René Redzepi, founding Chef at Noma, has been outed as an exceptionally abusive head chef, and has stepped down. Noma was an exceptionally influential restaurant peaking about 10 years ago.
I noticed this (NYtimes):
I don’t know, but it’s been passed down for a long time, particularly in kitchens that operate under the brigade system, which is essentially military. If you talk to chefs who worked in great kitchens in Lyon and Paris they’ll tell you, “Well, this is the way it’s always been.”
But that “always” is wrong. Escoffier developed the brigade system as head chef at the Savoy in London. His kitchen produced (modern) fast fresh-food table service because of the brigade system. Apart from the brigade system, which he introduced, his kitchen was marked by no smoking, no drinking, and civilized, quiet, polite, direction. His subordinate chefs didn’t have to yell at people because there was an established hierarchy.
Another article in the New York Times described one example of how he abused a young employee.
Mr. Redzepi taunted the chef over and over as about 40 cooks, in short sleeves and aprons, formed the usual circle around the two men. It was not the first time they had been forced to participate in a public shaming, according to two chefs who were present.
Mr. Redzepi escalated the attack, punching his employee in the ribs and screaming that no one would go back inside until the chef said, loud enough for all to hear, that he liked giving D.J.s oral sex. His co-workers stood in silence until he breathlessly complied. Then they filed back into the kitchen and returned to work.
As to what offense the sous-chef committed? He “had put on techno music, a genre that Mr. Redzepi disliked, in the production kitchen.” The article notes that the production kitchen is far from the dining room, so I don’t expect that those in the dining room would even have heard the music.