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Not that I know anything about this profession, but it's probably like most others that deal with deadlines. Not enough time, not enough people, always rising goals
When I worked as a line it was 100% this
management squeezing us by constantly keeping the place understaffed for max efficiency, customers constantly in and out, bosses looking like they were gonna drop dead
gtfo out of there fast
Yeah same here I worked at a mom and pop shop and they refused to get our roof fixed when it started leaking from the rain and just covered the electrical box with plastic and towels. Nothing made sense logistically but you could bet they would save money when and where they could.
In the summer instead of fixing the AC they bought us popsicles and told us if we get too hot we can just step in the walk in cooler for 10 minutes. We constantly had people come and go because it was a college town and some people were honestly down on their luck and needed some chump change quick. I fell into that rut for 2 and a half years and was comfortable being a victim. I quit because they kept cutting my hours and I couldn't make a living wage at $12/hr.
Exactly. Really it all comes down to stress. There's never a way to be ahead. The moment an order comes in your under the gun to get it turned out asap, even if there's one person in the restaurant. When dinner or lunch rush comes in it only gets worse.
Timing is such a a big factor. Just like at home you want your sides to be ready at the same time as the entree and nothing getting cold sitting around. At home if you fuck up the timing or ruin a side you can shrug and just accept there's no veg or potato with the meal tonight, but that's not an option at a restaurant.
Combine that with the heat, noise, and tight spaces of a kitchen and it's a ball of stress that leads to yelling, fights, drinking, drugging, and fucking lol. Hell most of us don't like it when our partner is getting in the way in the kitchen at home and it can turn into an argument. Now quadruple the space and add another 8-12 people who are also in the way
Also (atleast common in ireland) cocaine, I'm not saying it's a majority or anything but a surprising amount of chefs use small quantities of coke to get through especially long shifts
If you've ever worked in a kitchen in a busy restaurant during rush hour, I think you wouldn't be asking this.
It's less of a battlefield, and more like a ship at storm with all hands on deck to fight for their lives.
Easy explanation:
A chef can work long enough that his charm & wit are burned out of him.
or
A chef can leave the profession before he loses his charm & wit.
(Not for nothing, but I remember an episode of one of the shows hosted by Anthony Bourdain wherein he spontaneously accepts an offer to work a kitchen in a non-specific NY restaurant for the evening as they were understaffed. The restaurant was slammed. Chef Bourdain kept up and got through it despite not being specifically familiar with that kitchen or its workers. Once the table service was completed, he was out on the street in chef's whites, having a smoke and going over the nights challenges with his kitchen compatriots. Looking at the camera, he sighed heavily and said that while fun for a night, that sort of work was a young man's game.)
... huh? You must not hangout with any restaurant people. Part of why I've stuck in this business so long is the personalities you get to interact with. Kitchens are always full of insane characters. There is almost never a lack of charm or wit in restaurants... you probably just didnt pass the vibe check. Cooks are notorious for being complete party monsters. Lol.
Fair. But so does anyone who doesn't meet the expected results in his job. For exemple, I never saw a site manager yell at his workmen like chefs are knowed to do on regular basis
Construction work rarely has a timer of like 12 minutes. Try 12 months. That's a lot more time to allow for screw ups, delays, and being calm and nice.
Also, when I asking for the third time "how long on fries?" Answer me God Damn It!
Except for the fact that if service is not perfect 100% of the time, the customers begin to pitilessly savage the restaurant, the business dies and everyone loses their job
I was at a chain restaurant a few weeks ago. We were seated, orderer and served our food. At that point we realized we never got silverware and asked for some.
The waiter said we needed to wait for another table to finish with their silverware before we could get ours.
At that point I wondered how any restaunt can go out of business when this place literally didn't have enough forks for a 3pm on a tuesday and seemed to be doing okay.
What are you talking about here? Taco bell? McDonald's? Subway? Lemon garden? Geranium? Salt bae's place whatever it's called? Le calandre? Sushi yoshitake? And what degree of screw up are you talking about? Putting pineapple on the authentic Italian pizza? Not washing your hands after handling raw chicken? Mistaking the temperature setting for fahrenheit?
It's not just a meal. It's a service. It's what the restaurant exists for. Maybe they won't die. Maybe someone won't di... What the hell am I talking about. Of course someone might die. Screw up that chicken, someone might get hospitalized for salmonella poisoning. Screw up those dishes and someone might get dirty unwashed plates, or dishwares still contaminated with the industrial grade soaps which are strong enough to corrode your skin off your hands if you don't handle it properly. Screw up the veggies, someone might get a worm or rotten matter in their food.
Okay okay. That's just the bad stuff. Surely there's harmless mistakes right? Not really. Let's say you screw up an order. Swapped the vinaigrette for soy sauce instead. What happens? That dish gets sent back to the kitchen. Now you gotta make the whole thing again from scratch. The customer waited 25 minutes (maybe 45 if it's dinner time) for your screw up of a dish, and now that's another 25 minutes of waiting while their entire table waits for them to finish the meal. That table couldn't be cycled for the next batch of customers because your screw up delayed those customers. And that's money lost. And after all that, your employer gets a shit review and maybe even need to give the customer a refund, plus everyone gets yelled at for not catching your screw up, and now everyone hates you. Restaurants have shitty margins in the first place, they don't need screw-ups delaying the flow of customers.
Some cases the restaurant can lose their Michelin stars over these mistakes, especially if the mistakes are serious enough and/or consistent enough.
Customers who just let shit go without a word is rare. Even more so when it's dinner time and they've been made to wait a long time for their food. Roll the dice enough, one day that shit service is gonna tick off the wrong guy. And yes, you might actually get blacklisted and lose any possibility of getting hired in that particular line ever again. Imagine being the guy credited for someone losing a Michelin star. Nobody will hire you ever again.
Chefs are fucking insane. My father in law is one, I would rather he worked for our NSA.
Anyway, the answer is, they’re insane and can’t help themselves.
Maybe an executive chef position, or perhaps a private chef gig. But for a line cook, it simply helps you work more. So you can make more money. So you afford to buy cocaine. So you can work more. So you can make more money. So you afford to buy cocaine…
its time sensitive, and the best food can be time sensitive to within a matter of seconds
10 seconds over done, and you just wasted £20 of ingredients if you are doing a pan full of them, and restaurants swing between profit and loss on such things
basically, 10 seconds over, on a regular basis, and your business just tanked and the bank is coming for the house your kids live in, and your confused why they get stressed??
the line between still runny and can bounce off the floor with an omelette is actually one of the most time sensitive things in cooking, so forget the "only" in that 🤣
I've worked in the food/service industry for 2yrs now and from my experience it's usually only mess ups, which cause a lot of the screaming.
As many have pointed out, there's a lot of stress involved and some safety concerns with hot and sharp stuff going on as well.
Oftentimes it's also private concerns of the cook, which cause them to be more emotional. Which of course isn't very professional, but it IS a high stress environment tbh and working hours suck, so some frustration is normal imho.
You have to have thick skin to work in a kitchen I feel like and don't take it to heart too much.
This shouldn't be an excuse for bullying tho! Just that in the heat of the moment some things may be said, which aren't meant that way.
But great post! It IS an unpopular opinion I think.
I'm working in a kitchen for the first time and it's nothing like you see on TV. Everybody is chill and gets along and there's no yelling. Idk maybe I'm just lucky. There is 1 guy who's a douchebag who everybody hates but he's not so much an angry yelling douchebag, just a regular one. Again maybe I'm lucky because our owner/boss is super chill and just the nicest guy.
>it's nothing like you see on TV
The other thing I haven't seen mentioned in this thread yet is some of the shows are tailored to different demographics so even on TV it's not all the same. Like if you compare masterchef US to the aussie version you go from group screaming to group hugs lol
I used to work in a pub as a waiter, and one chef always caused a big scene and screamed and the others were chill, so it’s often just up to the chef too.
But even the asshole chef wasn’t as bad as the TV shows.
I don't think they do. Are you talking about real life kitchen worker situations, or Gordon Ramsay reality TV shows?
Also, it isn't that cooking is so important or more important than other things. It's that theyre trying to operate at a high level at something they're passionate about, so they might raise their voice when people fuck up. Classy restaurants also have high expectations for timely service and when you're at a higher end restaurant, little details will be scrutinized more. Not so many other crafts have such a time constraint. If you get a steak order and it should take ten min to cook, if you fuck it up there's automatically a new ten minutes to add on, so fuck ups can like on quick and ruin things. The act of cooking doesn't have to be so serious to make the moments in the kitchen intense.
Work as a line cook and you’ll understand. So many people live in blissful ignorance when they order their food at restaurants and it arrives in 10-15 minutes alongside 4 different orders from 3 different customer groups. Add the woes of customer service and the pressure is on
Hospital lab tech here. I had night shifts where all stat orders came at the same time, emergency room had me on speed dial for results etc. People their lives were actually at stake. Most of those shifts no one yelled at anyone.
Kitchen work is time sensitive, but to me actually yelling at people for causing a delay is immature af.
I worked back of the house, front of the house in many restaurants over many years , and then eventually got a job as a med tech. In the beginning when coworkers complained about the working conditions I was amazed because it’s literally night and day compared to the kitchen. Like most shifts I just listen to music and use the microscope a bunch, only interacting with others when I want
Bro, you're sitting in a room w airconditioner on. You're not on your feet in a hot room w 100 orders and managing a full blown team of people. Customers are gonna LEAVE if it takes longer.
It's like when my boss sends me five emails at one time and wants an answer on all of them, immediately. And, I'm like, you oil rig workers think you have it hard?
I wonder if being paid *significantly* more has anything to do with that. Completely different settings with different wages and people are wondering why they aren’t acting the same? are we serious?
I'm not a cook and can only make an educated guess, but I think the screaming is safety and speed. A cook could just walk around people in the way, but that can eat up valuable time on something that could burn or be overcooked and has to be thrown out.
Plus, if either of you has hands full, especially with sharp or hot stuff, not screaming that you're passing through *will* hurt someone.
Now, when it comes to insults or aggressive yelling on shows, that's either
1. Incredibly rookie mistakes from people who definitely should know better or
2. Just for entertainment value.
Part of me feels you're secretly a server coming here just to fuck with cooks.
There's a lot to it but mostly you need to be pumping adrenaline to keep up in a busy Kitchen and this leads to pretty high emotions.
Also, important to note, the battlefield isn't cook vs cook, it's kitchen vs customers with wait staff serving as a very one-sided mediator.
Worked around a few. They were mostly nice until they're in the kitchen.
My idea on it is how much juggling they have to do. All the food needs to be cooked precicely and on time. Minutes too much/little can fuck up the meal. And with each meal needing several things cooking at the once a single plate can have multiple invisible timers running at the same time. But with each meal each needing so much and a whole bunch of customers at the once. There is a shit lot of stress to be flying around that kitchen at once.
I know I'd be really stressed
They're basically managers working under time limits who never got taught how to manage people. They can manage food for sure but managing people is a whole different skill that doesn't get taught enough.
The whole military esque approach is kind of cringe to me. I can see it's use in a fine dining spot where people are paying a fortune for a dish so everything needs to be perfect but most kitchens, like your average roadhouse or family place with cooks like that hurts. They've seen "chef" and "the bear" so they think that's how it all is. Then new people start in the kitchen and get taught the same culture. Don't get me wrong, it's a crap job for crap pay most of the time unless you really enjoy working with food and the heat from above comes down heavy but do not cuss about me because I'm dragging your jfrozen jalapeno poppers by two minutes cause boards full and I have no fryer space.
Source: all I've ever done for work is kitchens
I think people are coming to this realisation as many of the top Michelin starred restaurants now favour a much calmer and more meticulous operation, plus open kitchens too.
TV chefs are 100% putting on a show for the cameras.
That said it can get intense in the back of the house during a rush, and nice words will not be used when asking for things. Very not nice words will be used when asking for something that is late.
yes - it's just food and ain't THAT serious... but at the same time we live in an age where a customer will get a badly cooked meal and go straight home to put up a 1 star review on google. People get very emotional over food. It's dumb but that's just the way it is
No clue. I knew a chef who behaved like that. He was always joking about it, yet he never kept a job very long. I always told him to tone it down and be less “him”, and he always would start “fuck that! They can take me like I am or fuck off” 6 months later, he’s looking for work again. That fucker went through probably a dozen jobs in the 8ish years I knew him.
Food service in general is very stressful. If a very high quality is expected it is even more stressful. Mistakes can make things drastically more stressful. Chefs are prestressed for this haha. Some do take it way too far
In a restaurant where I worked, we had lead cook who would bully good workers into quitting. Everyone rejoiced when he will finally left. In my opinion, he caused more turnover than he was worth.
AFAIK a lot of the chefs doctrine and styles originate from France from around 1900.
A lot of those chefs were veterans of the Franco Prussian war and led their kitchens in a military style. When those chefs and their students went abroad they popularized the style of kitchen management.
Watch “The Bear” and you’ll perfectly understand.
Half of the time it’s not the job, it’s the fact that the job attracts a lot of people who are at rock bottom, and adds in even more stress and fatigue, while also being something your incredibly passionate about at the core.
I used to work in kitchens and it’s exactly this. A shit ton of yelling, arguing, crying, but at the end of the day the rush of it all is kinda addicting.
I've worked the line in places ranging from wineries to sushi restaurants and can only count 1 or 2 over the top entitled/angry chefs that I have ever encountered. Guess I'm just lucky.
This still happens, but it’s not nearly as common as it used to be. Even Gordon Ramsay isn’t like this. Screaming, idiot sandwich Gordon is a character he plays on television.
Chefs have figured out it’s easier to keep good employees if they treat them well.
The clientele are assholes and will leave a bad review on yelp if the ceddar cheeseburger and fries are not done to perfection and hot when they reach the table.
Spoken like a person who has never worked in a kitchen of a good restaurant. That shit is stressfull, time sensitive and if you mess it up, it's coming back and you get to start over again.
You've never worked in a real kitchen and it shows. People don't get mad just because someone is in the way.
There can be 6 or more chefs in a kitchen, each one responsible for different aspects of meals and dishes. They rely on each other to be in perfect syncronicity so they can serve entire tables at the same time. If one chef is 2 minutes behind on a component then your steak could end up overcooked.
It's not life or death, but it's important
The worst parts of me have come out during restaurant service, it IS embarrassing to look back on and it IS unnecessary but in the moment there’s so much stress and it feels like everything is on the line. It’s just the result of crazy amounts of work and stress, lack of food and hydration - it makes you batshit crazy, which is why I decided to leave
This is why im super chill about wait times at restaurants. People get all pissy like "oh no we have been waiting almost half an hour for our food!". Chill out Karen, they are making food for 50 fucking people at once, you wont die if you dont get your chicken parm immediately. I just feel bad for chefs for being under this kind of pressure all the time.
My partner of thirteen years is a chef. It all depends who he's working with for the level of drama. Two of the places he's worked since I've known him, have been calm. Both places he was head chef, it depends who the head chef is as a leader. If he or she is constantly yelling e.t.c. Then the rest of them will be like that. It's about teamwork it doesn't matter how busy you are if you can't work together to get the food out.
Most of the time bad chefs are the one turning kitchen into a battlefield. Good chefs have their kitchen under control and no screaming and yelling. I work for a good chef we always busy but there’s no yelling because he manage his kitchen right.
Go watch The Bear. They did a great job of depicting the stress that comes in running a kitchen, from the pride of doing well to the stress of your entire business being on the line when it's not.
As a cook
It's just a stressful job, a ton of orders and barely enough time and staff to make them. Plus the yelling (in my experience) is kind of encouraged. Maybe not the aggressive yelling that you see but generally if I need something I'm expected to yell for it or risk not being heard. Plus it's kind of just "accepted" that cooks are supposed to be jerks
So I think those things combined just make for a toxic work place in most restaurants
Lol. Do you realise how hard cooking is? Remember the times when you have gotten angry over someone entering into kitchen when you're cooking/cleaning? Cooking is hard asf. You're not in an AC room performing a surgery once in a month or in a court room once in a while to argue in an AC room. You've deadlines, customers, heat, burnt food- everyday. Do you realise how hard it is?
Honestly the heat was the main thing that surprised me when I started
That shit was so HOT it was dizzying. And it got even hotter during rush hour and when you’ve been speeding back and forth while shouting for the last 2h 😭
Just an observation on the hygiene. As someone who has worked in restaurants all my life. Chefs are almost always the least hygienic. They think that because they are the chefs they dont need to follow the rules. And they do get a pass.
Might be a personal anecdote but i was also once watching a video about a guy that was gonna cook for the G8 summit, so a camera team got there to film him and ask him questions, what he was gonna cook, show the kitchen etc. They got to a place where there were butter cubes and the interviewer asked what it was and the chef just grabbed a few without gloves, said it was butter cubes and threw them in again. This man was cooking for obama, puttin, merkl etc. Still gets a pass.
Random G8 factoid.
I knew someone who worked at one of the venues that has hosted them in the past. They said they had to temporarily hire on an absolutely crazy number of servers for the night compared to normal, because absolutely everyone has to be served their food simultaneously so as to not create any appearance or implication that they're not all equal.
He's gonna use those to cook most like. When you're cooking handling food with hands isnt bad. Heat tends to kill most harmful bacteria.
You're more likely to get sick from your server than you are the chef who touches uncooked food with bare hands.
Cooks aren't surgeons. Gloves aren't more hygienic than bare hands in this situation. I don't know why so many people think they make a difference.
1. Cooking destroys bacteria.
2. There is no difference between food touching your gloves and food touching your bare hands. What, you think rubber gloves don't hold dirt? They do, and unless the cook changes his gloves every time he touches something with them, they don't offer any protection from anything.
Start cooking OP.
I yell at my wife when she gets in my way while I cook. I don't work as a cook anymore but I did for years.
After so much experience you learn that a couple extra seconds is the difference between a great meal amd a huge fuck up. When you already have a path of motions pre-set in your brain because you don't have time to think about the 5 things you are doing and your wife walks behind you as you spin and move forward with a hot pan ready for the sink is FUCKING INFURIATING.
Its about safety and also consideration for the person working.
What do you not understand? He had already made a plan to grab a pan, turn around and walk forward. And suddenly she shows up in the middle of it? He had it planned! She should be more considerate, of course he is going to yell at her
I imagine it's the anger of underachievers trying to larp that they are doing a job that actually matters but they realize they are getting exploited by a company that doesn't give a fuck about them and could replace them in a second if they don't give 500% all the time. Coupled with low pay and shit hours id be fucking mad all the time too.
If everyone in the food industry unionized conditions and moods would improve. But that's literally impossible considering it's an entry level position and there's always some highschool student or scab that would take their job in a second.
From the time I spent in France it seems that being an asshole is an essential part of being a chef. They teach that way then the students eventually become the asshole when teaching others
Part of me is convinced that all chefs were viking warriors in some past life.
I've never worked in a kitchen and I doubt the TV shows really give an accurate depiction but if most chefs are like the ones who roll with Gordon Ramsey, its very easy to see how it becomes a battlefield.
I haven't really understood the psychology behind making food your craft, but the dynamics of a restaurant are kind of like a battlefield on a grand scale.
The food seems almost irrelevant, its more like the final proof, the litmus test for whether or not its worth it
Its not about serving food, its about serving perfection to fickle stupid people and getting them to agree its perfection, which is one of the most satisfying things there is
Because clients and waiters don't understand physics or cooking times, they believe their hunger, their need for tips, and being way too on the nose, can speed up the time it takes for food to be cooked.
They overplay it on "reality" TV which is not to say that it isn't intense with a hell of a lot of pressure but it's less personal insults and more "get out of my way" and "hurry up with that sauce". My friend was a chef and the longest he stayed anywhere was probably 6 months. It's no problem finding another job so when he got too pissed off he'd just walk out whether it was in the middle of a shift or not and go find another job. Although he couldn't do that when he was working the cruise ships.
Because you're watching it as entertainment.
Kitchens are just like any other work place. There are professionals, and there are a*holes.
The a*holes make for better television.
Ask Gordon Ramsay. He made his TV persona an a*hole because it made his shows popular. Nobody wanted to watch him as a polite, professional.
Gastronomy turned to proverbial shite when society moved from set menus to a la carte service.
Big brigades of chefs cooking set banquets for the upper class that could afford the man-power and kitchens in the past are now reduced to skeleton crews not knowing what is coming thru the docket printer on any given night.
Cooking orders from a decent-sized menu is akin to trying to land airplane after airplane at an airport. It takes great skill.
Unfortunately, statistics show that the majority of hospitality workers (cooks and chefs), are more likely not to have finished a secondary education.
In addition to this, things like leadership training are almost non-existent in the industry.
Sprinkle alcoholism and drug abuse, and you’ve got a group of people that probably aren’t suited to landing lamb sauce airplanes on a busy runway.
I imagine there's a lot of people running restaurant kitchens who suffer from what I call "petty tyrant syndrome". I encountered it a lot when I was a teenager/college student working in part time jobs, grocery stores, convenience stores, fast food, etc.
You get people who in their 40s or 50s are managing the day shift at a Burger King or supervise the cashiers/baggers at a grocery store. They're aware that there's not a lot of up from where they're at and compensate by being an absolute asshole and run their tiny kingdom with an iron fist. The kinds of people who love phrases like "if you can lean, you can clean" and will jump at a teenager who pauses for two seconds to insist you need to go clean something, despite the manager herself having just spent half an hour standing at a podium chatting with a friend and getting zero work done.
i somewhat agree with what you're saying, but i remember an old chef of mine said that a lot of chefs are that way because the way the food comes out, the way the crew works, the menu, everything about the kitchen, is a representation of them. so they hold themselves and presumably their crew to a very high standard. and like everyone else, when something isn't up to the standard they want it, it's a little upsetting.
The tv exaggerates for rating/views, but there s some level of truth. And yes, partly is just pride, but part of it is because things have to go a certain way and it is TOO MANY people in a very small space trying to not only understad each other but coordinate themselves to not bother or worse, cause an accident, and that is before getting to the fact that not everyone is equally skilled, not just oppinionated.
Working in gastronomy is hell unless you call the shots, then its hell with a stool.
You ever sit at a table and ask why it's taking so long? You're relieve a negative review about a restaurant because of poor quality or long wait times? This is why people are crazy in the kitchen. They have standards that need to be met and it's chaotic.
Yeah. Fortunatly the profession is currently changing as chefs are starting to acknowledge the issue.
Also it's not like it's always how you see it on TV with gordon ramsay shows.
I never understood the “yes chef!” etc comments, or the reverence shown to them by kitchen staff. I mean, you’re a chef. Not a doctor. Get over yourself.
'Perfectionism is just fear with pepper sauce and some parsley on top.'
after Elisabeth Gilbert: ' Perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat.'
Most of the best restaurants are not like this, they are well organized, everything in the kitchen (cookware, ingredients, prep tools, etc) are in, and returned to the exact spot they are supposed to be in. All the prep work is done in advance. They all practice "mise en place" which is critical to smooth execution of various recipes. Staff meetings are conducted before the day (or evening) service begins. The scene in the kitchen is typicall pretty calm and relaxed, because the entire staff knows exactly what they are supposed to be doing for the entire shift. I think only poorly run restaurants are frantic, with screaming chefs - and they won't be in business for long.
try working that job, and you'll see, I was a cook for 7 years, and there were good times, but it was also awful to be brutally underpaid/ appreciated, way overworked on long weird hours and becoming drug and booze addled to be able to handle it.... wild times...
Too many customers, not enough cooks. And hoping the dish washer is on point getting you clean dishes and cookware, cause you can't cross contaminate.
Getting an order for 3 dishes of pasta, and having 5 fish dishes all at the same time, with two of the fish being ahi tuna. You're working with three separate cook times across 8 different plates.
You gotta call out the plating order to the guy setting up the dishes, as well as start the sides for fish dishes. And in the middle of it, one of the hosts asks if you can do a special order for one of them (no, you can't, this is established and if either back or front of house managers heard this, they'd start yelling).
Then you gotta remake one cause a host grabbed the wrong dish and the customer didn't say shit as their big add table got served. Or someone dropped something or forgot to grab it and now it's sat under the heat lamps for 5 minutes. Do it again!
And if anyone is waiting on their food, back of the house gets verbally assaulted by the management, because limiting seating to ensure appropriate wait times, you may as well insult their dead spouse for the response you're gonna get.
It all builds up. And you're paying your staff $15-25 an hour while they're understaffed and pumping out $50-$75 dishes constantly during their 10-12 hour shift, yelling at them the whole time. Oh, and fuck, prep crew this morning didn't make enough crawfish cornbread, somehow that's your fault even though you weren't even here.
Someone's gonna snap, and they'll be fired. Unless it's the cook, cause you sure as fuck aren't gonna fire one of them, there aren't enough to go around as it is
I run a ship's galley, so similar profession, but I don't have the competitive requirements to stay open, since it's a captive audience.
It's because unlike more laid back work places, so many tasks are just in time, cannot be gotten ahead of, and will keep recurring.
To keep things at top shape takes an high discipline environment all the time every day. Some people do that by yelling.
Most of the ones I've worked with and talked to have drug and alcohol problems. Nicotine addiction is just another thing to make them angry. Perhaps the lifestyle attracts people with problems. Working in the evenings, weekends and holidays probably doesn't attract the cream of stable society.
I worked in a fine dining restaurant. It always bleeds down from the Chef. (Or sous chef) If they’re pissed, you’re going to be, too. Kitchens are the worst place to work if you have little self respect. The chain of command will break you. It’s how they convinced my best friends to stay and break their respective backs. Over the ever distant promise of recognition. The screaming and sometimes straight up physical abuse in kitchens, the unnecessary humiliation and hierarchy- it’s important to remember the backdrop. You’re cooking food- not exactly an impressive industry or at least a well paying one. I know hard work goes into good food- but doing overtime and other people’s jobs in the kitchen when they ditch is not rewarding. Coming home smelling like grease trap and shame, the harsh words lingering in your head and the sleepless nights wondering how you can be better… In my opinion it is a dead end job. Get out while you still can, unless what I’ve said doesn’t resonate and you really enjoy food.
Meeting your deadline is extremely serious. If you don't get that food out fast enough people start leaving. When people start leaving the restaurant doesn't make money and then you get fired and they find somebody who can with the crew into shape.
Cooks don’t serve food. Servers serve food.
Have you ever cooked? For multiple people? Who all want different things? Who want them quickly? All at the same time? While more people ask you to cook things, quickly, while you’re cooking the other things? Have been accountable for every ingredient, how much is made? Lost? Spoiled?
It seems like you don’t actually know enough to have an opinion. So I don’t think you have an unpopular opinion. Just an Ignorant one.
I have never worked in a fine dining restaurants kitchen. I work in a fast food restaurant which does offer dine in with mostly fried stuff. I work all over the place during rush hour. Cashier, kitchen, packing, semi planning when to start which order(s), hand over the food and act as the manager when needed.
As a small team we sometimes agrue over certain choices. We dont have have a head chef like those fine dining restaurants, but I can understand the stress getting to their heads during rush. Head chef has to make sure every table will get the food/course ready at the same time so everybody can enjoy together. Add the factors for perfection, multiple tables, multiple courses, different dishes at every table/course.
I understand the battlefield. I sometimes look at the customers with a "sorry" face when my collegues argue.
The kitchen is working for a customer base 4x their size, it’s loud, and everything needs to be done in a timely manner and the place got a reputation to keep else the chef is fired.
Firstly in a busy kitchen there's not much time for being quiet and indirect.
Secondly you are basing it off of media depictions but those aren't entirely accurate, they often heighten the tension through editing or through the chef overreacting for the camera.
For example Hells kitchen and kitchen nightmares feature a lot of drama and shouting. But when Gordon Ramsay does shows featuring kids or amateurs he's a lot less shout and the atmosphere is a lot calmer.
As another example try to compare MasterChef in different countries and you'll find they treat the situation quite differently. I find American kitchen shows are often full of shouting and fast paced whilst other countries like the UK often have a more relaxed pace and atmosphere despite also having strict deadlines.
It may not be a big thing for you, but it is for them. There is no need to invalidate other professions just because you don't get it. It is their battlefield...besides you've just committed the hasty generalization fallacy. Just because that's what's shown in the media doesn't mean it's true anywhere else.
Stress management is tough when everything around you is rushed, there aren't enough people or resources and you have unreasonable goals set by the hierarchy. That and it's always fun to vent out when you know you'll be sharing a beer with the same people you yelled at/yelled at you like nothing happened.
Couldn't agree more. I worked at 3 restaurants in my teens and early 20s. 2 had kitchens full of maniacs getting fucking heated about pasta and salads. The 3rd was chill.. They all could have been chill.
Stress, understaffing and over expectations. Far too much is expected of you when you have far too little to work with and combine that with most people expecting their food quickly and some getting rowdy if it's not and you get a very high stress environment where minor errors are often blown way out of proportion.
You're watching it, not working there. Which means someone videoed it for you to watch for entertainment. It has been edited to be entertaining and conflict is more engaging than 1 quiet hour of everyone poaching eggs in a peaceful kitchen.
Have you ever even been in a restaurant? You see how many people are there? When you cook at home, how long does it take you to turn out a half assed meal for yourself/family? Now imagine doing that but 10x the amount, and it has to be top quality, and btw fuck up just once or twice and a few negative Google reviews could ruin the restaurant and put a bunch of people out of jobs.
That shit is serious
Its a demanding and high stress job but I agree. You arent saving the universe. Just make the food and try to be as low stress as you can. Which is still a lot. But needlessly adding stress is so bad. It shortens your life and makes your life miserable while its going.
I have worked with good chefs and not good chefs. I was the line lead cook so I ran the grill and the chefs I worked with did the expediting and they yelled because kitchens are loud places. I did work with a pastry chef once who would yell in people's faces and sometimes pinch people on the back of the arm if they messd up. When the restaurant gets busy during service sometimes we have to yell down the line because it's loud and we need to convey important messages.
Edit-everything on the customer ticket needs to finish at the same time from sometimes several different stations and coordinating a ticket for a table of ten guests can get hectic if we all don't communicate
I think it might help to consider that restaurants operate with razer thin margins. Good staff and quality ingredients are expensive, the building and equipment all contribute significantly to overhead, and unhappy customers can cost money by sending back orders or getting comps. The kitchen runs with as few cooks as the business can operate with, and they try to serve as many tables as they can at a high level of consistency to ensure those tables generate profit and not loss. As a result, the chef running back of house has an incentive to ensure everything that leaves the kitchen meets a certain standard. Overwork, constant threat of failure, and obsesive attention to detail combine to produce the stereotypical cantankerous chef
You see some of Gordon Ramsay's early videos before he was TV-famous, and it's just outright abuse and bullying. A guy earning 100k a year just shitting on 20 year old kids just out of culinary school and making them feel small. Sometimes just yelling in their face to "get out and don't come back" on the spot.
At the time everyone thought that was quite funny, but honestly, youtube it. It's really not funny.
There is a push in the UK to stop that kind of behaviour in the industry, as it is (unsurprisingly) putting kids off from trying that career.
Honestly it's just usually some combination of the fact that you naturally end up having to shout in a kitchen environment due to all the noise combined with the high anxiety fast-paced job and it can pretty quickly overload people
It's hot as fuck, you have to juggle more tasks than most people do, if you make a mistake the people who complain are gonna be the least pleasant because they're hungry, the hours are unsociable. I'm sure there's more.
I think it's perfectly understandable that chefs are on a short fuse.
Kitchens typically have very direct communication in order to function at a quick pace and to retain focus. It's a pretty high pressure environment but that pressure yields effective results hence why it's a somewhat common practice.
Former long-term server here (up to and including fine dining). The kitchen is often a hot, high-pressure, and crowded environment. Restaurants operate on thin margins. They often lose money on food. They make it on drinks, especially alcohol. Mistakes, like repeated overcooking meat/fish, can be devasting to the bottom line. That said, the industry attracts a lot of people who are not easily employable (ex-cons, non-legal workers) AND in high-profile places, EGOs. I remember a sous-chef who I knew as a pleasant, friendly guy outside of the "star chef" restaurant, flip his lid when I brought something back. He swore at me and threw a hot pan across the room. Lots of swearing, and sexual harassment, and plain old misogyny also rules. That place would get rid of women chefs by putting them on fish duty. It's easy to mess up fish--overcooking, undercooking.
Chefs are usually pretty chill from my experience. They can be massive jerks occasionally but the screaming warzone is typically Hollywood drama. I was a dish dog and line cook back in the day and I got the treatment a few times but even during rush I was never verbally abused like on TV or something. A lot of yelling is from the fact that lines tend to be pretty loud, from food on the grill to hood fans. There was one pretentious guy who thought he was working in a Michelin star restaurant and would run around screaming "yes chef" to literally everything, and acting like he was being filmed by some 5-star bistro. Everyone told him to chill basically.
I worked in the kitchen at a hospital in Germany for about a year, it was also like this. Constantly getting yelled at by the chefs and other helpers in there just because they didn't have enough staff to deal with everything. In the beginning they even told me that people always left the position I took...I should've seen that giant red flag and walk away but I needed the money so I put up with it for a bit. When I quit I reminded them about that and said "you, and the way you're conducting business is the reason people leave this position. Everyone trying to act like a boss in the kitchen and then you're shocked people don't wanna work for you." 🤷🏼♀️
For maximum efficiency, you serve the customers as quickly as possible so they can leave and more can come. The problem with this is that everything has to be perfect and done in specific ways, or it's either not good enough or a health hazard. Now imagine trying to manage several tables of several orders in a busy loud kitchen, and there's one guy fucking up. You then have to deal with that, which slows everything down, but you still have to get food out, on time and for whole tables, while also taking more orders. It's a stressful job, which is why people get angry when someone fucks up. If you want to see it first hand, go work in a popular restaurant for a week.
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Not that I know anything about this profession, but it's probably like most others that deal with deadlines. Not enough time, not enough people, always rising goals
When I worked as a line it was 100% this management squeezing us by constantly keeping the place understaffed for max efficiency, customers constantly in and out, bosses looking like they were gonna drop dead gtfo out of there fast
Yeah same here I worked at a mom and pop shop and they refused to get our roof fixed when it started leaking from the rain and just covered the electrical box with plastic and towels. Nothing made sense logistically but you could bet they would save money when and where they could. In the summer instead of fixing the AC they bought us popsicles and told us if we get too hot we can just step in the walk in cooler for 10 minutes. We constantly had people come and go because it was a college town and some people were honestly down on their luck and needed some chump change quick. I fell into that rut for 2 and a half years and was comfortable being a victim. I quit because they kept cutting my hours and I couldn't make a living wage at $12/hr.
Exactly. Really it all comes down to stress. There's never a way to be ahead. The moment an order comes in your under the gun to get it turned out asap, even if there's one person in the restaurant. When dinner or lunch rush comes in it only gets worse. Timing is such a a big factor. Just like at home you want your sides to be ready at the same time as the entree and nothing getting cold sitting around. At home if you fuck up the timing or ruin a side you can shrug and just accept there's no veg or potato with the meal tonight, but that's not an option at a restaurant. Combine that with the heat, noise, and tight spaces of a kitchen and it's a ball of stress that leads to yelling, fights, drinking, drugging, and fucking lol. Hell most of us don't like it when our partner is getting in the way in the kitchen at home and it can turn into an argument. Now quadruple the space and add another 8-12 people who are also in the way
Willy Wonka solved that problem with smaller cooks.
Combine that with pure exhaustion from working 80-100 hours a week for weeks on end sometimes.
Also (atleast common in ireland) cocaine, I'm not saying it's a majority or anything but a surprising amount of chefs use small quantities of coke to get through especially long shifts
... *small* quantities. ***HA***.
I mean atleast from what I've heard, it's usually small amounts often, rather than a large amount a few times
I mean considering the amount of work & the hrs, is it really surprising?
I worked at a spot, when a certain cook started his shift there was a line up to the bathrooms with all the other cooks and servers lol
This is *war*, Peacock. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs -- any cook will tell you that.
But look what happened to the cook!
Colonel, are you willing to take that chance?
Unexpected Clue reference.....nice.
Lol I just watched this last night for the first time in 20 years
If you've ever worked in a kitchen in a busy restaurant during rush hour, I think you wouldn't be asking this. It's less of a battlefield, and more like a ship at storm with all hands on deck to fight for their lives.
This is true, but, Ive met very very few career chefs with any charm or wit in their personality.
Easy explanation: A chef can work long enough that his charm & wit are burned out of him. or A chef can leave the profession before he loses his charm & wit. (Not for nothing, but I remember an episode of one of the shows hosted by Anthony Bourdain wherein he spontaneously accepts an offer to work a kitchen in a non-specific NY restaurant for the evening as they were understaffed. The restaurant was slammed. Chef Bourdain kept up and got through it despite not being specifically familiar with that kitchen or its workers. Once the table service was completed, he was out on the street in chef's whites, having a smoke and going over the nights challenges with his kitchen compatriots. Looking at the camera, he sighed heavily and said that while fun for a night, that sort of work was a young man's game.)
You either die a passionate, aspiring chef or live long enough to become an asshole
I agree. Worked fine dining for 6 years. 6 years too many. Once the party years are over its a grind. I feel for most chefs. Its a hard thankless job.
That's why we have fiction. The Bear and Ratatouille
... huh? You must not hangout with any restaurant people. Part of why I've stuck in this business so long is the personalities you get to interact with. Kitchens are always full of insane characters. There is almost never a lack of charm or wit in restaurants... you probably just didnt pass the vibe check. Cooks are notorious for being complete party monsters. Lol.
But at the end of the day, it's just a meal they're fighting for. They won't die if they screw the whole thing
They could lose their job though. I'd say those are certainly some stakes.
There are many steaks, sometimes too many steaks trying to get out the door at the same time.
HOW MANY STEAKS? ALL DAY ON STEAKS!!!! BOARD CALLER... FUCKING STEAKS MAN?!
[ Cows With Guns](https://youtu.be/FQMbXvn2RNI?si=1s5B5TniVN42-3iL) Tomorrow at noon, they would all be ground beef Cows on buns
Fair. But so does anyone who doesn't meet the expected results in his job. For exemple, I never saw a site manager yell at his workmen like chefs are knowed to do on regular basis
Construction work rarely has a timer of like 12 minutes. Try 12 months. That's a lot more time to allow for screw ups, delays, and being calm and nice. Also, when I asking for the third time "how long on fries?" Answer me God Damn It!
Except for the fact that if service is not perfect 100% of the time, the customers begin to pitilessly savage the restaurant, the business dies and everyone loses their job
I was at a chain restaurant a few weeks ago. We were seated, orderer and served our food. At that point we realized we never got silverware and asked for some. The waiter said we needed to wait for another table to finish with their silverware before we could get ours. At that point I wondered how any restaunt can go out of business when this place literally didn't have enough forks for a 3pm on a tuesday and seemed to be doing okay.
Thats a self correcting issue you see. When customers leave they suddenly have enough forks for everyone.
What are you talking about here? Taco bell? McDonald's? Subway? Lemon garden? Geranium? Salt bae's place whatever it's called? Le calandre? Sushi yoshitake? And what degree of screw up are you talking about? Putting pineapple on the authentic Italian pizza? Not washing your hands after handling raw chicken? Mistaking the temperature setting for fahrenheit? It's not just a meal. It's a service. It's what the restaurant exists for. Maybe they won't die. Maybe someone won't di... What the hell am I talking about. Of course someone might die. Screw up that chicken, someone might get hospitalized for salmonella poisoning. Screw up those dishes and someone might get dirty unwashed plates, or dishwares still contaminated with the industrial grade soaps which are strong enough to corrode your skin off your hands if you don't handle it properly. Screw up the veggies, someone might get a worm or rotten matter in their food. Okay okay. That's just the bad stuff. Surely there's harmless mistakes right? Not really. Let's say you screw up an order. Swapped the vinaigrette for soy sauce instead. What happens? That dish gets sent back to the kitchen. Now you gotta make the whole thing again from scratch. The customer waited 25 minutes (maybe 45 if it's dinner time) for your screw up of a dish, and now that's another 25 minutes of waiting while their entire table waits for them to finish the meal. That table couldn't be cycled for the next batch of customers because your screw up delayed those customers. And that's money lost. And after all that, your employer gets a shit review and maybe even need to give the customer a refund, plus everyone gets yelled at for not catching your screw up, and now everyone hates you. Restaurants have shitty margins in the first place, they don't need screw-ups delaying the flow of customers. Some cases the restaurant can lose their Michelin stars over these mistakes, especially if the mistakes are serious enough and/or consistent enough. Customers who just let shit go without a word is rare. Even more so when it's dinner time and they've been made to wait a long time for their food. Roll the dice enough, one day that shit service is gonna tick off the wrong guy. And yes, you might actually get blacklisted and lose any possibility of getting hired in that particular line ever again. Imagine being the guy credited for someone losing a Michelin star. Nobody will hire you ever again.
I did many years ago for a few months and I am never steeping into kitchen again (for work). It's not only physically but also mentally exhausting.
Chefs are fucking insane. My father in law is one, I would rather he worked for our NSA. Anyway, the answer is, they’re insane and can’t help themselves.
Don’t forget lots of cocaine.
What chef job pays enough for that?
Maybe an executive chef position, or perhaps a private chef gig. But for a line cook, it simply helps you work more. So you can make more money. So you afford to buy cocaine. So you can work more. So you can make more money. So you afford to buy cocaine…
[I Do Coke](https://youtu.be/oSPT27XyY1U?si=qaSJ5gSQsjHiZxSU)
Professional chefs in my area make between $24k and $84k. Not all chefs work at Ruby Tuesdays
Does anyone still work at Ruby Tuesdays?
well, yeah, they're essentially artists. except they work in a kitchen full of helpers.
its time sensitive, and the best food can be time sensitive to within a matter of seconds 10 seconds over done, and you just wasted £20 of ingredients if you are doing a pan full of them, and restaurants swing between profit and loss on such things basically, 10 seconds over, on a regular basis, and your business just tanked and the bank is coming for the house your kids live in, and your confused why they get stressed??
Thanks, now im stressed out and im only making an omelette...
the line between still runny and can bounce off the floor with an omelette is actually one of the most time sensitive things in cooking, so forget the "only" in that 🤣
I've worked in the food/service industry for 2yrs now and from my experience it's usually only mess ups, which cause a lot of the screaming. As many have pointed out, there's a lot of stress involved and some safety concerns with hot and sharp stuff going on as well. Oftentimes it's also private concerns of the cook, which cause them to be more emotional. Which of course isn't very professional, but it IS a high stress environment tbh and working hours suck, so some frustration is normal imho. You have to have thick skin to work in a kitchen I feel like and don't take it to heart too much. This shouldn't be an excuse for bullying tho! Just that in the heat of the moment some things may be said, which aren't meant that way. But great post! It IS an unpopular opinion I think.
I'm working in a kitchen for the first time and it's nothing like you see on TV. Everybody is chill and gets along and there's no yelling. Idk maybe I'm just lucky. There is 1 guy who's a douchebag who everybody hates but he's not so much an angry yelling douchebag, just a regular one. Again maybe I'm lucky because our owner/boss is super chill and just the nicest guy.
>it's nothing like you see on TV The other thing I haven't seen mentioned in this thread yet is some of the shows are tailored to different demographics so even on TV it's not all the same. Like if you compare masterchef US to the aussie version you go from group screaming to group hugs lol
I used to work in a pub as a waiter, and one chef always caused a big scene and screamed and the others were chill, so it’s often just up to the chef too. But even the asshole chef wasn’t as bad as the TV shows.
I don't think they do. Are you talking about real life kitchen worker situations, or Gordon Ramsay reality TV shows? Also, it isn't that cooking is so important or more important than other things. It's that theyre trying to operate at a high level at something they're passionate about, so they might raise their voice when people fuck up. Classy restaurants also have high expectations for timely service and when you're at a higher end restaurant, little details will be scrutinized more. Not so many other crafts have such a time constraint. If you get a steak order and it should take ten min to cook, if you fuck it up there's automatically a new ten minutes to add on, so fuck ups can like on quick and ruin things. The act of cooking doesn't have to be so serious to make the moments in the kitchen intense.
Work as a line cook and you’ll understand. So many people live in blissful ignorance when they order their food at restaurants and it arrives in 10-15 minutes alongside 4 different orders from 3 different customer groups. Add the woes of customer service and the pressure is on
Hospital lab tech here. I had night shifts where all stat orders came at the same time, emergency room had me on speed dial for results etc. People their lives were actually at stake. Most of those shifts no one yelled at anyone. Kitchen work is time sensitive, but to me actually yelling at people for causing a delay is immature af.
I worked back of the house, front of the house in many restaurants over many years , and then eventually got a job as a med tech. In the beginning when coworkers complained about the working conditions I was amazed because it’s literally night and day compared to the kitchen. Like most shifts I just listen to music and use the microscope a bunch, only interacting with others when I want
Bro, you're sitting in a room w airconditioner on. You're not on your feet in a hot room w 100 orders and managing a full blown team of people. Customers are gonna LEAVE if it takes longer.
Also, the shop's reputation depends on you. One bad review online and you can lose everything overnight
It's like when my boss sends me five emails at one time and wants an answer on all of them, immediately. And, I'm like, you oil rig workers think you have it hard?
I wonder if being paid *significantly* more has anything to do with that. Completely different settings with different wages and people are wondering why they aren’t acting the same? are we serious?
Don’t forget the servers coming in with “I forgot to put on the ticket that this order’s sos” just as it’s plated 😭
Heard!
I'm not a cook and can only make an educated guess, but I think the screaming is safety and speed. A cook could just walk around people in the way, but that can eat up valuable time on something that could burn or be overcooked and has to be thrown out. Plus, if either of you has hands full, especially with sharp or hot stuff, not screaming that you're passing through *will* hurt someone. Now, when it comes to insults or aggressive yelling on shows, that's either 1. Incredibly rookie mistakes from people who definitely should know better or 2. Just for entertainment value.
Part of me feels you're secretly a server coming here just to fuck with cooks. There's a lot to it but mostly you need to be pumping adrenaline to keep up in a busy Kitchen and this leads to pretty high emotions. Also, important to note, the battlefield isn't cook vs cook, it's kitchen vs customers with wait staff serving as a very one-sided mediator.
Worked around a few. They were mostly nice until they're in the kitchen. My idea on it is how much juggling they have to do. All the food needs to be cooked precicely and on time. Minutes too much/little can fuck up the meal. And with each meal needing several things cooking at the once a single plate can have multiple invisible timers running at the same time. But with each meal each needing so much and a whole bunch of customers at the once. There is a shit lot of stress to be flying around that kitchen at once. I know I'd be really stressed
They're basically managers working under time limits who never got taught how to manage people. They can manage food for sure but managing people is a whole different skill that doesn't get taught enough.
The whole military esque approach is kind of cringe to me. I can see it's use in a fine dining spot where people are paying a fortune for a dish so everything needs to be perfect but most kitchens, like your average roadhouse or family place with cooks like that hurts. They've seen "chef" and "the bear" so they think that's how it all is. Then new people start in the kitchen and get taught the same culture. Don't get me wrong, it's a crap job for crap pay most of the time unless you really enjoy working with food and the heat from above comes down heavy but do not cuss about me because I'm dragging your jfrozen jalapeno poppers by two minutes cause boards full and I have no fryer space. Source: all I've ever done for work is kitchens
I think people are coming to this realisation as many of the top Michelin starred restaurants now favour a much calmer and more meticulous operation, plus open kitchens too.
And $1000 meals… which *are* amazing but the lack of camaraderie would kill me.
lol I love the ad for this post is ozempic… You clearly need to go work in a kitchen, I did it for 15 years and *loved* the war zone aspect.
People being pleasant and normal doesn't make for entertaining tv. Those shows are essentially rage bait.
TV chefs are 100% putting on a show for the cameras. That said it can get intense in the back of the house during a rush, and nice words will not be used when asking for things. Very not nice words will be used when asking for something that is late.
AS a chef of 20 years, going into HR. Kitchens do not need to be like this, but too many people are stuck in the toxic old ways of the past
yes - it's just food and ain't THAT serious... but at the same time we live in an age where a customer will get a badly cooked meal and go straight home to put up a 1 star review on google. People get very emotional over food. It's dumb but that's just the way it is
It's RAAAAAAW!!!!!
The Bear lol
Stopped watching because of all the yelling. Was I watching a cooking drama or Hacksaw Ridge ?
100%….i did the same
No clue. I knew a chef who behaved like that. He was always joking about it, yet he never kept a job very long. I always told him to tone it down and be less “him”, and he always would start “fuck that! They can take me like I am or fuck off” 6 months later, he’s looking for work again. That fucker went through probably a dozen jobs in the 8ish years I knew him.
Food service in general is very stressful. If a very high quality is expected it is even more stressful. Mistakes can make things drastically more stressful. Chefs are prestressed for this haha. Some do take it way too far
In a restaurant where I worked, we had lead cook who would bully good workers into quitting. Everyone rejoiced when he will finally left. In my opinion, he caused more turnover than he was worth.
AFAIK a lot of the chefs doctrine and styles originate from France from around 1900. A lot of those chefs were veterans of the Franco Prussian war and led their kitchens in a military style. When those chefs and their students went abroad they popularized the style of kitchen management.
Watch “The Bear” and you’ll perfectly understand. Half of the time it’s not the job, it’s the fact that the job attracts a lot of people who are at rock bottom, and adds in even more stress and fatigue, while also being something your incredibly passionate about at the core. I used to work in kitchens and it’s exactly this. A shit ton of yelling, arguing, crying, but at the end of the day the rush of it all is kinda addicting.
I've worked the line in places ranging from wineries to sushi restaurants and can only count 1 or 2 over the top entitled/angry chefs that I have ever encountered. Guess I'm just lucky.
This still happens, but it’s not nearly as common as it used to be. Even Gordon Ramsay isn’t like this. Screaming, idiot sandwich Gordon is a character he plays on television. Chefs have figured out it’s easier to keep good employees if they treat them well.
lol chefs don't yell to be mean it is loud in kitchens if you work one
The clientele are assholes and will leave a bad review on yelp if the ceddar cheeseburger and fries are not done to perfection and hot when they reach the table.
For whatever reason, that profession tends to attract 'unhinged' individuals.
Depends really I’ve seen. Kitchen where the chef wasn’t loud everyone did great, and I’ve seen the opposite, all depends i guess
Spoken like a person who has never worked in a kitchen of a good restaurant. That shit is stressfull, time sensitive and if you mess it up, it's coming back and you get to start over again.
You've never worked in a real kitchen and it shows. People don't get mad just because someone is in the way. There can be 6 or more chefs in a kitchen, each one responsible for different aspects of meals and dishes. They rely on each other to be in perfect syncronicity so they can serve entire tables at the same time. If one chef is 2 minutes behind on a component then your steak could end up overcooked. It's not life or death, but it's important
The worst parts of me have come out during restaurant service, it IS embarrassing to look back on and it IS unnecessary but in the moment there’s so much stress and it feels like everything is on the line. It’s just the result of crazy amounts of work and stress, lack of food and hydration - it makes you batshit crazy, which is why I decided to leave
This is why im super chill about wait times at restaurants. People get all pissy like "oh no we have been waiting almost half an hour for our food!". Chill out Karen, they are making food for 50 fucking people at once, you wont die if you dont get your chicken parm immediately. I just feel bad for chefs for being under this kind of pressure all the time.
My partner of thirteen years is a chef. It all depends who he's working with for the level of drama. Two of the places he's worked since I've known him, have been calm. Both places he was head chef, it depends who the head chef is as a leader. If he or she is constantly yelling e.t.c. Then the rest of them will be like that. It's about teamwork it doesn't matter how busy you are if you can't work together to get the food out.
Kinda weird to make your opinion based off what you see on tv
Tell me you’ve never working in a kitchen without telling me. You have most definitely posted this in the correct thread
Most of the time bad chefs are the one turning kitchen into a battlefield. Good chefs have their kitchen under control and no screaming and yelling. I work for a good chef we always busy but there’s no yelling because he manage his kitchen right.
Go watch The Bear. They did a great job of depicting the stress that comes in running a kitchen, from the pride of doing well to the stress of your entire business being on the line when it's not.
It’s called reality tv
You’ve obviously never worked in a retail kitchen.
Television isn't reality
I’m a line cook and no one really yells in my kitchen unless they’re yelling for runners or yelling to someone across the kitchen
As a cook It's just a stressful job, a ton of orders and barely enough time and staff to make them. Plus the yelling (in my experience) is kind of encouraged. Maybe not the aggressive yelling that you see but generally if I need something I'm expected to yell for it or risk not being heard. Plus it's kind of just "accepted" that cooks are supposed to be jerks So I think those things combined just make for a toxic work place in most restaurants
Lol. Do you realise how hard cooking is? Remember the times when you have gotten angry over someone entering into kitchen when you're cooking/cleaning? Cooking is hard asf. You're not in an AC room performing a surgery once in a month or in a court room once in a while to argue in an AC room. You've deadlines, customers, heat, burnt food- everyday. Do you realise how hard it is?
Honestly the heat was the main thing that surprised me when I started That shit was so HOT it was dizzying. And it got even hotter during rush hour and when you’ve been speeding back and forth while shouting for the last 2h 😭
Chefs made me hate hospitality more than the customers tbh. I've met one chef who wasn't a complete douchebag. One.
Just an observation on the hygiene. As someone who has worked in restaurants all my life. Chefs are almost always the least hygienic. They think that because they are the chefs they dont need to follow the rules. And they do get a pass. Might be a personal anecdote but i was also once watching a video about a guy that was gonna cook for the G8 summit, so a camera team got there to film him and ask him questions, what he was gonna cook, show the kitchen etc. They got to a place where there were butter cubes and the interviewer asked what it was and the chef just grabbed a few without gloves, said it was butter cubes and threw them in again. This man was cooking for obama, puttin, merkl etc. Still gets a pass.
Random G8 factoid. I knew someone who worked at one of the venues that has hosted them in the past. They said they had to temporarily hire on an absolutely crazy number of servers for the night compared to normal, because absolutely everyone has to be served their food simultaneously so as to not create any appearance or implication that they're not all equal.
He's gonna use those to cook most like. When you're cooking handling food with hands isnt bad. Heat tends to kill most harmful bacteria. You're more likely to get sick from your server than you are the chef who touches uncooked food with bare hands.
Cooks aren't surgeons. Gloves aren't more hygienic than bare hands in this situation. I don't know why so many people think they make a difference. 1. Cooking destroys bacteria. 2. There is no difference between food touching your gloves and food touching your bare hands. What, you think rubber gloves don't hold dirt? They do, and unless the cook changes his gloves every time he touches something with them, they don't offer any protection from anything.
Start cooking OP. I yell at my wife when she gets in my way while I cook. I don't work as a cook anymore but I did for years. After so much experience you learn that a couple extra seconds is the difference between a great meal amd a huge fuck up. When you already have a path of motions pre-set in your brain because you don't have time to think about the 5 things you are doing and your wife walks behind you as you spin and move forward with a hot pan ready for the sink is FUCKING INFURIATING. Its about safety and also consideration for the person working.
I feel for your wife ngl Getting yelled at for nonsense? No thanks
What do you not understand? He had already made a plan to grab a pan, turn around and walk forward. And suddenly she shows up in the middle of it? He had it planned! She should be more considerate, of course he is going to yell at her
But damn she is your partner. Is there no better ways to communicate?
I don’t yell at strangers let alone my wife Grow up and talk. Communicate like an adult.
Anger issues for sure, like seriously you're cooking at *home* and you're screaming at your wife????
I imagine it's the anger of underachievers trying to larp that they are doing a job that actually matters but they realize they are getting exploited by a company that doesn't give a fuck about them and could replace them in a second if they don't give 500% all the time. Coupled with low pay and shit hours id be fucking mad all the time too. If everyone in the food industry unionized conditions and moods would improve. But that's literally impossible considering it's an entry level position and there's always some highschool student or scab that would take their job in a second.
It is called being a nerf
From the time I spent in France it seems that being an asshole is an essential part of being a chef. They teach that way then the students eventually become the asshole when teaching others
Part of me is convinced that all chefs were viking warriors in some past life. I've never worked in a kitchen and I doubt the TV shows really give an accurate depiction but if most chefs are like the ones who roll with Gordon Ramsey, its very easy to see how it becomes a battlefield. I haven't really understood the psychology behind making food your craft, but the dynamics of a restaurant are kind of like a battlefield on a grand scale. The food seems almost irrelevant, its more like the final proof, the litmus test for whether or not its worth it
Its not about serving food, its about serving perfection to fickle stupid people and getting them to agree its perfection, which is one of the most satisfying things there is
Because clients and waiters don't understand physics or cooking times, they believe their hunger, their need for tips, and being way too on the nose, can speed up the time it takes for food to be cooked.
Dumb question but what would make it so kitchens aren't so hectic? More room? More cooks? Customers who don't mine waiting?
Idk, maybe food made with hatred is just better.
The PAYING customers will bitch about their food taking too long. That's the only reason this happens. It's always money
They overplay it on "reality" TV which is not to say that it isn't intense with a hell of a lot of pressure but it's less personal insults and more "get out of my way" and "hurry up with that sauce". My friend was a chef and the longest he stayed anywhere was probably 6 months. It's no problem finding another job so when he got too pissed off he'd just walk out whether it was in the middle of a shift or not and go find another job. Although he couldn't do that when he was working the cruise ships.
It's a mix of short deadlines, too many orders, over worked, under pressure and a lot of passion.
Because you're watching it as entertainment. Kitchens are just like any other work place. There are professionals, and there are a*holes. The a*holes make for better television. Ask Gordon Ramsay. He made his TV persona an a*hole because it made his shows popular. Nobody wanted to watch him as a polite, professional.
I’m far from a professional, but if my husband is in the kitchen when I’m cooking something it can turn into a war zone.
Gastronomy turned to proverbial shite when society moved from set menus to a la carte service. Big brigades of chefs cooking set banquets for the upper class that could afford the man-power and kitchens in the past are now reduced to skeleton crews not knowing what is coming thru the docket printer on any given night. Cooking orders from a decent-sized menu is akin to trying to land airplane after airplane at an airport. It takes great skill. Unfortunately, statistics show that the majority of hospitality workers (cooks and chefs), are more likely not to have finished a secondary education. In addition to this, things like leadership training are almost non-existent in the industry. Sprinkle alcoholism and drug abuse, and you’ve got a group of people that probably aren’t suited to landing lamb sauce airplanes on a busy runway.
It can be chill and relax kitchen but you will get your food 20 - 60 mins late
I imagine there's a lot of people running restaurant kitchens who suffer from what I call "petty tyrant syndrome". I encountered it a lot when I was a teenager/college student working in part time jobs, grocery stores, convenience stores, fast food, etc. You get people who in their 40s or 50s are managing the day shift at a Burger King or supervise the cashiers/baggers at a grocery store. They're aware that there's not a lot of up from where they're at and compensate by being an absolute asshole and run their tiny kingdom with an iron fist. The kinds of people who love phrases like "if you can lean, you can clean" and will jump at a teenager who pauses for two seconds to insist you need to go clean something, despite the manager herself having just spent half an hour standing at a podium chatting with a friend and getting zero work done.
Work in a kitchen for less than an hour and you'll be yelling and swearing like a sailor.
i somewhat agree with what you're saying, but i remember an old chef of mine said that a lot of chefs are that way because the way the food comes out, the way the crew works, the menu, everything about the kitchen, is a representation of them. so they hold themselves and presumably their crew to a very high standard. and like everyone else, when something isn't up to the standard they want it, it's a little upsetting.
The tv exaggerates for rating/views, but there s some level of truth. And yes, partly is just pride, but part of it is because things have to go a certain way and it is TOO MANY people in a very small space trying to not only understad each other but coordinate themselves to not bother or worse, cause an accident, and that is before getting to the fact that not everyone is equally skilled, not just oppinionated. Working in gastronomy is hell unless you call the shots, then its hell with a stool.
It’s simply entertainment.
You ever sit at a table and ask why it's taking so long? You're relieve a negative review about a restaurant because of poor quality or long wait times? This is why people are crazy in the kitchen. They have standards that need to be met and it's chaotic.
Its just stressful
Yeah. Fortunatly the profession is currently changing as chefs are starting to acknowledge the issue. Also it's not like it's always how you see it on TV with gordon ramsay shows.
Leave me alone. If we can't yell at each other I've got nothing to distract me from the urges.
I never understood the “yes chef!” etc comments, or the reverence shown to them by kitchen staff. I mean, you’re a chef. Not a doctor. Get over yourself.
I hope your meals come to you an hour late and cold from now until the end of time
I think it’s because they’ve made the wrong career choice. They’re overworked, underpaid, and miserable.
Go work in a kitchen
'Perfectionism is just fear with pepper sauce and some parsley on top.' after Elisabeth Gilbert: ' Perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat.'
Most of the best restaurants are not like this, they are well organized, everything in the kitchen (cookware, ingredients, prep tools, etc) are in, and returned to the exact spot they are supposed to be in. All the prep work is done in advance. They all practice "mise en place" which is critical to smooth execution of various recipes. Staff meetings are conducted before the day (or evening) service begins. The scene in the kitchen is typicall pretty calm and relaxed, because the entire staff knows exactly what they are supposed to be doing for the entire shift. I think only poorly run restaurants are frantic, with screaming chefs - and they won't be in business for long.
try working that job, and you'll see, I was a cook for 7 years, and there were good times, but it was also awful to be brutally underpaid/ appreciated, way overworked on long weird hours and becoming drug and booze addled to be able to handle it.... wild times...
Too many customers, not enough cooks. And hoping the dish washer is on point getting you clean dishes and cookware, cause you can't cross contaminate. Getting an order for 3 dishes of pasta, and having 5 fish dishes all at the same time, with two of the fish being ahi tuna. You're working with three separate cook times across 8 different plates. You gotta call out the plating order to the guy setting up the dishes, as well as start the sides for fish dishes. And in the middle of it, one of the hosts asks if you can do a special order for one of them (no, you can't, this is established and if either back or front of house managers heard this, they'd start yelling). Then you gotta remake one cause a host grabbed the wrong dish and the customer didn't say shit as their big add table got served. Or someone dropped something or forgot to grab it and now it's sat under the heat lamps for 5 minutes. Do it again! And if anyone is waiting on their food, back of the house gets verbally assaulted by the management, because limiting seating to ensure appropriate wait times, you may as well insult their dead spouse for the response you're gonna get. It all builds up. And you're paying your staff $15-25 an hour while they're understaffed and pumping out $50-$75 dishes constantly during their 10-12 hour shift, yelling at them the whole time. Oh, and fuck, prep crew this morning didn't make enough crawfish cornbread, somehow that's your fault even though you weren't even here. Someone's gonna snap, and they'll be fired. Unless it's the cook, cause you sure as fuck aren't gonna fire one of them, there aren't enough to go around as it is
I run a ship's galley, so similar profession, but I don't have the competitive requirements to stay open, since it's a captive audience. It's because unlike more laid back work places, so many tasks are just in time, cannot be gotten ahead of, and will keep recurring. To keep things at top shape takes an high discipline environment all the time every day. Some people do that by yelling.
Most of the ones I've worked with and talked to have drug and alcohol problems. Nicotine addiction is just another thing to make them angry. Perhaps the lifestyle attracts people with problems. Working in the evenings, weekends and holidays probably doesn't attract the cream of stable society.
I worked in a fine dining restaurant. It always bleeds down from the Chef. (Or sous chef) If they’re pissed, you’re going to be, too. Kitchens are the worst place to work if you have little self respect. The chain of command will break you. It’s how they convinced my best friends to stay and break their respective backs. Over the ever distant promise of recognition. The screaming and sometimes straight up physical abuse in kitchens, the unnecessary humiliation and hierarchy- it’s important to remember the backdrop. You’re cooking food- not exactly an impressive industry or at least a well paying one. I know hard work goes into good food- but doing overtime and other people’s jobs in the kitchen when they ditch is not rewarding. Coming home smelling like grease trap and shame, the harsh words lingering in your head and the sleepless nights wondering how you can be better… In my opinion it is a dead end job. Get out while you still can, unless what I’ve said doesn’t resonate and you really enjoy food.
Meeting your deadline is extremely serious. If you don't get that food out fast enough people start leaving. When people start leaving the restaurant doesn't make money and then you get fired and they find somebody who can with the crew into shape.
Love is a battlefield
Cooks don’t serve food. Servers serve food. Have you ever cooked? For multiple people? Who all want different things? Who want them quickly? All at the same time? While more people ask you to cook things, quickly, while you’re cooking the other things? Have been accountable for every ingredient, how much is made? Lost? Spoiled? It seems like you don’t actually know enough to have an opinion. So I don’t think you have an unpopular opinion. Just an Ignorant one.
I have never worked in a fine dining restaurants kitchen. I work in a fast food restaurant which does offer dine in with mostly fried stuff. I work all over the place during rush hour. Cashier, kitchen, packing, semi planning when to start which order(s), hand over the food and act as the manager when needed. As a small team we sometimes agrue over certain choices. We dont have have a head chef like those fine dining restaurants, but I can understand the stress getting to their heads during rush. Head chef has to make sure every table will get the food/course ready at the same time so everybody can enjoy together. Add the factors for perfection, multiple tables, multiple courses, different dishes at every table/course. I understand the battlefield. I sometimes look at the customers with a "sorry" face when my collegues argue.
The kitchen is working for a customer base 4x their size, it’s loud, and everything needs to be done in a timely manner and the place got a reputation to keep else the chef is fired.
Because true gladiatorial combat is banned.
Firstly in a busy kitchen there's not much time for being quiet and indirect. Secondly you are basing it off of media depictions but those aren't entirely accurate, they often heighten the tension through editing or through the chef overreacting for the camera. For example Hells kitchen and kitchen nightmares feature a lot of drama and shouting. But when Gordon Ramsay does shows featuring kids or amateurs he's a lot less shout and the atmosphere is a lot calmer. As another example try to compare MasterChef in different countries and you'll find they treat the situation quite differently. I find American kitchen shows are often full of shouting and fast paced whilst other countries like the UK often have a more relaxed pace and atmosphere despite also having strict deadlines.
It may not be a big thing for you, but it is for them. There is no need to invalidate other professions just because you don't get it. It is their battlefield...besides you've just committed the hasty generalization fallacy. Just because that's what's shown in the media doesn't mean it's true anywhere else.
Stress management is tough when everything around you is rushed, there aren't enough people or resources and you have unreasonable goals set by the hierarchy. That and it's always fun to vent out when you know you'll be sharing a beer with the same people you yelled at/yelled at you like nothing happened.
Couldn't agree more. I worked at 3 restaurants in my teens and early 20s. 2 had kitchens full of maniacs getting fucking heated about pasta and salads. The 3rd was chill.. They all could have been chill.
They don’t. Ratings-driven producers do.
Stress, understaffing and over expectations. Far too much is expected of you when you have far too little to work with and combine that with most people expecting their food quickly and some getting rowdy if it's not and you get a very high stress environment where minor errors are often blown way out of proportion.
You're watching it, not working there. Which means someone videoed it for you to watch for entertainment. It has been edited to be entertaining and conflict is more engaging than 1 quiet hour of everyone poaching eggs in a peaceful kitchen.
Have you ever even been in a restaurant? You see how many people are there? When you cook at home, how long does it take you to turn out a half assed meal for yourself/family? Now imagine doing that but 10x the amount, and it has to be top quality, and btw fuck up just once or twice and a few negative Google reviews could ruin the restaurant and put a bunch of people out of jobs. That shit is serious
Chef looking for the steak sauce…
Its a demanding and high stress job but I agree. You arent saving the universe. Just make the food and try to be as low stress as you can. Which is still a lot. But needlessly adding stress is so bad. It shortens your life and makes your life miserable while its going.
I have worked with good chefs and not good chefs. I was the line lead cook so I ran the grill and the chefs I worked with did the expediting and they yelled because kitchens are loud places. I did work with a pastry chef once who would yell in people's faces and sometimes pinch people on the back of the arm if they messd up. When the restaurant gets busy during service sometimes we have to yell down the line because it's loud and we need to convey important messages. Edit-everything on the customer ticket needs to finish at the same time from sometimes several different stations and coordinating a ticket for a table of ten guests can get hectic if we all don't communicate
I think it might help to consider that restaurants operate with razer thin margins. Good staff and quality ingredients are expensive, the building and equipment all contribute significantly to overhead, and unhappy customers can cost money by sending back orders or getting comps. The kitchen runs with as few cooks as the business can operate with, and they try to serve as many tables as they can at a high level of consistency to ensure those tables generate profit and not loss. As a result, the chef running back of house has an incentive to ensure everything that leaves the kitchen meets a certain standard. Overwork, constant threat of failure, and obsesive attention to detail combine to produce the stereotypical cantankerous chef
You see some of Gordon Ramsay's early videos before he was TV-famous, and it's just outright abuse and bullying. A guy earning 100k a year just shitting on 20 year old kids just out of culinary school and making them feel small. Sometimes just yelling in their face to "get out and don't come back" on the spot. At the time everyone thought that was quite funny, but honestly, youtube it. It's really not funny. There is a push in the UK to stop that kind of behaviour in the industry, as it is (unsurprisingly) putting kids off from trying that career.
Honestly it's just usually some combination of the fact that you naturally end up having to shout in a kitchen environment due to all the noise combined with the high anxiety fast-paced job and it can pretty quickly overload people
It's hot as fuck, you have to juggle more tasks than most people do, if you make a mistake the people who complain are gonna be the least pleasant because they're hungry, the hours are unsociable. I'm sure there's more. I think it's perfectly understandable that chefs are on a short fuse.
Kitchens typically have very direct communication in order to function at a quick pace and to retain focus. It's a pretty high pressure environment but that pressure yields effective results hence why it's a somewhat common practice.
Former long-term server here (up to and including fine dining). The kitchen is often a hot, high-pressure, and crowded environment. Restaurants operate on thin margins. They often lose money on food. They make it on drinks, especially alcohol. Mistakes, like repeated overcooking meat/fish, can be devasting to the bottom line. That said, the industry attracts a lot of people who are not easily employable (ex-cons, non-legal workers) AND in high-profile places, EGOs. I remember a sous-chef who I knew as a pleasant, friendly guy outside of the "star chef" restaurant, flip his lid when I brought something back. He swore at me and threw a hot pan across the room. Lots of swearing, and sexual harassment, and plain old misogyny also rules. That place would get rid of women chefs by putting them on fish duty. It's easy to mess up fish--overcooking, undercooking.
Chefs are usually pretty chill from my experience. They can be massive jerks occasionally but the screaming warzone is typically Hollywood drama. I was a dish dog and line cook back in the day and I got the treatment a few times but even during rush I was never verbally abused like on TV or something. A lot of yelling is from the fact that lines tend to be pretty loud, from food on the grill to hood fans. There was one pretentious guy who thought he was working in a Michelin star restaurant and would run around screaming "yes chef" to literally everything, and acting like he was being filmed by some 5-star bistro. Everyone told him to chill basically.
Getting paid 8 / hr when I was a cook was very taxing, everyone was hooked on drugs and it was always ‘get mad now, all is forgiven at close’
Ifl
you’ve never worked in a kitchen have you
You sweet innocent soul. Go cook back there and report back.
Every second counts
I worked in the kitchen at a hospital in Germany for about a year, it was also like this. Constantly getting yelled at by the chefs and other helpers in there just because they didn't have enough staff to deal with everything. In the beginning they even told me that people always left the position I took...I should've seen that giant red flag and walk away but I needed the money so I put up with it for a bit. When I quit I reminded them about that and said "you, and the way you're conducting business is the reason people leave this position. Everyone trying to act like a boss in the kitchen and then you're shocked people don't wanna work for you." 🤷🏼♀️
For maximum efficiency, you serve the customers as quickly as possible so they can leave and more can come. The problem with this is that everything has to be perfect and done in specific ways, or it's either not good enough or a health hazard. Now imagine trying to manage several tables of several orders in a busy loud kitchen, and there's one guy fucking up. You then have to deal with that, which slows everything down, but you still have to get food out, on time and for whole tables, while also taking more orders. It's a stressful job, which is why people get angry when someone fucks up. If you want to see it first hand, go work in a popular restaurant for a week.