Under Pressure: Chefs Need To Change From The Inside Out

Originally published August 20, 2022 on Medium

A few years ago, there was a photo circulating the social media accounts of chefs. It was a picture of a disheveled cook in a dingy industrial kitchen sitting on a milk crate, eating congealed mac-n-cheese from a plastic quart cup. His dinner was probably hours old and not very tasty. He wore dirty kitchen whites and soggy Birkenstocks that likely squished when he walked. He appeared exasperated and heartbroken. Hopeless and burnt out.

For many chefs, this picture resurrected painful memories of missed birthdays and family holidays, crumbled romances and demoralizing nights, burns, cuts, and emotional scars. They saw and understood the feelings of tired muscles, achy feet, and of loneliness and sacrifice. They felt that photo so viscerally because they saw themselves in it. So much so that this picture, and many just like it, have been re-shared over and over again like some twisted allegiance to a lifestyle that offers no way out.

I hate that picture. It isn’t sad to me…it’s frustrating. The idea that professionals who cook to nourish others struggle to be healthy themselves is not something I feel like avoiding. Certainly not something we should relegate to actionless sentiment. I hate that chefs saw themselves in such a way and accepted it.

In most media, chefs are oft-represented poorly, archetypically as a tyrant, degenerate, drug addict, or lowly help. Two decades ago, a seminal restaurant book was released called ‘Kitchen Confidential’, where readers were given insight into the perils of the culinary profession. To be clear, I love Anthony Bourdain. He’s a consequential culinary icon who made restaurant workers feel identified and important, which is validating for people who receive little recognition. However, I hate to remind you the end of his story, and that drug addiction consumed much of his life. Dare I also point to the constant drinking that is not healthy by any measure. Bourdain lived and rightly pointed out the many issues of our profession, and regrettably, we never sought solutions to the debauchery. Instead, we celebrated the mayhem like it was titillating fiction. We accepted it.

There are other depictions too. In ‘Burnt’, Bradley Cooper played an exiled junky chef, in “Boiling Point” Stephen Graham is the strung-out chef who ultimately dies on the floor of his office. ‘The Bear’ is a dramatic, all too common depiction of toxic kitchen culture. The problem is that these stories aren’t truly fiction, we just keep consuming reality spun as entertainment. What should be another red flag is being propped up as #chefslife. Decades later, we’re still not having the correct conversation in response. We’re accepting it.

Normalizing self-destruction in the culinary world is commonplace. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, restaurant people are fascinated by deeply tragic, rage prone and hedonistic figures. Reality despite the façade is that these romanticized character flaws lead to major crashes. And this isn’t new, a quick google search shows proof of an exhausting pattern.

So why don’t we stop this trend? It’s arguable that improved health on an individual level in our profession is the basis for change in all other areas. Better habits for our minds and bodies create better results in reality. Yet bad habits seem to be a default setting. What are these habits? Well, let’s start with the fact that many restaurant workers guzzle booze until last call every night and get a measly few drunken hours of sleep before heading back to work hung over. They huff cigarettes, pound energy drinks, and commonly take drugs to power through. With too little time to eat, their meal is stuffed inside a plastic quart cup for later. Service is a totally exhausting blitz of orders.

It hurts too. Kitchens are hot and dangerous. They get burns and cuts while manically cooking dishes for hours, spinning around until they’re nauseous. When they finally have time to eat the cold goulash from hours earlier it hits their stomachs like a torpedo. Service winds down and they have a decompressing smoke behind the dumpster. A fleeting few moments of solace rush by until they prop themselves back upright to help scrub the deck like a pirate crew. After work it’s back to the bar. This cycle becomes a blur and a major reason why chefs break down so badly.

The demand for restaurants is insatiable and our industry can’t physically continue like this. Kitchen stress is a persistent onslaught of urgent problems and prioritizing anything healthy feels…selfish. Conversely, in a wellness era where good food and affordable supplements are available everywhere at reasonable cost, chefs poke around at wellness like a piece of Impossible meat. Most chefs are exhausted, depressed, malnourished, and live in physical pain. We could rightly point to the alcohol, drugs, bad diet, poor sleep and low hydration as the culprits for those ailments. It’s a frat-like culture that’s failed to create an acceptable 21st century work environment.

Restaurant workers of all levels need to stop participating in this unhealthy culture. We must change this internally because no Fairy God-Escoffier is going to swoop down and fix this shit with a dash of koji fermented fairy dust. Restaurant people simply cannot continue to be so detrimentally unhealthy while performing under such intense pressure. But this choice has to be made by individuals who realize their lifestyles impact on themselves and their influence on others.

Simply put, if we really want change, then it must come from the inside out, because rampant depression, malnutrition, alcoholism, drug abuse and mental health issues just can’t be status quo in restaurant culture any longer. An industry perpetually plagued by understaffing should realize these problems equate a massive “keep out” sign for anyone who might desire to cook professionally. This is not sustainable, and the cost is a demoralized workforce with an ever-revolving door.

We need to take accountability for the culture that we inevitably influence. The culinary profession doesn’t need more insta-famous, wannabee celebrities or chefs who think they’re rock stars…foolishly living a rock star lifestyle without the perks of fame or money. We should admire the true mentors of our profession because there are many. Chefs who impact others with real purpose and humility. We need to transform the entertainment we consume back into the fiction it should be. It’s time to stop the bullshit.

Finally, know that mentorship is paramount. Young cooks analyze us deeply. They watch how we react, behave, and communicate. They dissect our gestures, hone into our tones, and digest our words. As they grow in their careers, they recycle what they learned from us. That is a profound call to the responsibility to treat ourselves and each other with far greater hospitality.

Chefs and restaurant people deserve a better narrative. We can start by choosing better perspectives of ourselves and of our profession. We can seek positive influences, healthy lifestyles, and functional relationships. We can choose to stop accepting this seedy narrative and act out a new one that pushes us forward. We can do this one person at a time, in hopes that someone else sees a positive example and chooses to follow along. Because this can only be done from the inside out, this is a call to everyone in the culinary profession to take care of themselves, and each other.