Years Eve Patrons, who decided to intervene and a crazy melee ensued. I work in an open kitchen now and have to say, the rare cuss word is heard by our customers. I'm just lucky my wonderful wife is there to smooth things over. But I repeat, do not go in the kitchen! It is often a dangerous place with many sharp knives, and tattooed hungover dishwashers. We love all our customers in the dining room, not in the kitchen. Whenever I am faced with a customer in my inner kingdom, I tell them that the health department does not allow it.

Speaking of which Restuarant Owners and Operaters, we were inspected today, and is everyone aware of all the new regulations? We did just fine, but many new surprises. Check them out if you are not aware of them.
Bill
Shady Lanehttp://www.hottopic.com/hottopic/Cl ... 279139.jsp

Ignore the strange order for hot topic from my teen aged daughter that mysteriously appeared on the previous post. Bill

Do not come into the kitchen. In a past life that involved much drinking and drugging, I actually got into a fistfight with the dining room manager which resulted in my arm being submerged in the deep fryer, a very unpleasant experience!! This was an open kitchen and all of this happened in plain view of our lovely New Years Eve Patrons, who decided to intervene and a crazy melee ensued. I work in an open kitchen now and have to say, the rare cuss word is heard by our customers. I'm just lucky my wonderful wife is there to smooth things over. But I repeat, do not go in the kitchen! It is often a dangerous place with many sharp knives, and tattooed hungover dishwashers. We love all our customers in the dining room, not in the kitchen. Whenever I am faced with a customer in my inner kingdom, I tell them that the health department does not allow it.

Bill
Shady Lanehttp://www.hottopic.com/hottopic/Cl ... 279139.jsp

Awesome post Bill...sorry about your arm but I love hearing about the "nasty bits"..."Tattooed Hungover Dishwashers" what a simple but effective picture. Hope you are feeling better.

Chef 1, Reporter 0 in my book.

The reporter does have the right to dine elsewhere, but doesn't have the right to tell the chef how to do his job.

I've fired customers before. Sometimes they deserve it.

Do not come into the kitchen. In a past life that involved much drinking and drugging, I actually got into a fistfight with the dining room manager which resulted in my arm being submerged in the deep fryer, a very unpleasant experience!! This was an open kitchen and all of this happened in plain view of our lovely New Years Eve Patrons, who decided to intervene and a crazy melee ensued. I work in an open kitchen now and have to say, the rare cuss word is heard by our customers. I'm just lucky my wonderful wife is there to smooth things over. But I repeat, do not go in the kitchen! It is often a dangerous place with many sharp knives, and tattooed hungover dishwashers. We love all our customers in the dining room, not in the kitchen. Whenever I am faced with a customer in my inner kingdom, I tell them that the health department does not allow it.

Bill
Shady Lanehttp://www.hottopic.com/hottopic/Cl ... 279139.jsp

Awesome post Bill...sorry about your arm but I love hearing about the "nasty bits"..."Tattooed Hungover Dishwashers" what a simple but effective picture. Hope you are feeling better.

Agreed, not only is it an awesome post, but I also wish you the speediest of recoveries!

I have been trying to keep my paws off this one, but...

You gotta love NYC!

Could you imagine walking into the conversation Bill had with his daughter after her well-intentioned, yet misaligned addition? Pots would fall. Yet, that's why you stay out of the kitchen- family is talking here.

With the exception of exposition kitchens- they are designed for chef-guest relations. A gray line happens when there is the quasi-exposition, like Austin's or Proof. There's an imaginary line here...

(one I crossed this past week and feel horrible for doing so.)

The absolute greatest honor one can be paid is to be invited into the kitchen- it deserves your eternal esteem. To take this honor upon oneself is to tread on the holiest of holies, in our world.

Chef Llewellyn, I am going to use you as an example, sorry- but it is so true.

At an experience at Social, Chef decided to take the time to chew the fat with us. He was running his mouth abiout his new salad/garde manger. You'd have thought she hung the moon!

At one point he get's the 'tell you what, I'll show you' attitude. He looks at her and says 'give me (x) salad.' She paused, just for a moment- not really getting where he was going, and then dutifully finds her station and prepares the salad that she had made tens, if not hundreds of times before.

I broke this salad down like I was judging Bocuse D'or. Almost flawess. Dam near perfect in every detail. There is never perfection, but this was so close- yes! It made me proud to be in the same room as this woman.

She thought he was judging her, yet he was braggin on her skill and natural talent. Afterwards, he was all-a-gush with how fortunate he was to have her.

Who knows, maybe that cook being yelled at just burned $500 of Wagyu?

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.

Not because this industry breeds it, but the human race is riddled with it. I'm cautious to buy fully into any account I'm not personally connected to, but not impervious to the possible truth behind allegations.

AND, chefs and owners should never air their stink in the DR.

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...

The only time I have ever gone into a restaurant kitchen was at Cafe' Du Monde in the French Quarter in New Orleans pre Katrina that was just becase the only restroom was just inside the door and we were told it was ok

I don't agree in being abusive, but I have been a chef for 20 years. Sometimes you have to cuss out someone or everyone in your crew. It's the same type of motivation that Drill Instructors use in basic training.

The kitchen employee should know upfront that to run an efficient and quality driven kitchen, it requires discipline, and getting one's arse ripped from time to time comes with the territory.

Sometimes good management skills require the chef to wear the black hat. To way get through to young cooks and dishwashers, who party all night, sleep all day is to shock them. Read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. That is really how the business is.

The Chef in this should have been more mindful of his volume, but you are not allowed in the kitchen because you don't work there. If you slip on a greasy floor or get cut or burned, the restaurant's liability insurance will not cover the accident.

Then to chastise the leader of a kitchen and demean his authority like that could only elicit the chef's response of kicking the reporter and his guests out.

Some more unstable (although insanely talented) chefs I have worked with may have hit him with a skillet or plate for the sacrilege of entering his kitchen uninvited.

He got off easy! Chef-1 Reporter-0

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.

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.

I'm with you Jackie.

Makes me think of the rash of college football coaches who got canned this year for being abusive (@texas tech, @kansas, @south florida) and then claiming that "they didn't do what they were accused of" or "they did it to motivate."

Addressing the drill instructor metaphor -- The Drill instructor is training soldiers for life or death situations. When people take this model and apply it outside of life or death situations, they are saying that it's okay to be hateful/mean/violent/disrespectful for X reason. X, though, is never life or death. It's success on the field, profit, etc.

Proper communication and respect, not fear, is what gets people to go above and beyond for another person. Note: kitchens, the military, and sports share one thing in common - by and away dominated by male leaders, and, often, male staff as well.

From my reading, the situation turned into one big piss-pool of male testosterone. Reporter oversteps his bounds by entering other man's territory. Other man (chef) retaliates. Reporter retaliates by writing it up in the paper. So, to keep score - the chef seemed to be in the wrong, but it wasn't the reporter's job to do something about it in that physical space. Hell, were I the reporter, I'd have written about it in the paper to make the chef look a fool - physical/heated confrontation avoided!

Classic case of two men who can't just let "it" go. Us men are so stupid and self-defeating it's shocking we've survived this long!

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.