Hi everyone, welcome to potluck food talks. Today I'm here with my man Phil and we're going to have a new Deline episode. Finally! Yeah, I guess people asked for it. Everybody loves hearing kitchen abuse stories, I guess. I love hearing kitchen abuse stories also, you know. It's weird how we kind of live through these situations but we look back at them.
If somebody would tell me that, like somebody I liked, and they told me, oh this happened to me, I'd be like, oh no, this is terrible, this is horrible. I remember one place where I was working, I would tell the things that happened every day, and people would tell me like, dude, you have to leave that place as soon as possible, you know. You can't be there anymore. It's the same, especially my family, I would tell them and it would be kind of like telling a funny story.
And I'd be like, oh you know, this thing happened. Yeah, I found that as well. And they'd be like, oh my god. And the guy was crying, everybody's like, dude, what's wrong with you? And then the guy quits, we never saw him again, he just left his 500 euros of knives in the kitchen, and he just left the city. Well, I remember this place, first I had to work in a different restaurant, and the head chef were related.
So one of the head chefs told me like, oh nice, if you work with me for the summer season, I'll get you a job at this super world-class top restaurant, right? So I did, and I come to this other place expecting that, you know, like I had some special treatment or something, because I come from the other guys related, like cousin, let's say. And when I arrived, they told me, no, that guy left, I'm the new head chef, and I hated the previous one. So it was exactly the opposite, man.
So like, it was like getting that, not with a special treatment, well with a special treatment, but not in favor, you know? Yeah, a special shit treatment. Yeah, and I mean that place, dude, that place was crazy, you know, super top restaurant, like old French school, old house. And there was like the Stagier house, and they would call it the Monster house.
You know, the series, this super old series where the father was Frankenstein, the Monsters, the Monsters family, well for that reason it was called like that, because it somehow resembled that place. And the house was full of graffitis, man, with, you know, like the spare notes, like don't let them get over you. You're worth what you are, and don't let anybody tell you the opposite, you know, written on the walls. That's crazy. Work will set you free, like this kind of things waiting all over.
I heard stories about that house. It must have been like, I heard it looked like a junkie house, like with like mattresses on the floors and like... Absolutely, yeah, and like some of the chefs would bring out, you know, like hookups into the house, like this kind of thing.
So anyways, like I remember the first or second day, I was already shocked with everything, you know, but I remember, well, and also I need to say, like that was probably one of the kitchen with the most elite level of chefs I've seen, like the head chef and everybody around him were like super experienced chefs that had worked like with Carlo Cracco, with Philippe Rochard, with Ruzkalleda, with top chefs all over Europe.
And these were the chefs that packed it, you know, and the head chef itself was someone who had worked like with super top chefs and also in Switzerland and France, but he looked like a junkie. Like he really, I've heard people that had also worked with him in events and they told me like everybody thought that was like a junkie from the street and suddenly it was actually the head chef of this world-class restaurant.
Well, what I was saying, like the second day I see him talking, confronting like one of these head chefs and making the guy say, I'm an idiot, you know, like, come on, say it, not the difficult, say it, I want to hear it. And the other guy went, I am an idiot. Like having a hard time getting the words out of his mouth. And you would see that like this kind of systematic humiliations over and over again.
Like I was working in the, you know, the production table, but will you do all this kind of, you know, peeling works and all the little things, cutting in specific sizes and these kind of things. So all the shitty work basically. And there were like 10 of us, 10 or 12 interns doing those kind of tasks. And one day he asked us all to come with him and we go like, we think we're going to do something.
And then he, there is like the, one of these chefs, the parties, and he comes like, here, here's your help. They're like the 12 of us. And then he laughs along. Okay, guys, you can go. Sounds horrible. Well, I was supposed to work at that place for a whole year. I lasted five months. That's it. You know, it was like way too much for me. I remember cleaning the extractors, you know, after service.
And after the cleaning, he would come like with a toothpick and he would go to see if he would find something, you know, and if he finds something, okay, I want to see everything full of soap again. You know, I'm talking about this cleaning at 2 a.m. after a whole shift, you know, like these kinds of things. I also remember like one day arriving at work, you know, Monday, 8 a.m. first thing, starting the week, you know, like usually you have only Sunday off
and some half other days. So it's the only complete day off we had. First thing in the morning, there was like a glass out of its place. And he would be like, he called all the staff, like 30 chefs. Who left this glass here? Who did it? This is not supposed to be here. And everybody's looking at each other like, okay, what is this? Who did it? I'm going to count to three. One, two, three. Okay, there is no day off this week for anyone.
Amazing. Many years later, I also met other people that work with this guy, especially a friend of mine. And she had like, she just went through an operation, you know, like some sort of infection she had, like, I don't know exactly where, but she had like hard times walking or something like that. So she had to take like, I don't know, an amount of day off for medical reasons. And when she came back, that was like a problem that she was taking day off for medical reasons.
So he came to her and asked her like, and does it hurt? Okay, okay. Come over. He takes her again to this extractor. You know how, you know how, how a shitty task it is to clean air extractors and something. Actually, cooks shouldn't be supposed to do, you know, like it's not a chef's job. It's a cleaning job. But it was like, okay, now this is all for you. And he would let her do the whole thing by herself just because she was sick, you know, this level of dementia.
And, you know, even though I was born and raised in Venezuela, this was in this restaurant the first time I saw cocaine in my life. And it was through this guy, you know, this guy and all the heads, all the chef parties as well. You know, and it was after service, mirror, lines of cocaine, everybody taking lines. And I was like, what the fuck, you know? And it's so crazy because this is by far the most luxurious restaurant I've ever worked.
You would see like people from runners from Formula One going there, celebrities, like supermajor stars. You know, they have three sommeliers. They have like a whole kitchen just for the pastry, like this level of restaurant. And you would see these kind of things over and over again. Well, at the end of the day, this guy died from an overdose a few years later. And, you know, like it was super crazy to be there.
Yeah, that's heavy, man. That's I mean, that sounds like the picture book, toxic, fine dining, kitchen, of sort of like really high pressure. And like this like I remember like being in these sorts of kitchens. I mean, what you like describe it sounds super, super extreme. I'm sure it was like one of the heaviest kitchens to be in at the time.
But like this mix of really amazing food and really amazing technique and craft and then the like whole dark side that's next to it of abuse and not just abusing other people, but abusing yourself, you know. That sounds heavy. Yeah, I remember things like, you know, there is this rule that you know this very well and this kind of places. The worst thing that you can do is being caught not doing anything, just standing. You have to be doing something all the time, even if there is nothing to do.
So I remember when it would come to cleaning time, I was coming to clean something, you know, and people would be like, this is my spot. I'm cleaning here. Go somewhere else. It's like, okay, whatever. You know, like exactly like this toxic competition. And the environment was really that you could feel that everybody was afraid of the chef. But at the same time, you could also feel that he was afraid of everyone. You know, like this was like the social dynamic going on.
And I remember the guy when he would go to eat, he would sit alone in a corner from a bowl eating and quiet and he would watch everyone when he was eating. Also, once I was, you know, this place was also super famous for its foie gras. Actually, the foie gras that was made there was amazing. I remember once I saw this guy, the crazy chef, he was surrounded by cookbooks, like, I don't know, like 10 or 15 cookbooks only on foie gras.
You know, like good cookbooks from Ducasse, from Andoni, from Montagut, like different. And he was checking at the end what he did was a super nice like charcoal foie gras and then poaching chicken stock. And I remember he was working like cleaning the foie gras. And it was my time off. You know, I had two hours off in the afternoon and I go near him because I wanted to see like the technique he was doing. And he was like at some point super uncomfortable. I was like, leave.
He was like, talk like that. I remember this was he was eating like this way. I just told you like watching everyone. And then he turns around and he realizes I was looking at him. And it was like, don't look at me. I was really like like a demon, you know, like someone really troubled inside. Like really good. That sounds awful. It was crazy because he would he would be like that just with the chef and you would see him talking with producers or with customers.
And was like such an adorable person. You know, that also is something I get that I hate so much this double face, you know, like I mean, if you're an asshole, be an asshole. Why do you have to be? Yeah, it's weird. It's like a it's it's like a learned behavior. I mean, it's really like a mental illness being like that, you know. I mean, it's like just completely diving into a really dark world that like you've created for yourself and just living in it.
Because you can't tell me sort of like, oh, it's because he learned like this. He learned like that. No choice that you make. And like you could just decide from one moment to the next to not do that anymore and be nice to people. And nobody could fucking tell me nobody can tell me that high functioning restaurants have to be like that. Nobody could tell me that. I remember having a beer after work with with some people working there and there there were people defending him.
You know, there was this guy because this head chef, he was Catalan. And this guy talking with me, he was also Catalan. And he's telling me like, you know, he had really hard time in France while he was learning that he had to clean chickens and dogs and everything. And they would call him the Spaniard, even though he's Catalan. You know, and that hurt him really bad. And I was like, oh, yeah. Or did it hurt him as bad as making like a wounded woman clean the extraction by itself?
And the same man says, it's just bullshit. It's absolutely bullshit. And yeah, it's like you find people glorifying the sort of shit because you have to deal with it. Right. And you have to kind of like it makes it easier to deal with if you glorify it and you see like a reason behind this like mistreatment. But yeah, it's everybody who's stuck in that sort of mentality. You know, I just wish them a healthy recovery. And also for me, like a super hard thing.
And this happened many times in my career. It's like the understanding, the nature of disappointment, because these kind of places, you don't just go there. You don't just pick up the phone and go there. Like I told you, I worked six months just to get there, you know, for super cheap. You still have an opportunity to go there. And if you do that, it's because you have already read the books of the guy.
You have already, you know, the cuisine, you know, you want to go to this place because you're a fan. Right. And then you get there and you find like this horror story with full of monsters and super like at the end of the day, sad people, you know, like sacrificing themselves to nourish rich people. You know, everything doesn't make sense. You know, like it's like nothing fits. And you are very disappointed.
I mean, I wanted to be there like for a whole year or even stay there because I was a big fan, you know, but after five months, I mean, I was for sure I was depressed. Yeah. But I, you know, what's the name of this guy from Hungary? Julian? Do you know him? Julian. He said R&D. He wrote a piece in his blog like a few weeks ago or a few months also mentioning that that he realized that at the beginning of his career, he was in some place where he was mistreated.
And he realized many years later that he was depressed. And that really resonated in me because I felt the same of this place. I would come, you know, like almost crying to my room every night for five months, you know, like because of this kind of treatment. And I was, I was 19 years old, man, you know, like or 20, something like that. And well, I remember at the end of it, I managed to work to get into service.
So I was on the hotline, plating dishes and everything and starting to see more complicated elaborations and everything. But from one time to the other, I would go back to the production table. And I remember once there was nobody had anything to do. Everything was done. We did everything. Everything was clean. You know, the proper thing to do in this case is to send everybody home, you know, instead of two hours break, you have four hours break. So I was happy about it.
And I go to this chef and I tell him, but it was in the middle of service. So they were like, you know, OK, we go with table five, three dishes, two, blah, blah, blah. You know, the middle of the service dynamic. And I walk in there and I told him, we've done everything. We're done. And the guy went mental. He started screaming like crazy, throwing things like crazy. And for that reason, I spent the next six weeks just plucking birds, you know. And that was the end of it. And I was like, I am.
And you know, this is not for me. Like, this is just bullshit, you know. It's so stupid. It's not for it. It shouldn't be for anyone. No, totally. And like for me, like when you said it, sort of like your understanding, the disappointment that comes with that and like with the work that it takes to be there and stuff. It really reminded me of like the sense of disappointment that I felt in certain like working situations of like.
You go somewhere, you travel somewhere, you live there away from your friends, you're not getting paid anything, you know. You just work and work and work and work and work. And then on top of that, you're getting treated like shit, like you're an idiot, like you don't know anything. It really, really is very, very strange, you know.
And then when I think of like the comparison to like really good places, you know, where there's like a culture of learning and supporting each other, you know, without any less dedication to achieving something, any less drive, you know. It really, really makes me question. I mean, I've spent my whole life in this world, you know, just like kind of you, like we both started when we were super young. And it's still like it really makes me question what leads to that.
The seclusion, you know, the acceptance of certain situations that like, you know, when you're in a restaurant in the countryside of Spain, you don't see anybody spending the time with like a closed off amount of people in a closed room. Certain dynamics like castaway people on a fucking island do, you know, and everything's fine for the first couple of months. And then suddenly somebody turns and that weird hierarchy starts forming.
And then the next thing you know, they start eating people, you know. Yeah. It's kind of like that. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Especially because you spend so many hours, I guess that already makes you crazy. You know, spending so many hours being in a place where you work 16 hours a day, you have only one day off for a couple of years. I mean, it's normal that you go crazy, you know, and every and that the whole environment is sick because, you know, the premise is already wrong.
Yeah, totally. And it's not just that you're working like you're like breaking stones like in a prison, you're working with something where you really you're obsessed with. And so there's never an end cap to that obsession. You know, it's like you can go further and further and further. And if you're really passionate, I mean, passionate, I use that word carefully, because passionate is good. Obsession is not good necessarily.
There's no limits. And so you just pull yourself in more and more and more and more and you get consumed more and more. And that's not necessarily a good thing at all.