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‘Bad behaviour is clustered under the umbrella idea that perfectionism makes you unstable, and that’s a good thing.’ Photograph: Lol Keegan/The Guardian
‘Bad behaviour is clustered under the umbrella idea that perfectionism makes you unstable, and that’s a good thing.’ Photograph: Lol Keegan/The Guardian

‘The manager was selling coke to staff’: the truth about top restaurants

This article is more than 7 years old

Stolen tips, long hours, diminishing pay: the restaurant business has found itself in hot water lately. That’s just the half of it, reveal chefs, waiters and maître d’s

Things that are glorified in the hospitality industry: sleep-deprivation, tempers, drugs, projectiles in kitchens (especially sharp ones), hedonism, asceticism, camaraderie, martial law, all broadly clustered under the umbrella idea that perfectionism makes you inherently unstable, and that’s a good thing. Chefs are admired for being gits. “Street angel, kitchen devil” is used as a badge of honour, rather than identified for what it is, a description of a person who bullies where they can and sucks up everywhere else.

Random acts of violence are seen as proof that the person who got scalded by a hot knife has an authentic passion for the job, rather than that the person who scalded them has poor impulse control. Indeed, in a top-end kitchen, an environment of such precision that one is expected to care about the dimensions of a carrot at the level of the millimetre, the single area in which no control is expected is that of one’s own behaviour; but only if you’re in charge. You don’t see many waitresses calling people scum and throwing chives at them.

The self-fashioning of the chef as artist casts him (the pronoun is deliberate) as untameable by nature, so volatility becomes part of the glamour. Yet the considerable team required in a kitchen means there has to be another code running alongside the genius-bastard-maverick, and for a long time it has been that of the military. Hierarchies are absolute; the whole system is known as a brigade. This is in the DNA of classic cuisine: French kitchens were historically laid out with the same command structure as the army.

That leaves you with two hyper-masculinist tropes running in tandem, to which all other considerations – courtesy, fairness, respect – are subordinate. From the perspective of a fairly proximal outsider – a restaurant critic, say, as I was for a decade – it’s horrible if you see it, but you scarcely ever do. (I have glimpsed it just twice. It was no more than effing and jeffing up and down the alphabet, as they say, but it was the relentlessness and the power imbalance.) Otherwise, they’re like any elite: intensely bonded, very passionate and quite enviable, really, for the totality of their interest.

The perks of the job – saliently, the tips, which 30 years ago could dwarf or even render irrelevant the actual salary – have been hollowed out. Anyone bemoaning conditions will be told regretfully that, were they to improve, the cost would only be passed on to the diner, as though that were an unthinkable ask: that one might pay a bit more for a steak so a sous chef could work a shift of eight hours instead of 16. The truth is, it’s straight exploitation, and the sorrier truth underneath is that almost none of it is in the service of art. Dinner isn’t always a masterpiece; most people are being balled out for the sake of an overpriced meat patty.

‘I’ve seen a fair amount of debauchery’: restaurant manager and former waiter

I have been a restaurant manager for four years, and worked as a waiter for 15. I had only worked in small, family-run restaurants before I went to a branch of a chain fronted by a celebrity chef, and it was a real shock. There was one uptight manager who was verbally and physically abusive; he would push you and swear at you.

Most of the stress is in the kitchens. In one central London restaurant I worked at, owned by a famous TV chef, we had crisp pork belly on the menu and a diner complained that it wasn’t crisp. The head chef asked the chef who cooked it to redo it, only for the customer to complain again it still wasn’t crisp. This time, the head chef picked up the pork and threw it as hard as he could, from a metre away, into the face of the guy who’d cooked it. The chef collapsed in tears.

I’ve seen a fair amount of debauchery. One owner had a couple of sexual harassment cases settled out of court. At another revered London restaurant, there was a rampant drug culture. At one staff party, the general manager was selling coke to staff and taking the money out of their wages. They were young people having fun, working hard and partying hard.

The industry is much harder now. In 2001, when I worked at the place owned by the TV chef, we waiters earned about £10 an hour. My rent was £260 a month; 16 years later, waiters still earn £10 an hour, but they’re paying at least £500 in rent.

The opprobrium heaped on Michel Roux Jr when it was revealed he hadn’t been passing on the service charge was slightly unfair, because that happens in most places. The law is quite opaque. Businesses are technically allowed to keep as much of that service charge as they want. Funnily enough, the introduction of the minimum wage was disastrous for professional waiters. That’s when restaurants started to introduce “tronc” schemes (where tips are pooled) and be unscrupulous about what they did with it. When I cut my teeth in waiting, I’d walk away every day with between £60 and £100 in tips. Those jobs are almost nonexistent now.

‘We’re told we have to wear makeup as if it’s a first date’: front of house at a prestigious members’ club, London

I’ve been working here for eight months, but it feels much longer. It’s a glamorous place, full of celebrities, artists and creative people. It’s got a liberal, chilled-out image, but behind the scenes it’s quite different.

On my first day, I was given a dress as my uniform. I asked if it was OK to wear black tights, because I had hairy legs, and they said, “Not really” and gave me a razor. It’s archaic and sexist to make us wear a fitted dress and see-through tights, and it’s really uncomfortable. We’re told we have to wear makeup as if it’s a first date, which is weird.

They operate a tronc system for tips, which isn’t transparent and doesn’t add up. Basic pay is the minimum wage, £7.20, and a 12.5% service charge is added to every bill. We’re told that 100% of this goes to staff, that it enables our agreed hourly rate of between £9 and £11. This means I can be rushed off my feet and make £400 in service charge in one night, but I won’t walk away with a penny extra. When the minimum wage last went up, staff pay didn’t, so it looks like the company absorbed service charge money to pay the increase. I’ve overheard managers say that if money is missing from the tills at the end of the night, they take it out of the service charge pot. If a customer walks out without paying (which happens a lot), the waiter has to pay the full bill. I recently had to cover a £45 bill, which meant I earned under the minimum wage that shift.

‘You get pans thrown at you, someone will threaten to break your legs in the middle of service.’ Photograph: Lol Keegan/The Guardian

There are mystery diners all the time, trying to catch you out. They don’t use assessment criteria and are often friends of the bosses. After one complained that everything was terrible, everyone involved was destroyed by management. One of the head chefs was fired. The person who poured the wine was bullied and managed out of their job. There was no identifiable mistake that I made, but they made me feel like I couldn’t do my job. I was put on humiliating training for a few weeks. I wasn’t sleeping properly and had bad dreams. I’d step on to the restaurant floor worried, depressed, tired and paranoid.

There is surveillance behind the scenes, too. Managers are always watching workers, telling us not to speak to each other about work problems. They disperse us if we’re seen talking together. They write daily reports and monitor our performance. They try to gather information by monitoring our social media. Various colleagues have told me that managers have asked them about my involvement in the union.

‘I was a 20-year-old boy who would come home in tears every day’: former chef at Michelin-starred restaurants

I’ve worked at three prestigious London restaurants and encountered some nightmare characters. The most famous was the worst behaved, although he was and still is one of my idols. I was there just over six months and it was my first job out of college. I worked 18-plus hours a day up to 10 days in a row. It’s hard, but people almost become your family because you’re there so often. I’d never do it again, but it gave me some amazing discipline and training. In the end, I left because I was a 20-year-old boy who would come home in tears every day. People got fired daily: in one instance, a head waiter yawned at the pass [the counter where chefs put finished dishes for collection] and was instantly dismissed; that was someone who’d worked there for eight years.

The chef/patron had a go at me only once, shouting abuse because a pot of chopped chives on my section had toppled over. He called me a “fucking dirty pig” and told me to “clean up the shit”. Luckily, the head chef was easy to speak to and very understanding. I had a very long commute and he’d allow me to start slightly later and leave slightly earlier.

Another Michelin-starred chef I worked with was a much softer character; but if things weren’t going his way, he’d throw his toys out of the pram and tell you what he thought of you. All kitchens are the same: you get pans thrown at you, someone will threaten to break your legs in the middle of service, but afterwards, you shake hands and go back and do it all again the next day. It is very much hierarchy-led. If someone one position above you asks you to do something, you do it: there’s no backchat. I’ve seen abuse at every establishment I’ve ever worked, from the top down. But I’d never say anything, because it could harm my career.

‘If I got to keep all my tips, I wouldn’t care so much about not being allowed to take breaks’: waiter, 23, in a national restaurant chain

At the end of every shift, we have to pay 3% of our tables’ takings back to the company. So, if my section spends £1,000, I’d better make at least £30 in tips to cover my 3%. Anything over my 3%, I can keep. Colleagues have occasionally not made enough in tips and have had to go to an ATM at the end of their shift to pay their 3%. Busy shifts are the toughest. My tables could spend £2,000 but I won’t have time to give my best service, and after paying my 3%, I’ll take home only £20 in tips. For parties of five or more, a 10% service charge is added. Occasionally, a big group, spending £500, might opt not to pay the service charge, which means I’ve had to pay £15 for them to sit and have a meal.

The way my bosses justify the 3% to us is that it pays for our summer and Christmas parties. But our Christmas party this year was half the staff driving to another branch of the restaurant in a different city, having a few cheap drinks and coming back before 11pm. If our 3% was really paying for staff parties, I’d expect more than that.

If I got to keep all my tips, I wouldn’t care so much about not being allowed to take breaks. During seven-hour shifts, you’ve got no chance to eat; you work flat out until around 10pm. If your tables are level at that point and you smoke, you’re allowed to go for a quick cigarette. Otherwise, you keeping working until close.

‘I’ve never verbally assaulted a colleague. There’s a big difference between banter and abuse,’ one chef explains. Photograph: Lol Keegan/The Guardian

‘I found my knife box in the walk-in fridge, filled up with choux pastry’: chef for 20 years, mostly in hotels in the Midlands

I’ve watched a chef pin someone against the wall and smack him. Another head chef I worked with chinned a commis. He knew he was going to get sacked for that, so he took the easy option: went off on long-term sick leave and never came back.

I took over his job, and during my tenure I had a nice, successful kitchen. You can do the job without being an arsehole. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when you do have to shout to get the job done, to get the kitchen fired up, like army-style motivation. But in 20 years I’ve never verbally assaulted another chef. There’s a big difference between banter and abuse.

When I was younger, on an unpaid six-week work placement at a five-star hotel, one of the chefs insisted on calling me a gimp. One shift, I found my knife box in the walk-in fridge, filled up with choux pastry. I was told to go and find salmon legs and chicken lips. Since then, I’ve been in the position where I’ve told other chefs off for doing that kind of thing: I want a 16-year-old commis being productive, not looking in the dry store for something that doesn’t exist.

In my last place of work – a big four-star hotel – I was on a part-time contract, and even though the rotas and payroll showed I’d been working five days a week for years, they refused to acknowledge it when it came to holiday and sick leave entitlement. I wouldn’t want to go into the business now; chefs are widely expected to do unpaid overtime. It can be a really good job, but no one’s leading from the front. Where’s the British Hospitality Association? Where’s the innkeepers’ association?

‘The bosses said, “If you want to keep your job, don’t ask questions”’: former manager at a restaurant owned by a Michelin-starred chef

The chef-patron tended to drink quite a bit, and when he was hungover the next day, the staff suffered. He said the best way to get your staff to perform is to bully them. If he saw one cigarette butt in front of the restaurant, he’d come in during service and cause massive trouble, shouting, “I can’t trust you, you’re just so fucking rubbish!”

On my first day there, he wanted to show that he was the boss. He found a glass with a slight water stain on it, and reacted so badly that the head waitress was crying and wanted to walk out. He had a powerful voice, and screamed and shouted abuse. I said to him, “If you have any problem with the staff, talk to me and I’ll deal with them. If you’re not happy with that, I’m leaving.” He said no one had ever spoken to him like that, and gave me the job. For a few months he was respectful, but then started bullying everyone again.

In the end, they decided to push me out, bullying me in front of everyone. I lasted a year and a half there, and was congratulated by people in the industry for being one of the longest serving managers. I worked 80 hours a week, but it was never enough. I worked almost a full month without a day off, with no thanks. Every time someone was sick, I covered their shift.

You were supposed to have two days off a week, working 48 hours in total, but after I left, he didn’t pay me for my lieu days. They said, “You were the manager, and you decided to work on your day off.” The 12.5% service charge was not passed on to the staff. The bosses said, “Listen, if you want to keep your job, just don’t ask questions.” The only people who worked there were desperate and looking for another job. But it’s difficult to get to job interviews when you’re working so many hours, so you get stuck.

‘We have to wear heels between 2in and 3in high’: former waitress at a five-star hotel, London

I spent 18 months at the hotel and the job got steadily worse. The basic pay was minimum wage, but the service charge on top made it an attractive option, as did having such a prestigious employer on your CV. I knew we didn’t get all the service charge and tips, but we probably got a better amount than a lot of other places. It added between £400 and £800 a month to my pay.

I tried to find out the percentage of service charge we got, but I was always blocked. When a colleague tried the same, they questioned his sanity and ground him down so much that he left.

Some customers were lovely, but a lot were very snobby. If a customer wanted to hug you, you were supposed to reciprocate, even if you didn’t want to. My colleagues told me that a woman who left just before I arrived was sexually assaulted by one of the guests in full view of my manager and a supervisor. She was distraught and complained, only to be hounded out of her job. The manager was promoted.

‘We’d be on our feet at least eight hours a day. I left soon after a new deputy manager insisted I wear higher heels.’ Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA

Women have to wear leather heeled shoes between 2in and 3in high. We’d be on our feet at least eight hours a day, carrying heavy metal trays. I managed to get away with wearing lower ones for a while, meeting demands from my boss with promises to get new shoes. I left soon after a new deputy manager insisted I wear higher heels.

You are also required to wear foundation, eyeliner, mascara, lipstick or gloss, lip liner and blusher. Management constantly harangue you and say, “Oh, you’re not looking as glamorous today”, or, “Did you forget your makeup bag?” My colleagues, especially the other women, would join in, subtly making me feel bad.

We all wanted to join a union and get organised, but we were terrified of losing our jobs. There were always managers or supervisors around, and we knew we’d be sacked if the wrong person heard us.

‘Management put covert cameras in the air vents to catch us eating during our shift’: chef at the in-house restaurant of a luxury department store

We make sure the customers aren’t aware of the misery behind the scenes. If they found themselves downstairs in the kitchens or in the staff canteen, they would not believe their ears.

Twice they sacked the whole restaurant, back and front of house, for eating in the kitchen. They had put covert cameras in the air vents to catch us. Officially, all chefs are on 45-hour-a-week contracts, with two hour-long breaks, one paid and one unpaid. But we’re so busy that we’re working up to nine days in a row, and during a 10-hour shift we can only spare 15-20 minutes. Usually in catering, food is provided, but here, grabbing a sandwich or some chips in the kitchen is classed as stealing.

Conditions have got worse over the last few years. Our annual pay rise dropped from 3.5% to 1%, while the last annual figures congratulated staff for making £50m. We are short-staffed every day. They tell us it’s because they can’t find the staff, but the store saved about £1m on wages last year and they know we can get through it, even if it almost kills us.

When we do overtime, they don’t pay us the contracted rate. My boss told me there’s no money, and when I refused to do any more, they found others to cover the shifts easily enough. It’s terrible, the amount of money in the business, yet they’re squeezing and squeezing us. To top it all, we recently found out they were taking more than 50% of our service charge. They’ve since promised to give it all to us, but the general manager and executive chef have resigned. Are they the scapegoats?

‘The head chef threw a foccacia at me because he didn’t like the seasoning’: agency chef, Staffordshire

I’ve been a chef for eight years and have had to walk out of two jobs. My last workplace, before I switched to agency work, was a bar, restaurant and club. The owners were inexperienced, over-ambitious and greedy. In the run-up to Christmas, we worked manic 16-hour shifts. Conditions were unbearable. The consultant head chef had a good reputation, having worked at Michelin-starred places in London, but he was angry and violent.

During one service, he threw some pans at me (I ducked). He threw a freshly baked foccacia at me, too, because he didn’t like the seasoning. Everyone was too scared to ask him a simple question, and there was no time for breaks. The atmosphere was so horrendous that most of the kitchen team didn’t want to go into work.

I was employed as a chef de partie, on £6.50 an hour (then the minimum wage), but I was doing a more senior sous chef’s job, which involves running the kitchen in the absence of the head chef. I went to discuss my pay with the head chef and he erupted, shouting: “This isn’t my job. You need to speak to the owners.” I was terrified.

Some weeks I easily worked 100 hours, but I was getting paid for only 45. I worked out that, over nine months, I was £3,750 down. I even went to the union to try to get my money. Eventually, I was so depressed and angry at being ripped off that I left. More and more people like me are switching to agency work, because they can’t take it any more. Now, I’m on £10 an hour, choose the hours I want and am treated much better.

Stylist: Emily Blunden. Props: nisbets.co.uk/homechef

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