# Psychotic chefs



## bryanj (Jun 20, 2008)

Does anyone here have any experience working for a Marco Pierre White or Gordon Ramsay type chef? I mean the crazy, yelling, plate-throwing type of chef. I do, and it sucked whike I was there. My very first chef was a USMC drill instructor that, in his thirties, took up cooking. He was a mean old bastard by th time he hit 60, which was right around the time I went to work for him. 

Your experiences?


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## chrose (Nov 20, 2000)

In retrospect I won't use his name, but I had the meanest S.O.B as a Chef one time. Italian born, French trained spoke 5 languages and could yell at anyone in their native language. Being a newbie and American I got a "heaping helping of his hospitality". He would throw plates across the kitchen, stop service in the middle to prove his point or whatever reason he was doing it for. One night we passed each other going from the outside of the line to the inside. He had me by about 5" or so, as we passed up I looked up at him with the "evil eye". He stopped and said "Don't look at me like that, I f'ng kill you" :lol: Ahh what a guy, had to love him.

In the long run I guess I learned some of the good things.
After moving on and running a kitchen of my own a year later I went back to visit and he was as nice as could be. I told him I had learned a few things from him and from running a kitchen. He looked at me and in a thick Italian accents said "ehhh see! Eez not so eay uh?" :roll:
No Chef, it's not


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## irish foodie (Sep 16, 2008)

i'm surprised that more chefs are not so aggressive. i owned my own restaurant a few years ago and had a chef in charge in one are (a fine dining place) and then a more casual place upstairs. anyway i lost the main chef upstairs (he was drinking my wine!) so i took over. i swear, i became more diva than the qualified head chef downstairs! i was a total anti-Christ. and since then i can totally understand the likes of gordon ramsey who NEED and WANT their restaurants to survive. if you are the one paying the rent and the wages then you DO get annoyed at anyone not pulling their weight.


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## amazingrace (Jul 28, 2006)

My personal opinion is that stress & anger management training should be requirements of every culinary institute in the world, in order to earn the title of "chef". This might not eradicate the problem, but it sure couldnt hurt. 
When I was a waitress, I would not work in a hostile environment. There were too many places in need of good servers that I knew I did not have to take that kind of abuse.
When my daughter got a waitressing job, while going to college, the first thing I asked her was "How do they treat you? Is anyone rude or vulgar?"
Her response was "No, Mom, I woudn't stay if they were." 
That's my girl.


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