Hi everyone, welcome to Pot Luck Food Talks. Today I'm here with my man Phil Walther. We're going to talk about slavery. Modern kitchen slavery, as a lot of people like to call it. Stagiaire, doing stash in high-end restaurants. It's quite a topic. We've both done it. I don't know, what are your opinions about it? Well, it's a very controversial topic and a lot of people, I feel like especially the generation after me and you, they have very strong opinions in it. And I think rightfully so.
You should definitely have questions and have an opinion on this. I think maybe we should start explaining what exactly stash is and what it entails and why you would do something like that. Basically, it's an internship in a restaurant. And I would say in the most traditional ways that you work for free. You go to a high-end restaurant, you work for free, and it's not that because you're working for free, you're going to have certain privileges. Actually, you're going to get the shittiest jobs.
And if you prove that you can do many tasks and assume responsibility and do the things in the right way, sometimes you end up being hired or you end up getting more responsibility. I mean, I saw you working as an apprentice and you were running a station like a chef de pate because you were already at that point.
And that was also my case in the places where I worked, where I could have the responsibility of leading a station because whatever, the chef de pate was on his day off or these kinds of things. So basically, it's learning by doing in a real restaurant. Yeah, exactly.
And I think for people on the outside, when they hear that, especially when you started explaining at the beginning, instead of like, well, you go to a restaurant, you work for free and you get the shittiest jobs and you get the shittiest treatment and blah, blah, blah, it sounds very rough. It's kind of like people probably ask themselves, why would you do something like this? Right? But... You know, I was having a conversation just recently about exactly that point you were just mentioning.
And I think if you talk about it, you bring people to reason to understand why it's screened in the kitchen. Because basically, imagine you're cooking at home and you buy a whole fish, a whole one, you get really nervous and you don't want to screw it up. And I'm pretty sure if someone comes and screws your fish, you won't take it like, oh, well, no problem. Let's have a nice dinner some other day. You know, like it will be like a drama for sure. And that's what happened in kitchens.
And the reason is that fish, you have like 500 like those every day and you don't want to screw any of those, you know? And I mean, also, it's important to know that like not just any restaurants do this, you know, it's like talking about football, you know, it's like we're talking with the champions league of restaurants, you know, this is the top, top, top level. Like there's nothing above it and nobody's forcing anybody to do a stage there.
You know, it's kind of like you can obviously it gets taken to the extremes, but you know, you can see it as an internship and you've invest your time and your effort and your work for doing like two months or three months and gaining experience, seeing a different place because it's not just the food that's different. It's the whole organization, the mentality, the mindset, the attitude, the small things, the cleaning, you know, the produce, how a menu is set up, how the kitchen is organized.
And this is a very valuable insight for you that, you know, you can decide to do. No, exactly for me, like if I have to talk about my motivation, why did I, well, I did this like for about three years. I was working in different places. First in Caracas in my hometown, I did this and I would say two of the best restaurants in the city at the moment and also in a chocolate factory.
And I went to Spain to do exactly the same at Mugaritz and when you do this in a restaurant from that level, the question is, well, why would you do that? Why would you take a plane and spend money, the money you need for diet and accommodation or such a, I would say, how could you call this like an educational project, personal project, something like this? Yeah. For me, this was much more interesting than going to a culinary school.
There is these people that have the chance and the money to go to super expensive culinary schools and then doing different masters and different specializations and different things. I thought like if I had the money to do that, I would rather tour in different restaurants in Europe because you see the real thing, you know, you see real chefs in action in a real service.
For example, in the case of Mugaritz, they were writing history at the moment, the dishes that were coming out and the chefs that were in that kitchen, just to name a few. I mean, it was an amazing lineup. There was Paco Morales, Danny Hunter, Luca Fantin, Alejandro Cancino, Joannes, Dani Laza, you know, like they're all stars now or Michelin star chefs even, Olida Boo, you know, like and Camila Seidler all at the same time in the same place.
And, you know, being there and experiencing that, it's priceless. And when I hear people comparing these things like with modern slavery or some kind of abuse or these kind of things, well, I think they're just misinformed, in my opinion.
Yeah, I think that your comparison to, you know, whether you decide to put your money and your effort into culinary school or whether you put your money and your effort into doing that, I think that's really, really on the money, like on point, because it's like, I personally, I wouldn't have had any money to spend on culinary school, but I wanted to like, I wanted to be the best professional, the best version of myself.
And I really, I was very, very passionate and I wanted to really strive, you know, for excellency. And so what could I offer? I could offer my time and my hard work, right? And so that's what I did and that's what I paid with, you know? And it's, yeah, I think people are really, really misinformed. And also what I never understand is that this is a free decision, you know? It's not like when we talk about sort of like all the best restaurants in the world, like for me, it's very, very clear.
It's like whether you spent five years starving in Michelin star restaurants or you're cooking in not a Michelin star restaurant that does really good food, one isn't better than the other, you know? It's just a different style of cooking, but you're not automatically better just because you've starved at Noma and you starved at, you know, 11 Madison Park. That doesn't make you a better person or necessarily a better chef, you know?
In some cases yes, in some cases no, but it doesn't mean anything, you know? It's just something that you're interested in. And so, you know, people sort of like, oh, this is exploitation, you know? It's kind of like, no, it's not. It's your free choice to decide to do this. It's forcing you to, and you're also not pressured into doing it because people say, well, if you don't do this, then you're not going to succeed in your profession.
Yeah, like, and also what I was mentioning earlier, these super strong opinions are always from outsiders. Very rarely see them from people that actually did these experiences. You also see that. I've also seen that, of course. But I mean, there were two relevant scandals here in Spain, like press-wise. But I mean, since I was doing stash myself, I would hear people threatening of, yeah, you know, we could one day bring the television here to see the conditions that we're forced to live in.
And I mean, they're giving you accommodation for free, but of course, you're going to share a room with four other people and it's not going to be like a five-star hotel. And if you get accommodation, there are also places where you don't get the accommodation, you know? So they did these two scandals. They were Aponiente and Azurmendi, and they kind of like put journalists into the houses where they were living.
And they tried, they really tried to make like a real scandal out of this and putting like the modern slavery concept in the mouth of people. And there was like a lot of controversy on social media. And at the end, it was nothing because this is really like a first world problem and a middle class people problem. Nobody goes there to do a stash if you're not middle class because you need some money to do that, you know? Absolutely. Yeah, that's exactly the thing. That's always what I said also.
It's a first world problem. It's kind of like, oh, you have the freedom to work and spend your time like for free without getting paid, just so you get some valuable experience and get to meet people and get to do cool shit, you know, and like work at a really, really special place. It's like, wow, boo hoo, you know? Like go work somewhere else. You can choose what you want to do.
I remember a lot of magical moments in these places of watching super ultra high level talented people doing their job, like, you know, butchering a fish or managing a service or even the organizations, know structures of a restaurant. Like anything else in some places it was amazing. In other places it was an absolute mess. You learn from both things that you will learn in any kitchen, things like leadership or how to work in team or these kinds of things.
I mean, these are like your first steps, I would say in the real world outside of a school or, you know, like at home you're suddenly exposed to the real market and real people working in real context, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's kind of like, this is weird attitude towards these sorts of things where I feel like people, they pretend like they are obligated to do these things, you know?
There was a scandal in the UK not long ago, I think like maybe four or five years ago, regarding a super super famous restaurant, like one of the most successful restaurants in the UK and in the world about a pastry chef who started them and was then complaining that they were doing long hours, that the pressure was very high, that when he was making mistakes that people were, you know, not chilled about it and that he had to do the same tasks
every day and they had to be perfect and that because he had to do, like I remember one thing that he or she, I can't remember what they complained about, was that he had to do the same task and it hurt his wrist, you know?
And it was a big thing, it was like a big article about it, it was a little bit of a scandal and I remember I got actually, because at the time I was in London and I got interviewed about this as like one of like many people, like what their opinion is on it and I was sort of like, well, I don't know how anybody's surprised, everybody likes to jump on board and blame the restaurant, you know?
And like, you know, before that I want to say it's obviously super important that like there's good working conditions that, you know, people don't work a ridiculous amount of hours, etc. etc. That's super super important. But if you go to one of the best restaurants in the country and in the world, you know, you expect it to be low pressure, you expect there to be a medium amount of standards.
No, like you need to be taken care of and you don't have a work-life balance, but obviously there's going to be pressure to deliver. But isn't that the reason why you go there? Exactly. Imagine, imagine going to train with the Barca football team and say, oh, I had to run all day, you know? It's like, it's just hilarious. Yeah. And it's like, well, if you don't like, you can't have both things.
You can't be top of the top and work in the best restaurant and then be sort of like, oh, well, but I don't actually want to, you know, apply myself. I don't actually want to push. I don't want to walk the walk to be that, you know? Yeah, exactly. And it just, it just doesn't work that way, you know? And like I said, it's a super important subject that like pressure is good to a certain point too much pressure is not good at all.
And it's like, it's our job and the restaurant world, especially, you know, to find a balance because you know, people are the most valuable thing that we work with and you know, people have to be safe and they have to be healthy and they have to be good, right? But a certain amount of pressure is also very, very beneficial because it keeps pushing you and keeps moving you forward. Doesn't have to be in a nasty way. Doesn't have to be in an abusive way. Can be productive pressure.
But you know, pressure, you know, it creates change and it creates, you know, a development. It creates progress forwards. Well, that's also something super important. You just mentioned about the conditions because it's not the same starting anywhere.
I would say like in, in, in good restaurants, it is expected that whoever is at the moment you chef the party or whoever is mentoring you, that he will guide you and answer questions, technical questions and these kinds of things and that kind of mentor apprentice or that kind of pedagogic relationship between the intern and the worker.
I think it's super important, not only from a philanthropical point of view, but also because it's in a practical way, you want your, the, the, the person that is helping you out to understand the processes so that they can properly execute them. Right? I mean, and it's also super common.
You will see when you go to this super professional restaurants where you see actual even Michelin star chefs or head chefs that are staging in these places, there's like a super mutual respect for this curiosity and knowledge hunger of trying to understand what are you doing here? What is sauce made and so on. Absolutely. Absolutely.
And of course there's, you know, that's like a very like beneficial aspect of traveling, but then, you know, there's also downsides, I think, to this whole like approach of traveling a lot and staging a lot, you know, it's because obviously you get a lot of impressions and you get to see a lot, but I think it's also created a little bit of a false expectation for people.
I saw, you know, nowadays and also back when I was still staging, I saw a lot of people who would, you know, start cooking and like, you know, maybe a commie and then maybe decide to start a little bit, then they do like three months Mugarets, three months Noma. They feel gods. They feel like, yeah. And then they want to be a sous chef, you know, and then they want to start somewhere and be a sous chef with like 23.
And it's like, well, you know, there's definitely people who can do that, but it's sort of like, what does it, what does it, what does it mean to be a sous chef? You know, they love to talk about the places that are the thing. Well, we used to do this in Mugarets, this and that way. And it's like, exactly. And you use this name that somebody has worked in incredibly intensely for to create. And you use that as like a banner, but you've actually not really created anything for yourself.
You've just spent some time and that's like, that's valuable also, but it's actually not, it's not you, you know, like it's like you take parts of it, but it's not enough. And you know, you see that with people from culinary school also, you know, they go through three or four years of culinary school and then they really expect to go out into the world and become like a sous chef or a head chef, you know? Yeah. And, and this kind of profile always wants to skip the nasty work.
You know, if you have to peel a sack of potatoes that will take half an hour or one hour to do or this kind of thing. So those are the things that nobody wants to do at no moment because it's kind of like, I don't know what, but well, my friend, that's part of cooking, you know, like. Yeah, of course.
And it's kind of like, they've like, they're like in the fast lane and they skipped all they think because they, you know, oh, I did three months of stage and that was really hard, you know, and they think they can skip all of that stuff.
But it's kind of like, well, at some point, you know, sort of like in your career, you're cooking, you're cooking, you're cooking at one day, you want to be the guy who stands there in his fancy jacket at the pass and looks at all the sections and calls the tickets and checks everything.
But if you've not gone through every single section and know you have a absolute fundamental sharpness and understanding, technical understanding of everything that's going on, you know, how are you meant to, you know, have any management and any overview over anything that's going on.
You should be able to see just like from the past, you know, the guy on the, on the fish section that the way that he's searing the fish, that it's not quite right, you know, and you can only do that by standing there and searing fish, you know, and just cooking and cooking and looking for that like sweet spot, you know, and I think like people just skip that and they absolutely forget about really the substance of like the craft, you know.
They think they know it, they have all these like concepts and ideas and they see all these like beautiful ideas and blah and these beautiful dishes, but the real like substance of like what the, because cooking is a craft after all, you know, of what it makes, like they completely forget about that.
And that you don't have this like, you know, like Fergus Henderson says, the Jedi sense, like just in intimate understanding of a process or a technique or whatever, you know, that's they just don't have that and how should they, because they never lived it, you know. Yeah, exactly.
I mean, like to understand a process, to really understand it, you have to do it a hundred times and it has happened to me a lot of times that processes that I think I understand years later, someone comes and, and proves that I had no idea about it, you know, like that was like a key point that I just misunderstood and was doing incorrect, you know, like. Yeah. It's like Bruce Lee said, you know, I don't fear the guy who practiced a thousand kicks one time.
I fear the guy who practiced one kick a thousand times. And it's just like that. It's sort of like, I don't fear the guy who cooked a thousand fish one time. I fear the guy who cooked one fish a thousand times. That's the guy I respect. That's super important about a staging also, because I mean, staging. You will do crappy tasks and you will have people telling you exactly how to do it and not in a different way, but that way.
And then you will go to one place and they will tell you the, the, the potatoes have to be peeled downwards. And then you go to another place and they will tell you, you have to do it in a spiral way. And if you do it in some other way, you're just retarded. Actually, those experiences are the ones that build your criteria. You know that later you will realize that just these two guys were retarded, not you.
And you will peel the potato however you feel it's better for your restaurant concept or the operation you're managing basically. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And also like this whole like, you know, title thing of kind of like, you know, I'm a sous chef here, I'm a junior, demi sous chef there, you know, it's not the same being a sous chef at Mougaritz than it is being a sous chef at La Strasse, you know, or La Perche, you know, it's not the same. Or in a five star hotel for sure. Yeah. Exactly.
Or in a super busy bistro, you know, like it's, it's very, very different.
And I think it would be really beneficial for all of the restaurant world, whether Michelin or Casual or whatever, everything in between, whether people would just concentrate a little bit more on like the core of it of, you know, cooking and making really nice things and having a clean and organized restaurant and you know, feeding people and being nice to each other, you know, and everything else is bullshit, you know, everything else doesn't
matter whether you're called a sous chef, you know, it's kind of like, yeah, I can call you a sous chef, but like you're still, you know, like whether you, if you still do like a job, like a shitty chef to party, it doesn't matter whether you're called a sous chef or not, you're still doing a shit job.
Yeah, the other topic that perhaps we could talk about is about how long to stash and how many places like I remember when I was at that point, like in junior high school and thinking about this kind of things, I saw an interview with Charlie Trotters and he said like something like, yeah, stay in a restaurant. He was not even talking about stashing.
He was talking about working and living like stay in a restaurant as long as you have something to learn and when you reach the point that you already know everything and in some restaurants, especially as an apprentice, you can reach that point because there is a top, but perhaps there are things that they won't let you do as an apprentice.
And if you reach that top, well, leave, go somewhere else and never stay in a place where you feel that you're being used or where you feel that they don't want you there. Just leave and go somewhere else. And well, then I knew a lot of people that for the stash, like I did like for three years in different places to learn different things.
And for me, that was super interesting because I did hotels, I did different concepts of restaurants, I did Michelin star restaurants, I did three Michelin star restaurants. Like I did all of these things like in a period of three years. So and after that, it was not just super easy to get a job. It was also super easy.
I remember just after that sequence of working in all these different restaurants, I went to work in a super easy going Spanish restaurant in Berlin and I was able to make my own weekly menu and I could do whatever I want. And that was also super relaxing after being in this kind of restaurants. And it's what I wanted. I mean, there's people that works only at the Michelin star level all their lives, you know, and that's also fine.
Yeah, it's I think it's an interesting topic is like, I think, you know, like we said, I think studying can be very beneficial, but I think it's a totally fair point of like, you know, when I kind of think back to like how I did it when I was younger, is I starved quite a lot and I traveled a lot especially and I jumped around a lot, you know, one year here, two years here. And that it gave me a lot of things and that I'm very grateful for.
But also, I, you know, I did it that way because it kind of just happened that way and I'm also kind of that's just how I was and how I am, you know. But really, I would think looking back, I kind of think, but like for a certain time, I should have just stayed in one place and just really applied myself, you know, and just stuck it out and worked through because even if you get to the point where you think, oh, I know everything, you know, there's not that much more that you can teach.
There's small things that you can still learn and if you pick a place that's really, really, really good, you know, where you really feel passionate about what they do, then I think it's also worth staying longer. And I wish I kind of had done that in my career, you know, it didn't happen also because I didn't find the right place, but it's definitely very, very beneficial.
And people are like very focused on staging and traveling and stuff, but it's also very, very good to just pick a place and stay there for a little bit because it'll really, really shape you and like the foundation, you know? Yeah, I also agree on that. I was very unstable for a long time, like doing three months, six months, three months, six months and many, many, many different places.
And then there is also like things you learn only after you did like the whole year in a place or a second or a third year, you know, like, yeah. Yeah, for sure. But then again, you know, like, like you get from staging, you get things that you would never otherwise get, you know?
I mean, look at like my time in Japan, you know, there is absolutely no way that I would have ever gotten a job in Japan, let alone in a three Michelin star restaurant if I wouldn't have come there as a stage because that's the only way you get in. Not speaking any Japanese, not being from Japan, you know, went there and after a while like applied myself.
I mean, fuck, you know, it's kind of like the most extreme staging circumstances because like you get to Japan, they're sort of like, okay, you're going to peel daikon and you're like, okay. And what else? Yeah, nothing else. You're just going to peel daikon radishes. That's all you're going to do. Until you die. Yeah, until you just fucking die.
And if you fuck it up, you know, it's sort of like, we get to peel it again, then you clean and then you stand there and you see whether you get that you're not in the way. And if you just do it and you do it really well, you know, then they get to like, then you get to do other things, you know, but if you can't start at the bottom, it's like with Mugaritz with the paeta, you know, the paeta isn't folded. How are you going to do anything else?
If your section isn't organized, like how- Wait, wait, wait, wait, we have to make a parenthesis and explain that because a lot of people just don't understand what you're talking about. And I think it's super interesting. How do you say paeta in English? Like cleaning cloth or- Yeah, like a wiping cloth. Yeah. Like a wiping cloth. Oh, in Mugaritz, there is this culture about like a specific way of folding the wiping cloth, the yellow standard ones.
And actually, if you see any pictures of the kitchen of Mugaritz, you will see this perfectly squared yellow wiping cloths in every strategic corner of the kitchen. When I was back then, we already had that. This was 2005, but it evolved into developing an own methodology of folding it to the point that it has become like a cult thing where there is people that get tattoos of the way of folding the wiping cloth of Mugaritz. Okay, go on.
Well, yeah, but it's like, you know, it seems kind of stupid, but it like, there's a meaning behind it, you know? And it's kind of like, well, you know, it's philosophical. It's kind of like you start with the simple things. It is. For me specifically, that kitchen has like, in this way of doing things, there is like a Tao in it, like a way to knowledge. And if you do things like they're supposed to be done and everything works, then you say, ah, okay, I get it.
You know, like, but this is very strange to see kitchens with that level of methodology and operation to that obsessive level, probably in Japan, I can't imagine as well.
Yeah, but also you need to have the capabilities, you know, if you have three people cooking in a restaurant, like, you know, in a kitchen, then, you know, there's not, if there's, you know, 50 people in the kitchen, you can have these sorts of things and have them a little bit more standardized, you know, because there's more room to, but yeah, I think it's a very good metaphor. It's kind of like, you have to start with the foundations. What are the foundations?
Your section is set up, everything's organized, everything's clean. The paietta is folded like that for a reason, because it's the most comfortable shape for you to use it quickly and efficiently to keep your station clean. If your station isn't clean, how are you going to move to anything else? How are you going to even think about grilling the fish or, you know, like all that sort of stuff? Clean and ordered, because it also looks nice. It's not just clean.
It also, it's everything like properly placed. You have to, you can't start with the roof. You have to start with the foundation and the foundation should be that, you know. So the other thing I wanted to talk about is what's the name of these guys in Germany and German countries with the Panda Jarre, you know, these guys with this. What's the name of this? Zimmermann. Zimmermann. They're basically carpenters. Yeah. Carpenters, exactly.
Yeah, I think it's super interesting because it's this, you see them a lot in Germany. They have like this medieval way of dressing. What's the name of this style of trousers? Like clock, can you say that? Clock trousers or? Well, they look like trousers from the sixties, their pants. You will see them when there is like some construction, there's always some of these guys working there. You might think it's a sect or something like that and in some way it is.
But what they have is that they're kind of like, I would compare it with Amish. So to get like a reference that can be comparable or something like that, like this ancient religion way of living and being. So the thing is when they're young, they leave their village for three years and they're not allowed to have any money for those three years. They go to different carpentry masters. I understand they're carpenters, but also other type of works.
I don't know if construction works and things, but carpentry is the most famous. They go to different carpentry masters to learn a new thing from each one. And after three years, they're allowed to go home to their home village and they have to build a masterpiece. And that's the way they concluded their learning journey. And I think that's a super nice thing to preserve like this way. Like doing that in a culinary way, in a structured way where you really do that.
You know, that you went to different restaurants and came back and perhaps you cook a whole menu. I mean, it makes perfectly sense to me. I think that's a really nice comparison, you know, because it's like you go from artisan to artisan and everybody has their own style and their own specialization. And you take all these impressions and adapt them to yourself. So I think that's just a really nice comparison to, you know, going out into the world and starving.