For the Care and Feeding of the People Who Feed Us
February 3, 2016 5:36 AM   Subscribe

When he died this week at the age of 44, Benoit Violier was considered by many to be one of the top chefs in the world, presiding over the three-Michelin-star Restaurant de l'Hotel de Ville Crissier near Lausanne, Switzerland. His death is the second suicide of a successful, high-profile young chef this year.

Violier's suicide raises questions about the whether the stresses of running a restaurant can exacerbate mental health challenges. Food writer Kat Kinsman has started Chefs with Issues, a project designed to address depression, anxiety, addiction, eating disorders and other mental health issues faced by people in the food industry.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious (24 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
I realize that the actual in-the-moment-workplace interactions are only part of this, but one hears so much about what kitchens are like in terms of the abusive language and bullying, degrading, and generally dehuminizing ways people behave toward each other (a la what's his name, the redhead who's always screaming at people on TV). People who work in kitchens whom I've talked to just seem to shrug it off as that's-the-way-it-is and kind of imply that there's just no way you could get food served to lots of people exactly the way they want it and within an appropriate time unless people are screaming and swearing at each other. Like it would be unreasonable to expect people to behave civilly toward each other, as is expected in every other workplace.

This seems so hard to believe. I mean there are other things where lots of things have to happen at exactly the right moment or everything falls apart (theatre comes to mind). Would it really be impossible to require that people in a kitchen behave professionally toward each other? It seems like the idea that this is impossible has taken some kind of cultural hold over restaurant people, but nowhere else is it ok to scream and swear at people at work and yet everyone else gets their job done.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:57 AM on February 3, 2016 [20 favorites]


If only I had a penguin: See Redzepi's essay on The Lucky Peach
posted by hleehowon at 6:05 AM on February 3, 2016 [7 favorites]


Like it would be unreasonable to expect people to behave civilly toward each other, as is expected in every other workplace.

Well, normally the chef is on the giving end of that, not the receiving end, so I doubt bullying was a factor for Violier.

The thing about food service is that it's insanely stressful. You can build up a big head of steam on a Friday night when things go even just a little bit sideways. That's got to go somewhere, and you can't yell at the customers or the owners, so hey, you yell at each other.

I worked food service for years, cooking and waiting, and I've been in office jobs for about the last 15 years. In an office, when I get enraged with a coworker, I've developed the reflex to shut the hell up and listen to people, take some time to calm myself, and then talk to the offending party (or their manager, depending). In a high-speed, high-stress kitchen, that wasn't even an option. So we yelled. Josh, where the FUCK are my goddamn plates, I swear to God.

That doesn't excuse it coming from the boss, though. The boss needs to be better than that. You aren't just a chef, you're a manager and you need to lead, not shove.
posted by middleclasstool at 6:11 AM on February 3, 2016 [10 favorites]


@middleclasstool: Fucking Josh, always with this shit.

But in all seriousness, it strikes me that just the business side of running a restaurant is insane enough - personnel turnover, teeny profit margins, licensing, a fickle and demanding customer base. Being a head chef, on its own, is also an insane job, where you have to cook to this crazy-high standard of quality and consistency on a ludicrous schedule.

Trying to do them both at once? No thanks.
posted by ColdOfTheIsleOfMan at 6:26 AM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


That's got to go somewhere, and you can't yell at the customers or the owners, so hey, you yell at each other.

I think the idea that stress/anger is some kind of fluid that builds up and must be vented in some way has been largely discredited. It's one of those cultural truths that aren't really true. Humans aren't great at working under pressure without being quick to anger though - it's just the way we've evolved. But there are plenty of areas of life where stress gets managed before it leads to name-calling and physical abuse.

I'm betting there are many potentially world-class cooks out there for whom the negative atmosphere of professional kitchens is the deciding factor in their not pursuing that career.
posted by pipeski at 6:30 AM on February 3, 2016 [4 favorites]


Here is another article from Lucky Peach and the relevant section is about the suffering of PTSD and the use of anti-depressants. It is from the gentlemen who run Joe Beef, who are familiar guests of Bourdain's travels through Canada. Article is here.
posted by jadepearl at 6:56 AM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


I can't possibly imagine a scenario where restaurant back of houses aren't the most insanely high strung places possible. Everything is on a razor's edge margin and you have to bend over backwards to appease people who often want the impossible.

Under the best circumstances a kitchen is like a well running engine, but in reality every night someone pours a handful of sand into that engine and it still has to pump along furious trying to grind the sand out and hope it works. Considering that cigarettes, cocaine and amphetamines are the fuel that power a lot of the kitchen class it's not surprising people burn out hard and fast.
posted by Ferreous at 6:56 AM on February 3, 2016 [5 favorites]


I've never worked as a chef or cook, but I did work as a kitchen porter in a Michelin guide restaurant in Denmark for a summer. The pay was great, but the hours were long and awkward, and I've never worked harder in my life, before or since, or been more stressed. I didn't get the worst of it - that'd have been the chefs who got it in the neck from both the head chef and the restaurant manager - but it was bad enough. Once we'd closed and cleaned up for the night though, we'd all convene outside for a few beers and smokes, and it was the greatest camaraderie of any place I've ever worked. All the divisions of rank went out the window along with the conflicts of the working day, and we would just chat and laugh. I learned so much about cooking and how to properly handle knives, too. I still get nostalgic for it, and in many ways it was the best job I've ever had, but I would never - never - go back.
posted by Dysk at 7:02 AM on February 3, 2016 [14 favorites]


Also, while this won't apply to quite as much to high end places (though it does to a degree) kitchens are one of the few places in the US at least that seem to have zero issue with hiring people with criminal records. It's a good thing to have, but it also ends up as a job that a lot of people who might not be ideal for it otherwise get shoehorned into due to lack of opportunities.

Lots of the ex-cons I worked with were great people who enjoyed their work, but others really wanted to do something else but couldn't because no one else would take them. Putting people who don't want to really be there into a high intensity high stress job out of desperation is not a recipe for good mental health.
posted by Ferreous at 7:03 AM on February 3, 2016 [11 favorites]


It's a pressured, high-adrenaline, crazy work-houred job that's only ever a couple of mishaps away from a major fuckup.

Choosing to be part of that to earn a crust is also a lifestyle choice in and of itself, and from my time in and around kitchens I've come to the conclusion that something about the environment is inherently appealing to a fair number of focused, intensely dedicated people who run the gamut from having somewhat atypical personalities to being full-on misanthropes. It honestly seems to me like the environment itself allows people like this to cope, or even thrive, with what in many other contexts would be quickly labelled as mental health problems.

When coping under pressure is so inherent to what you do day in day out, then yes, the chances of not looking for or being offered help and ending up in a serious breakdown state must surely be highly exacerbated.

Chefs with Issues seems like a well-meaning initiative, hopefully it does some good despite the massively thick cultural wall it'll have to contend with.
posted by protorp at 7:08 AM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


I think the idea that stress/anger is some kind of fluid that builds up and must be vented in some way has been largely discredited.

This jibes with what I was told during the anger management therapy I underwent recently. The therapy was two-pronged, where the first step was identify the anger response and interrupt it before it built up to an outburst at all.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:14 AM on February 3, 2016 [4 favorites]


Well, normally the chef is on the giving end of that, not the receiving end, so I doubt bullying was a factor for Violier

I don't know anything about Violier that's not here or being a chef or anything, but being a dick (and especially being one if a culture expects some sort of asshole-performative behavior that you're not really comfortable with) is probably pretty mentally and spiritually taxing.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 7:15 AM on February 3, 2016 [5 favorites]


one hears so much about what kitchens are like in terms of the abusive language and bullying, degrading, and generally dehuminizing ways people behave toward each other

This is certainly the way things once were, but I think it is gradually going by the wayside and many chefs simply won't tolerate this behavior in their kitchens. Especially nowadays when it's a seller's market for kitchen staff, plenty of cooks can easily walk away from this behavior and right into another kitchen where they won't be treated like that. For the most part, one does not hear about this sort of abuse in the highest-end professional kitchens.
posted by slkinsey at 7:36 AM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


I was never a chef but I spent 7 years in the business- the stories of flying knives and red hot pans, epic drunks and both front and back of the house chicanery....sigh, I still miss it. Way too old to do it again. I am kind of over the desire to nail down the personal as political here- does anyone really think that the nature of feeding people in under an hour can be legislated or understood away?
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 8:01 AM on February 3, 2016


I've never worked in a kitchen, so I don't know the esprit, but all the stories I've read sound like they are deliberately unhealthy workplaces. I get it's stressful, but you don't have to be awful to each other do you? I listened to an interview with Danny Bowien recently where he described being an underling at some fancy New York restaurant and the senior chefs were literally physically abusing him, hazing him in between doing lines of coke. Just another restaurant story. It seems insane to me.

I ate dinner at Bernard Loiseau last year. It's one of the famous three star restaurants in France, or perhaps infamous because the chef committed suicide. The rumors at the time were he killed himself because he'd heard he was about to lose his third star. (The reality is more complex). Anyway, the restaurant has recovered and is still doing very well led by chef Patrick Bertron and with the Widow Loiseau greeting guests (and managing front of house, I suspect). It was a lovely meal, but also very odd and uncomfortable, being here in this place where a man killed himself over the stress of cooking for people like me. Recipes from the dead chef are featured prominently on the menu. I'd think after 13 years maybe they could change the name of the restaurant, honor the deceased in some less macabre way.
posted by Nelson at 8:59 AM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


It wasn't so much the stress of one of the restaurants I worked in as the rampant homophobia and sexism in the kitchen. They are ways to blow off steam that don't involve displays of dominance.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 9:06 AM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


As a bit of an antidote to tales of abuse in the kitchen, one of the finest dining experiences I had was at Cafe Jacqueline in San Francisco. Sandwiched between two drink-til-you-puke bars in North Beach, it's a quiet little restaurant staffed by two waiters who give you time to consider the menu and wait for the rest of the party, but aren't shy about giving you a firm nudge to place your order so as not to back up the kitchen. Which is staffed by one tiny elderly French lady. Who makes the most divine souffles you could imagine.

It was a pleasure, not only because of the food, but because you could tell that there was a definitely level of affection between the waitstaff and the chef. At the end of our meal, our waiter (who had one of the most elegantly sculpted mustaches I've ever seen) suggested we step into the kitchen to thank Chef Margulis. I peeked back into the kitchen and saw her standing next to a wooden bowl with a pile of eggs as tall as she was. I thanked her using the one French word I knew, and she just brightened up and smiled.

If you're in SF, check out Cafe Jacqueline.
posted by Existential Dread at 9:48 AM on February 3, 2016 [7 favorites]


I cooked in restaurants for 10 years. Now the owners of the butcher shop where I work are talking about opening up a restaurant and I am crying on the inside.

I know a lot of really excellent people work in restaurants but I find the industry itself so systematically toxic it's nauseating, at least here in NYC. That camaraderie people talk about and which I've enjoyed at times is a by-product of Stockholm syndrome IMO.
posted by STFUDonnie at 9:57 AM on February 3, 2016 [5 favorites]


I hope that instead of focusing on just "stress management" of individuals in toxic work environments, we can also address toxic work environments themselves and consider that we could change some of the factors leading to these jobs being so shitty for people doing extremely valuable work. You shouldn't have to be learning PTSD coping skills to cook food.

For fucks sake. We might actually say, ask customers to stop having some shitty unrealistic and unhealthy demands of people who do this valuable service for them- in addition to considering that just as we consider EMS workers, librarians and teachers public servants, food preparation is a needed social service and we might want to consider supplementing the industry such the people working in it aren't being injured doing a job that really shouldn't be injuring people.
posted by xarnop at 10:03 AM on February 3, 2016 [4 favorites]


I am kind of over the desire to nail down the personal as political here- does anyone really think that the nature of feeding people in under an hour can be legislated or understood away?

I don't think the nature of feeding people in an under an hour can be legislated or understood away. I do think that abusive workplaces are not the inherent inevitable result of feeding people in under an hour. Feeding people in under an hour means there's a lot of pressure, there's coordination required, and stuff goes wrong and even if it goes wrong, you somehow have to make it work. Under those conditions people get frustrated and angry.

However, there are lots of jobs that have those same conditions (pressure, coordination, making it work), and lots of jobs where people get frustrated and mad. The difference is that in those other jobs, people who are frustrated and mad don't scream abuse at other people. Is it because they have achieved inner peace? Because their jobs are more forgiving? Because they are less tired or less hot/burned/cut? No (well, they're probably less hot, burned and cut than people in a kitchen, but I"m sure they have other physical annoyances). It is because they have internalized the idea that it's not ok to scream abuse at people at work, and they know that if they violate this norm, they will be ostracized, at best and more likely fired. So even when they're angry and mad and their backs ache, they don't scream at people. Many people who work in kitchens seem to have internalized a different norm. I'm having a hard time seeing how this is the nature of feeding people rather than a culture that has developed among people who feed people.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:05 PM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


I don't think most of the other jobs that require the degree of pressure, coordination, and endurance are as low paying or as subject to the whims of customers who want impossible things. I'm not excusing the toxicity, but even with a perfectly non-toxic interpersonal environment, it's a brutally taxing job that chews people up. The problem is that to fix that you have to literally upend ages of the mentality of customers that they can get whatever they want from a restaurant and the sheer economics of a trade that is always teetering on the edge of insolvency.

Not many other jobs have that confluence of factors. Harm reduction for people in that trade is probably the best we can do right now.
posted by Ferreous at 1:20 PM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


My mother was trained to be chef in Paris. In the 1960s. I can't imagine the shit she tolerated to make it to executive chef at a Michelin star restaurant, but she did. And her kitchen, despite being insanely high stress, high end diners, never was the seething pit of testosterone and tomfoolery that I saw in subsequent kitchens in my time in the service industry.

That said, the minute she got badly hurt in an accident, she was given the bums rush so fast the butter curdled. The restaurant industry has no soul.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 2:45 PM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


It can be as bad as many of the stories above, but it can be better. Where I'm at now is a bit corporate- big hotel- so there is an HR department and things can get documented. Chef is a large but soft spoken guy who commands respect gently. There is drama but mainly from the bottom up. We're in a seasonal market, so reliable, skilled help is harder to find than in, say, NYC, so we tolerate some b-plus work, staff drinking, and other things that would get you fired on the spot in New York.

I've worked front of house in places that were varying degrees of toxic and a few great ones. But even in the great ones you have to be thick skinned, and have great endurance. I used to party with my co-workers, sneak drinks at work and go out after and stay out until 4 (hi Faces and Names on 54th) and now I finish up and get the hell out of there. Unless of course they are short handed and ask me to stay.

People do tend to end up in the biz, especially in the FOH. While chefs and cooking have transformed into borderline rockstar careers, how many kids grow up dreaming of being a great waiter, or beloved bartender, or super reliable sober dishwasher? I certainly didn't and my family was in the biz.

Yet I love it, I think because now I'm 44 and I'm looking back at myself in NYC in my late 20's and saying you fool, you damn damn fool, you should have doubled down and dug in.

But there is no wisdom in that.

As an industry, we need to treat each other better, and perhaps the industry need be looked at from without with an eye to wellness. There are other things I hope never change.
posted by vrakatar at 4:38 PM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


I don't think most of the other jobs that require the degree of pressure, coordination, and endurance are as low paying or as subject to the whims of customers who want impossible things. I'm not excusing the toxicity, but even with a perfectly non-toxic interpersonal environment, it's a brutally taxing job that chews people up.

This sounds like it could definitely be true of male-dominated work. I wonder whether it is equally true of female-dominated work. Health-aides, maids in private or commercial service, some levels of nurses, in some respects teaching. And that's just in the 'first world.'
posted by Salamandrous at 2:39 PM on February 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


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