James Kenji Lopez-Alt
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The Three Restaurant Red Flags that Make Me Reconsider Patronizing
🕑 Added 2024-10-07 18:12:15 +0000 UTCFolks sometimes ask me how I pick what restaurants I want to go to. Part of it is based on the recommendation of friends, industry professionals, and written reviews. But the deciding factor for me is always going to be checking out the public information available about the place, and a close examination of their vibe. I especially like to check the history of the chef/owner, as well as how the restaurant presents itself on social media.
As an individual consumer, I try to avoid spending my money at establishments where that money may end up in the hands of people who are abusive or exploitative. I also recognize that my voice can affect the business of a restaurant, and I want to make sure that I am not accidentally supporting a business that may not be living up to my own personal code of ethics.
Here are some of the red flags I frequently see that make me question how a place is run.
Important note: It's crucial to remember that these are just potential red flags, and none of them definitively indicate an abusive or exploitative kitchen. However, if I notice any of these, and especially if I notice a few together (and they almost always go hand in hand), it makes me reconsider whether I want to support that establishment.
I'd rather just avoid places that set off the alarms and focus my attention on spots with no red flags.
1. An all-male, mostly white kitchen displayed on social media or on their website.
This is the biggest red flag for me. It makes me ask two questions: Why don't women or minorities want to work here? Or: Why doesn't the chef want to hire women or minorities?
I've never heard a clean, believable answer to either of those questions, other than the simplest one: it's probably a hostile workspace for women and/or minorities.
Even if it's not, if a chef or owner is proudly displaying the photo publicly, it's a good bet they have not put much thought to it.
Bonus red flag: if they refer to the kitchen crew as "the boys" or "the lads," and/or the front of house team is majority women.
2. A white chef/owner making the food of minorities/underrepresented peoples.
I'm not saying that white people can't cook non-white food. That would be ludicrous. However, the reality is that white, male chefs have an advantaged position, and it's all too easy to take advantage of that position, even without bad intent. Historically, this has led to the food and culture of minorities and immigrants--folks without power--being taken and profiteered by those with power. Sometimes it's with a smile and a thank you and good will. Sometimes it's not. Either way, the power dynamic makes it an issue that cannot be ignored, especially not by the chefs/owners doing the profiteering.
Bonus red flag: If the chef/owner has publicly made comments that indicate they don't understand the issue, or they minimize it.
3. Resumes that include establishments known to be exploitative and abusive.
What do I mean by exploitative and abusive?
- An abusive kitchen is one in which some form of physical, mental, or emotional abuse is taking place. This can range from outright violence to sexual assault and harassment to extended mental abuse.
- For example: I once watched from a few feet away as a Michelin-starred British chef threw a searing hot pan--complete with the scallop he was unhappy with and the sizzling browned butter it was searing--in at the cook who sent it to him. I've seen chefs intentionally slam hot oven doors on cooks hands, or intentionally heat a cook's tools on an open fire so they'll burn their hand when they pick it up, etc. I've heard chefs and cooks make disgusting comments and lewd gestures towards women, homosexuals, and trans/non-binary folks.
- An exploitative kitchen is one in which the chef takes advantage of the power imbalance to get free labor out of their staff.
- For instance: It is common for chefs to ask cooks to work off the clock after hours, or to come work for free in one of their other restaurants on their day off "for the experience." (It's also common for cooks to ask if they can do this voluntarily. I've had mixed feelings about this in the past, but now believe that it is the chef/owner's responsibility to insist on paying workers and interns for any work done that benefits the restaurant or chef in any way. In the worst cases, some 50% of the back of house working in fancy, michelin-starred places are working completely unpaid. Workers are also habitually pressured to work through breaks, work through injuries and sickness, work through mental health issues, and ignore/don't report abuse.
Does having worked for a notoriously exploitative or abusive kitchen automatically mean you'll behave the same way? Of course not. Unless they've been extremely lucky in their career, every cook and chef in the world has worked for a chef who ran an abusive or exploitative kitchen.
However, if you worked at one of those spots for an extended period of time, it's recent on your resume, and especially if you proudly display it and use it as part of your identity without having addressed what went on in those kitchens and how yours is different, that's a red flag.
Bonus red flag: an obsession with gaining a Michelin star or some other form of recognition that indicates their priorities are fame/recognition at any cost.
4. High staff turnover/insider reports
This one is not easy to spot, as it requires you to pay attention to one spot over an extended period of time, or to get information from friends or insiders who work in the restaurant. But if you can get this information, it's actionable,
Does the crew inside the restaurant seem to be constantly changing? Does it seem like every time a woman starts working in the kitchen, they last a few weeks or months, then leave? Have workers publicly come out about the conditions in the restaurant in the past?
When you look at the kitchen, do the workers seem distressed or unhappy?
There are other red flags that pop up from time to time, but those are the major ones. Let me know if there are things you tend to look out for before dining at an unfamiliar restaurant.
Comments
David P
Nothing more refreshing than someone who respects the wider context in which everything exists. Too many people fall into the trap of "just focusing on the food" or trying to be "apolitical," and I'm always glad to see someone being real about how things are. An all white kitchen is a red flag if you think diversity is something that has inherent value! And monetizing the culture of minorities as a white guy is bad, and doesn't exist in a vacuum! It's probably representative of a lack of thoughtfulness and bad-faith that affects plenty of other things in the restaurant. But yeah, couldn't agree more.
leah
Seriously reason 152784939 why I love Kenji so much! Hit this shit on the head! Thanks for sharing this, definitely some of my own personal red flags as well. I have switched to strictly local small eateries in my area only and also check to see who owns it and how it’s being ran. Our money is power!
Joel Skoda
As somebody who started as a dishwasher, then worked up to kitchen manager over years, it hurts to read this put so succinctly. I moved to an insurance job (ugh, I know) after the pandemic shut our restaurant, and the owners left all our families with no security, then hired new staff at half the wage without even letting us know. Sad there isn't ways to clearly identify these red flags elsewhere, like how toxic a certain Gecko's CEO could make things.
Patreonus Rex
TOUCHE. I always understood "chef-driven" in this context to mean that typically in the Midwest, Chinese restaurants are more fast food and not what one would consider "gourmet". But now I realize the implication from calling something chef-driven could imply some bogus shit. This is the perspective I seek. Thank you, mon frere-- appreciate you. And as an aside, as a father of three young boys, you also seem like a killer dad which makes watching your context 10x better.
James Kenji Lopez-Alt
To answer who’s to blame, no I don’t think you’re part of the problem. Unless you keep going back 😬
James Kenji Lopez-Alt
A lot of it comes down to attribution I think. Do they acknowledge where the food comes from? Have they done their research and are they intimately familiar with the cuisine and cultures they are representing? Are they using language or branding that implies their version is somehow better or “cleaner”? The description you give here sounds like the answer is no, they are not respectful of the cuisine or people making it. What does “chef-driven” mean in this context? It implies that traditional Chinese food is *not* chef-driven. It sounds like they’re suggesting that white, western dudes are “chefs” while the actual accomplished Chinese chefs cooking Chinese food are not. That’s a pretty bad choice of language that represents a pretty bad way of thinking about it. It’s similar to when Asian restaurants run by white peopme are self-described as “clean” or “healthy,” which implies that Asian-run asian restaurants are neither of those things.
Caroline Briggs
I worked as a FOH manager in corporate restaurants in the Bay Area during the early 80s. Most of them were high-end corporate concepts in high-end Bay Area shopping centers. My last (and favorite) La Cumbra, at Stanford Shopping Center served ‘Mexican’ food. Huge margaritas. Huge tostada shells. Huge burritos. Nothing that would scare anybody—it was all cloaked in a pretty coat of crema and guacamole. Sigh. Such innocence. Not so much in the bar. The old Oakland Raiders loved the bar—Jim Plunkett and his guys were there a lot in the offseason. I did have a point. Right. Even then, in that type of place, I remember weeks and weeks of opening, closing, seven days a week, week in, week out, and thinking it meant I was *good* enough. *Strong* enough. *Tough* enough. So I was 21? So I was female? I could have contempt for those who couldn’t do every job in the place, who needed time off. Punks. Years later I read Kitchen Confidential and thought ‘Yep. I should never have gotten out. This is the real deal—the real stuff.’ By that time I’d finished a doctorate and I was a Microsoft program manager, and for a while I indulged in regrets—path not taken, etc. Then I realized I still had the stuff; I just wasn’t throwing things around my kitchen as often. Both of those pursuits can be just as sexist, as exploitative, certainly as Darwinian, as the chef who throws his temper tantrums with his scallops, no matter where that chef might be hanging his hat. I think that the common thread isn’t so much about whether it’s right or wrong (Hello, HR?) but about the people who measure themselves—their talent, their toughness, their ‘tude—against the worst the boss could dish out. I can testify that it takes courage and stamina and determination to get through a PhD program, exams, and thesis defense. You gotta want it so much that you’re doing it for you and to hell with your committee. By the time I got to Microsoft in the early 90s it was still a pretty small company. BillG and SteveB were excitable guys. They were both smart as hell, and the hiring bar was very high. The culture built was one where the appropriate way to tell an employee that they had failed to produce was to jump up on a conference table and scream at them. This practice percolated downstream. Naturally. If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere… I know this isn’t really on topic, Kenji. But … I miss Tony Bourdain. I know too many like him, like me, that set up impossible conditions and called them ‘The best ever, dude!’ then discovered that the really bad stuff had followed us anyway. That these methods of attaining excellence have traditionally been associated with academics, with haute cuisine, with certain employers/fields, doesn’t argue that they’re good. It only suggests that they attract a certain type of person and does some of them no good at all. Thanks for reading.
Patreonus Rex
I agree with all of this, and I am wondering if you could expound upon and give me a good example of how to handle #2 delicately and thoughtfully because it is difficult for me sometimes (as a privileged white male who loves to eat) to understand where that line is-- basically, where does cultural appropriation and exploitation begin, even with good intentions? You have always been so in tune to this dynamic and it's one of the things I love about you. As an example-- Dan Jacobs, who was one of the finalists on Top Chef this year, who owns and operates a restaurant called DanDan in Milwaukee. It's a Chinese themed restaurant run by two guys named Dan and is described as bringing "chef-driven Chinese food with a midwestern sensibility to Milwaukee’s dining scene." I was able to eat there recently and it was pretty good (we were calling it really good white-dude Chinese) but we had this exact discussion at the table while dining there. Does this violate #2? And by eating there am I part of the problem? One of the things I love about living here (in the US) is that we are a country built by and completely full of immigrants, which is one of the things that makes our dining scene so amazing. But if it's at the cost of cheapening what is otherwise a culturally defining food, I don't want to be blind to or contribute to that mentality or culture. (Also, you're the best.)
Austin Levenson
Great post! Another red flag I think of a lot is a place that’s constantly hiring. It makes me think that the employees are treated horribly thus causing turnover and/or the wages being offered are not suitable enough.
James Kenji Lopez-Alt
Oh this is a good one, yes.
James Kenji Lopez-Alt
No! It was actually after seeing virtually all of these red flags at a Nashville spot that came highly recommended and deciding not to go because of them.
John Carruthers
A fun one I run into is where the chef/owner replies to even bathwater-temp. criticism on Google/Yelp/etc. with scorched earth. People who do that publicly are usually a *delight* behind closed doors with people in their employ.
J. Walter Hawkes
I hope you weren’t inspired to write this after your trip to NYC 😬🤪😆
James Kenji Lopez-Alt
I haven’t seen past season one, but from what I hear, The Bear made some of the biggest perpetrators of this behavior seem like calm Yoda-types.
Scott McAuley
This is great insight. Also, it makes me wonder if I should continue watching The Bear. 😬
Dhruv Khanna
As a customer and consumer, I love seeing this type of content! It's definitely something that has become more noticeable and influential to my choices. I know which famous / good restaurant in my city is known to try and shut down worker complaints, and which one fundraised money to help with their trans line cook's brain tumor operation - no questions on which of the two I would spend my money on.
Tom
Great comments and insight! Thanks Kenji! I am particularly drawn to people cooking other culture's food. Reminds me of a slew of white guys showcasing their "Mid Atlantic" cooking several years ago. Virtually everything was African American cookery and although mis-appropriation is a term I seldom use, it truly felt right for this. You can only imagine where the recipes came from.
Emma Young
I have been in the same kitchen in an Irish country house for 11 years. I love it there, and we are women led, FOH and kitchen. But sometimes you meet those guys and they do make you feel small and irrelevant. Lucky to be where I am really
