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I remember the first time I had a pan thrown at me in a kitchen. It closely followed that day’s accusation of “Are you fucking patronising me cunt1?” Chefs can be unpredictable, this came out of nowhere. As I turned to figure out what was actually being said, the sauté pan came at my head fast, just missing the side of my face, smashing into the wall behind me, taking out my prep as it fell. I stood in shock for a second longer than I would like to admit. It’s one thing to almost have your head taken off by a pan, it’s another thing entirely to then have to solve the carnage caused with forty minutes until service.
I’ve never been really hurt in a kitchen. I’ve been bullied, burnt, cut a bit, pushed, shoved and verbally abused, but I’ve never been hurt. At least not badly. Not physically. Not in a way that made me question the very ground on which I stood. The pan was the closest thing to a real injury. The knife that had been held over the flame and then to my arm was the closest I came to being scarred (beyond my own ignorance and mistakes, of course). I’ve been scared, yeah. Sure. But not for a long time.
I’m lucky enough to have been able to run my own kitchens for most of my career. They weren’t perfect but I tried hard to create an environment for chefs and kitchen staff that was supportive, creative, well paid, respectful, honest, and understanding. I tried. I didn’t always succeed but I tried. It was an attempt to right the wrongs I had experienced, an attempt to break the cycle. A cycle that appeared to have been so successfully broken in Copenhagen.
I’ve never been to Copenhagen. I have plenty of friends who have or colleagues who went to work or chefs who have passed through those brigades but I never made it over. To be a chef that worked at Noma2 was never on the register for me3. Noma, conceptually, was based on a manifesto, bound by 10 principles that focus on sustainability, accountability, locality, and respect. This extends not just to food but to the environment in which it is prepared and served. It is a holistic approach to cooking and feeding and the industry as it stands. The rise of New Nordic cuisine meant that (what felt like suddenly) there was a recognisable terroir to the carrots that were arriving on your plate, to the herbs that garnished your dish or the winter fish cooked on fire4 . While going to stage or work at Noma was never a goal of mine I related to their ethos, aligned with the manifesto. It felt like the arrival of something to hold onto in an industry that appeared to be constructed around a base set of skills that could only be earned through time, sacrifice, and hard work. An industry that thrived off of the physical pain you finished the day in, that fed off of the conflict and the poverty and the abuse.
New Nordic and specifically Noma came to represent a better way of operating for new chefs5 (young an old). Yes, they existed off the back of the work of stagiaires6 (who fought tooth and nail to get a spot to work for free) but the stagiaires were respected and came away from Noma inspired and (by all accounts) ready to open a restaurant7.
Noma came to represent the gold standard of how ideals could run a restaurant and impact a community, how a manifesto could change the very nature of the industry’s existence. New Nordic Cuisine was the revolution. The chefs that came out of the brigade at Noma went onto open restaurants that promoted the same ethic, championing the tenets of the manifesto. This is very much what the industry was promised. We were promised it meant something. Something more than our own efforts, more than our own dreams, more than our own restaurant. In fact, the promise extended beyond symbolic success to actual success. If a restaurant owner or a chef could implement the same tenets as Noma, not only would it promote the development (holistically) of the industry, but a restaurant working according to the manifesto should thrive8.
From where I stood, as a chef and restauranteur in London, it meant something much greater. To the broken and starved community of chefs in London - a notoriously and seemingly endlessly abusive city - it stood for more than an ideal. It was a movement: a seismic readjustment of expectations and standards. It seemed all of a sudden the leaders began pushing back and rejecting the expectations and structures our feet and hands felt shackled too. It stood for hope and it inspired hope in me.
The hope that it was possible as a chef to work a four day 35 hour week and still be able to afford to eat at the restaurants we all worked at. When I opened Dandy with Andy in 2015, while we worked expectedly slavishly to make sure it would work, we tried as hard as we could to offer a balance for the few staff we had. To our defined detriment we did (well, we tried). We paid people above award, we promoted education, understanding and communication, and if the week had been horrendously long we would order in burgers and sit and drink wine and debrief. We cared about each other and hoped that by showing our staff it was possible to have balance that they might go out and promote the same ideals.
Australia, too, at least from where I stood from afar in London, appeared to be adopting the same philosophies as Copenhagen9. Elements of the New Nordic philosophy, thanks in part to all of the Australian chefs that passed through Noma, had made it to Australia. From afar, Australia too became a beacon for hope and change.
But those ideals in Copenhagen are a lie. Fabricated wish wash bullshit crafted by romantic idealistic and abusive chefs who very much fall into the same category of abusers that I, and most of the industry, have been working towards getting away from. Last week, Imogen West-Knights, a reporter for the Financial Times in the UK wrote an article titled ‘Fine dining faces its dark truths in Copenhagen,’ click anywhere on this line to access it. It was, sadly, a refreshing piece to read.
West-Knights’ dismantling of the Copenhagen romantic ideal was swift. She interviewed dozens of chefs from lauded restaurants, restaurants which promote and bank off the back of the ethos and ethic they promote, including Noma. She arrived at a very different conclusion regarding the state of the industry in the city. Allow me to summarise West-Knights’ article on the Copenhagen restaurant scene in six words, a six word poem one might say… if I could write a haiku, I would… but let’s be honest, I’m a cook, not a poet:
Bullshit. Lies. Bullshit. Lies. Bullshit. Lies. OR It is all lies. Total bullshit.
It’s worth the read. It’s sad because I’m not surprised. The city, and subsequently the industry as a whole, has run a deft strategic campaign to hide the truth. What is repeated every other line in the article by West-Knights is that members of the community, staff, past and present feared being blacklisted by the community if they spoke out. Not just the community in Copenhagen but the community internationally. Because much like El Bulli in the 90s, almost every new, young influential and successful chef in and out of major cities around the world has passed through Copenhagen at some stage. The community is tight. Loose lips sink ships. And while those ships don’t all jump onto roads that lead to Rome, they do, for the most part lead back to Noma.
What I find interesting is that Noma didn’t hide it’s approach, until it was forced to apologise in 2013. Every stagiaire that arrived was presented with what could only be described as a welcome warning. It can be found here - The Stagiaire Introductory Note. The rules are really quite simple. Show up to work on time, be clean and tidy and freshly washed, keep your knives in your locker, keep your section and yourself clean, no phones, smile, give a week’s notice if you need a day off for an emergency, make sure you have enough money to work for free10, don’t quit early, don’t tell anyone in a public manner about what happens behind closed doors, and if you want to eat in the restaurant make sure you make a reservation yourself. These seem like reasonable requests, simple rules, sure. Don’t follow the rules, and your name will be added to the blacklist ‘and shared with other restaurants around the world with whom [they] share a good relationship.’ In other words, work for free 15 hours a day up to six days a week, spend your savings or take on debt to survive, don’t fuck up, don’t get sick, plan all emergencies a week in advance, and don’t even think about complaining publicly or privately - regardless of the abuse you may witness or experience - because if you don’t follow these rules, if you broke the rules there is was good chance Noma would blacklist you not only in Copenhagen but at every restaurant worth it’s salt around the world. The incentive for staff to remain silent is clear. It seems important to remember if working in fine dining in Copenhagen that snitches get stitches.
Which begs the question, how broken are we as an industry that even those deeply set within it are too scared to speak out for fear of being blacklisted from their future? Blacklisted from a future that will sadly almost certainly guarantee financial hardship, physical pain, problematically managed relationships, and almost certainly at some point in time substance abuse…
This, truly, was the magic of COVID. For the first time the staff holding the industry up were afforded a breath. Afforded a weekend. Afforded a normal night of sleep. There was suddenly time in the day and the week and the month to think about the future. To think of the possibilities that lay outside of the system. And quite frankly, it became clear that anything was better than continuing to work for minimum wage11, tirelessly and slavishly, towards much more of the same.
Even I came to realise there are much better and kinder ways to earn minimum wage. Even if that meant re-training or starting again from the bottom, or taking a terrifying leap into something unknown. Chefs make great employees. They work hard, dedicate to craft, are loyal, understand hierarchies, instinctively work towards time constraints, insist on cleanliness, pursue the romance of an ideal, live what they do and are seemingly happy to do so whilst living on the poverty line, laden with abuse day in and day out.
If you give chefs a job in an environment that promotes business culture, that cares, understands, affords sick days, allows for mental health days, and pays a respectful wage, can you imagine how productive chefs would be, how loyal they would be? Yes, sure you would have to break the cycle of abuse that is deeply entrenched in their psyche, but once you did… my god you would have a great employee.
—
The current situation in kitchens in Copenhagen casts doubt over the reality of the hope I held for Australia and the industry here. Since returning from London I have had my own experiences in structurally abusive kitchens. Companies that would never admit to fault but unofficially force staff to work 60-70 hour weeks for minimum wage. I took a job as a Head Chef at one when I returned from London. I was broke, I wanted a cushy job with a national company. I wanted to work, not for myself, but for someone with an HR department, a company with government catering contracts at institutional hospitality venues all around the country. In my eyes, I wanted to work for someone who couldn’t break the rules. A company that would be held to account for the contract they had me sign. Where if I was forced to work more than my contracted hours I could push back and they would have to listen.
I was shocked to learn of the reality of the kitchen I walked into12. Everyone was broken. The staff were exhausted and on the edge of falling apart. Throughout Covid they had continued to work as Queensland didn’t really ever lock down. Casual staff were removed from the schedule and the former Head Chef (a good buddy of the group’s Executive Chef) had pushed towards staff costs of 11% throughout the kitchen. Chefs were working 60+ hours a week regularly but being asked to sign off on time to account for the paperwork. Some international staff could not speak for themselves for fear of losing their progress towards a visa13. I raised some of these issues with the head office in Sydney and I was told the staff were lying. I reported systemic and structural bullying of staff by the executive team at the venue, after which I was informed not to return to the kitchen.
This happens everywhere. Regardless of the status or the formality of the company, or the promises made contactually, people are being taken advantage of in kitchens. While placing a spotlight on Copenhagen is truly eye opening and a shattering of the Platonic ideal, it sadly limits the discussion of the problem to one section of the industry - fine dining. A section of the industry where abuse is not only expected and as a result accepted, but where chefs compete for entry into these environments as it earns them professional and cultural cache. Chefs who are abused as mid-tier employees in hotel kitchens or catering kitchens or corporate office kitchens can’t wear their abuse as a receipt for investment. Often, they can’t do anything but continue to work under awful conditions.
—
Yet there is such demand and such a deep skill shortage within the industry that for the first time it has put chefs in a powerful position to negotiate the terms of their employment. This is where companies like Ravneet Gill’s Countertalk, based out of London, are trying to facilitate change. Countertalk connects chefs that are pushing for industry change with employees that are attempting to implement structures within their own organisations to improve the conditions of chefs. It’s somewhat of an ‘ethical’ recruitment agency. Restaurants and businesses are vetted for their culture, work practices, and pay. If the minimum requirements aren't met (namely, London living wage, honest hours, progressive business culture) the employer can’t advertise jobs on Countertalk and as a result misses out on access to talented, dedicated, hard working chefs.
It’s a model that could possibly work in Australia. Matching talent with the opportunities that can facilitate growth and change - providing a transparent portal for chefs that do feel trapped by their employment status to confidently explore options14, without fear of disrupting their visa process, or their personal or professional development.
The issue then becomes about accountability, but I will concede that this is an environment that has been absolutely decimated by the pandemic the last two years. Can we actually blame restauranteurs from doing everything they can to stay afloat?
I think we can.
At the end of the day if we continue to afford the restaurant industry to behave this way with its employees, how can we justify it as an industry that can feasibly operate? If your business needs to abuse and take advantage of staff to survive, is it really a business that should be operating in the market? More importantly, though, if you can’t run a business within the bounds of the law and within the bounds of contractual agreements then it’s clearly a business that doesn’t work. I think we can create change, I think the industry can change. It won’t be easy and it won’t be cheap but I think it’s going to be essential if it is to still be around for us to enjoy in this form in twenty years.
It was akin to hearing your parents say ‘wipe the smirk off your face’ when all you were doing was minding your own business.
Noma is a restaurant of Legend. Opened in 2003 by Rene Redzepi and Claus Meyer, they focused on regional food traditions, hyper-locality, seasonality and reinventing for a modern palate what it meant to work under the restriction of place. They opened in an old warehouse by the water in the centre of Copenhagen. The warehouse was formally the main point of trade with the Faroe Islands and Greenland, storing dried fish, salted herring, whale oil and skins, in transit to the European market. By 2006 it ranked 33rd in the 50 best restaurants in the world and in 2010 arrived for the first time in the top spot. In the same way that Ferran Adria, with his work in modernist cuisine and his restaurant El Bulli, changed what was possible in cooking - Noma has inspired chefs and restaurants around the world through its approach to New Nordic cuisine. The impact of Noma and Rene Redzepi requires more words than I can fit in here. If you are interested in its impact and Rene’s influence, read this article here.
It seems treasonous to some that I could consider myself to be part of a broader community of like-minded chefs exploring and championing this idea of the best food coming out of locality, sustainability, history, and provenance, and to have not spent time at Noma, or least dreamt about spending time there.
Which makes sense in principal of course. Of course a dish will taste different in different climates but this is more than that. What I am talking about here is the difference in the final palate of the same fish caught 100km north or 100km south from the point in Portugal. The distinct difference in fat and texture and colouration and quality. The degrees of nuance (both good and bad) that offered possibility and clarity and excitement. It’s a fucking wild thing.
In my experience more traditional chefs chefs, abusive chefs, broken chefs, would never humour the adoption of the HR and lifestyle principles promoted by Noma.
A stagiaire is an intern. More often than not to take a place as a stagiaire is to work for free doing mundane and time consuming tasks. Without interns restaurants like Noma could not exist. In fact, fine dining restaurants around the world would struggle to operate without the free labour they have access to year in year out.
The more you read restaurant announcements or press releases for new openings the more you will realise just how many chefs have Noma on their resume. How many use it to earn credibility for financing or press. The time spent in those kitchens bought you currency in the industry. It was fabled (as I’m sure you can tell) and famed (yes, we know).
There is also the assumption that the cooking is good too. I mean, that’s a given… I hope.
The minimum award wage for kitchen staff in Australia starts at $26 / hour for an untrained kitchen porter. In London most kitchen porters I knew earned $9-$13 / hour. I fought to pay my kitchen porters the equivalent of $22, which many people told me was excessive. In Australia it’s possible to work 35-40 hours a week as a kitchen porter and earn $60,000 per year (if you take into account weekends and pubic holiday loadings), in London a kitchen porter could be employed on a 38 hour contract work 60 hours a week and earn as little as $30,000 / year (just above what was considered the London minimum living wage). That is less than $500 / week after taxes. I heard stories from friends (who at this point will remain anonymous) who were complaining about that fact they had to fit all of their full time staff into 35 hour working weeks, how chefs would complain if they were made to work beyond their contracted hours. Friends would lament at the difficulty of it, but equally wonder at the balance that was finding its way into an industry we all knew was fucked and broken.
Noma has recently updated its policy on payment. Interns / stagiaires are now paid. Copenhagen is expensive. Very expensive. It is the 8th most expensive city in the world currently but takes out the top spot for cities in in the EU.
This newsletter being one of them.
As a note, this kitchen was at a cultural arts institution in Queensland. One of the most well respected creative and cultural spaces in the state. My point being that this can happen anywhere, not just in backwater neighbourhoods or high end restaurants. It doesn’t exist only at the extremes. It could be happening in the kitchen at the theatre or the cafe at the library or the tuck shop at your kids school.
One staff member, although he had qualified for permanent status in Australia 12 months earlier had been told by the company that it ‘wasn’t the right time’ to finish the process. As soon as it was received he planned his exit. All of the chefs I worked with at this venue had a similar strategy, get the visa and get out. Change careers, change venues, run away from the abuse.
If anyone reading this is interested, you have my details… Let’s talk.
Words by Daniel Wilson
Daniel has a Masters in Food Culture from The University of Gastronomic Science in Pollenzo, Italy. He is a writer, a chef, and a recovering restaurateur.
The picture is taken from the Selby Restaurant blog and can be found here.