How War Came to the Kitchen

When workers become soldiers

Written by yxx chang

If you’ve ever heard or used the term “sous chef” or “chef de partie”, you have come across the labor-organizing structures of the kitchen brigade system. Pioneered by the French chef Auguste Escoffier in the late 19th century, it is a systematic approach to organizing human labor and maximizing efficiency in the kitchen inspired by his army experience.

The kitchen brigade system is similar to other forms of industrial-capitalist production, dependent on the division of labor to maximize productivity while disregarding its effects on workers. Under the brigade system, each member of the kitchen fulfills a specific task that they execute with the utmost rigor, discipline and precision. As in a military operation, the chain of command is held to almost religious standards.

At the top is the chef de cuisine (executive chef), akin to the position of an army general. They supervise the entire kitchen. Below in rank is the sous chef, who is responsible for assisting the executive chef and for delegating their orders to the various station chefs or chefs de partie. Under the wing of a station chef are the commis or junior chefs who help the chef de partie within their respective stations.

At his grandest, Escoffier assigned over 20 specific cook positions dedicated to his vision of an organized kitchen with clearly defined structures and duties. By integrating the military's hierarchical structure with the specific tasks of a busy professional kitchen, Escoffier realized he could streamline kitchen labor to create maximum order and efficiency.

At establishments like Noma or Alinea, whose chefs have swallowed Escoffier’s philosophy whole and turned it into a hyperbole of itself, workers can spend hours destemming cherry after cherry, peeling carrot after carrot, or any numerous grueling, monotonous tasks that turn human beings into repetitive machines.

Under the guise of building discipline, workers are expected to function as an automatic motor in a complex operation. There is very little space for love or creativity in a professional kitchen. That space is taken up by fear. Hence, ‘do not smile’ (i.e., ‘do not show any evidence of your humanity’) is an actual code of conduct enforced in these kitchens. Many employees still reel from the dehumanizing trauma of working in these restaurants years after they have left the fine dining industry if they are fortunate enough to have found a way out.

The unavoidable truth is that to create these highly controlled and tailored experiences for a specific class of people with ever-increasing expectations of what the ultimate “foodie” experience should afford them emotionally in exchange for the high price of entry financially, fine dining restaurants rely on their brigade workforce to make it all possible.

The early morning prep cooks or interns (usually unpaid) take on a significant brunt of the labor. They rush throughout the day to prepare the food items used for service later in the evening. Frequently, they endure psychologically abusive tactics from management as part of a vetting process designed to extract maximum value from them.

For example, workers commonly report that when upper-level kitchen managers believe they are not sweating enough, they will turn up the temperature to compound their stress ––all to test their mettle as if in military training and to reassert the chain of command. This occurs in addition to the already impossibly high workload they dump on them.

During service, there is very little cooking that actually takes place. The rote task a kitchen worker is expected to do is to plate one dish repetitively. Place a blob of orange goop (prepared by AM prep cooks) on a whimsically designed plate that costs more than their week’s labor here, four pieces of marinated pork belly (also prepared by AM prep cooks) there, and then finish with little bits of saffron and flowers for flair.

This takes place over and over again. Throughout the night, the expeditor announces a number with the name of a dish that corresponds to a particular station, and the chef de partie gets to work: Fire 4 x pork belly by 2 x watermelon, one without melon (to accommodate an allergy). The junior chefs unpack their neatly prepared delis to execute their unvarying movements with machine-like precision.

The labor is as dehumanizing as it sounds. Production is simplified so that even a robot can do it. In fact, it would be preferable if a robot would do it, because no human being is meant to do the same monotonous labor on an endless loop for hours on end. Within the structure of the kitchen brigade system, ‘yes, chef’ is the only correct response. When the inevitable human error occurs, workers must endure highly aggressive language tantamount to verbal abuse from those in charge that is meant to instill in them the belief that to err is to be worthless.

It is outrageously normalized for management to ridicule or scream at an employee for a simple mistake, such as closing a fridge door too loudly. To drop a chopstick at Alinea means undergoing the walk of shame to display the proof of one's dishonor to Grant Achatz or the next person in charge. This is taught as accountability, although some might call it a manic devotion to perfectionism that has the consequence of humiliating their workforce for simple errors.

Not a single petal from an oxalis or food shaped into an immaculate sphere is expected to move from the moment it’s been set on the plate in the kitchen to when it reaches the diner’s eyes for their delight. At Alinea, workers execute this gravity-defying task by climbing stairs. A worker could climb up to and over 100 flights of stairs in a given night in the name of service.

For the sake of one man’s vision, workers have been manipulated to shred any evidence of their humanity because the myth of “chef as genius” or “chef as artist” has been ingrained in them to justify their sacrifice. Rather, the striking creativity of these establishments are the tactics they find to shame and demean their workers.

Eat, sleep –– if it’s a good night –– and work are the only activities employees of these institutions have the time or energy to manage. This serves the dual purpose of reducing the risk they might organize to resist while also making them ideal pawns for capitalist exploitation. Often coming from backgrounds of lower economic means that offer few opportunities for social mobility, these workers accept and even romanticize, at least initially, their spartan lifestyle as a necessary sacrifice to kick-start their culinary career. The ability to tolerate their exploitation and endure psychological violence is marketed as discipline––the prerequisite for success in the industry.

Part of what perpetuates and legitimates the abusive system that takes place in fine dining is the mainstream media’s complicity in these workers’ intolerable conditions. Their ongoing, sycophantic relationship with elite chefs and their restaurants, while ignoring the cost to workers’ lives within these institutions, is what enables these businesses to find a never-ending stream of young workers who are eager to prove themselves and offer themselves for exploitation at the so-called top restaurants in the world.

Since the profit model of these restaurants relies heavily on the labor of workers who have the stamina to withstand the physically demanding conditions of the kitchen for the minimum to no wage, the barriers to entry for these institutions are typically rather low. In preference to experience, simply a willingness to “work hard” is required. In fact, a worker’s lack of experience is often used to countenance financially corrupt practices that, while potentially legal, amount to wage theft.

Take, for instance, the tipping system of Alinea. Weaponizing the no-tip movement, it pockets the 20% mandatory gratuity from their diners while giving their labor force just above minimum wage to play the role of good faith actors. However, when we consider the math, the numbers reveal a different story.

Currently, at Alinea, tickets are priced at $305-$375 per person for their Salon menu. For their Gallery or KT (kitchen table) experience, diners pay $415-$485 per person. If Alinea services on average a hundred guests per night (the restaurant can seat 64 guests per seating and there are two seatings per night of service, the “front side” which starts at 5:30pm and the “back side” which starts at 8:30pm), then this means at bare minimum the tips at the end of the night total $6100. Certainly, when the more expensive ticket prices and alcohol gets factored, this number is much, much higher.

On the other hand, the hourly wage workers report receiving in the front of the house and back of the house starts at $15 per hour. That is, unless the worker is a back of the house intern. Then they often receive no pay because simply the experience of working at Alinea is enough compensation for their labor.

Those who have the grit to endure multiple years at these establishments sometimes receive pay raises. Typically, this raise averages to be a dollar per year despite the risk the job poses to workers’ health. Not only the mental illnesses that may form as a result of enduring daily verbal abuse but workers must also suffer the physical deterioration that inevitably occurs from standing, repetitive walking, climbing stairs and carrying heavy items (many of Alinea’s plates are notoriously heavy).

Rarely, workers last more than a few years. The high turnover rate can actually work in the owners’ favor since this means they do not have to deviate much from their $15 per hour starting pay per worker. To service a busy night, Alinea may employ 15 FOH workers. This means at the lowest these workers should be making over $400 per night. If it’s 20 employees, then $300 is the absolute minimum. The reality is that after back breaking 10-12hr shifts, many workers report making $150-$200 per night despite overpay.

Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas can exploit as many legal and intellectual loopholes as they’d like to justify their ethically and financially unscrupulous practices, but workers can still gather to discuss whether they are truly receiving their fair value for their labor considering the amount of wealth they’re generating for these businesses. The emotional validation of working for these “great” men is not worth the toll it takes on workers’ physical and mental health, especially if one considers whether these men are great at all or simply exploitative.

The tragedy is that the malicious truths revealed about fine dining in popular culture like the satirical film The Menu or TV series The Bear correspond to a reality that workers have been living for years but remains woefully ignored by elite food critics and consumers who gleefully feed its machine. Curious guests arrive eager at these establishments to have a degustation experience while disinterested in, or even entertained by, the sheer exhaustion of the workers who provide it.

The discrepancy between the experience of the diners and the workers is most pronounced when they attempt to connect with the staff over the food. ‘Isn’t it amazing?’ they declare, clueless to the fact that many of the staff, including those who make the dish are rarely fortunate enough to try more than a morsel of the completed dish at best. This jarring disparity between the experience of the diners and those who work day in and day out to make these establishments possible is what breeds contempt and animosity in those towards whom they serve.

If more individuals can open their eyes to the overwhelming evidence of abuse that occurs behind these institutions' well-manicured kitchen doors, then society might progress from one that ignores the reality of workers’ exploitation to one that confronts the ugly truths underlying the various, abusive power dynamic behind these businesses that wield food as a form of power for the benefit of the elite.

Considering the cost of these restaurants, how much of their value has to do with taste or sensuality at all? Rather, is part of the customer experience they are selling tied up with the pleasure of privilege – of flaunting extravagance and exclusivity, and of the sadistic gratification that some find in commanding the servitude of less-privileged others?

Like the Wizard of Oz, these businesses’ true talent lies in understanding the basest desires of their audience. They see, and are eager to capitalize, on the fact that for those who have everything, the idea of food can taste better than the reality of food itself. Often, fine dining thrives not on the physical hunger of the elite but on their emotional reliance on workers to satisfy their every whim. Therefore, the endgame of fine dining has become less about the enjoyment of food itself and more about entertaining the fantasies of capitalist consumers who require increasingly grander gestures to reaffirm their privileged place in society.

The real issue for workers is not whether diners are bad people for enjoying what these restaurants have to offer. The only question that matters for us is how we can organize to demand fair pay for our labor. Supporters of fine dining must decide whether they are going to wake up to the truth and begin joining workers’ efforts to protect ourselves from exploitation, wage theft, and the long-term mental and physical deterioration of those who create these experiences for their benefit.

When we collectively question why these business models experience such high turnover rates, why employees struggle with PTSD due to working in these restaurants, and whose labor makes these institutions possible, then we are moving toward a basic realization: our society is created by workers, not capitalists, and we, the workers of our industry, have the power to make it otherwise. #nochef

yxx