Shouting At The Sky

Additional context for a discussion with The New York Times

I was very honored to receive an email from Julia Moskin at the Times requesting an interview. She was compiling discussions with chefs navigating restaurant ownership in a post-COVID society.  There wasn’t really a detailed prompt, we just had a free-form conversation. Which is a very dangerous thing to offer me unless you’re prepared to take rapid notes and weather a disjointed set of tirades. Because as is evident from the mere existence of my Substack; I have a lot of opinions. And they readily runneth over.

This has gotten me in trouble in the past and I never really understood why. It took becoming a chef to realize why my opinionated nature rankled my superiors. And I mean becoming a chef in the original sense of the word meaning “chief”, not in the context of honing my culinary acumen. I mean becoming a leader of men. (And women, obviously. Though there’s something pleasingly dramatic about the term “leader of men”. It makes you feel like Théoden, Lord of the Riddermark and you can blurt out “Where was Gondor when the Westfold fell!?” anytime your neighbor asks to borrow some towels.)

Yes, for those unaware, the job description is baked right into the title and it has nothing to do with food or cooking. The position is entirely based upon leadership and personnel management, which is rather ironic for a group of people best described as misanthropic, emotionally unintelligent runaways determined to personally test the threshold for amphetamine consumption. And while being a sous chef and managing a small team of cooks was a good introductory course to leadership, it is nothing like the big office. The hot seat.  It is an all-consuming matter to be responsible for providing balanced livelihoods while attempting to create an excellent product.

As I whined about in the article, little of my day to day has anything to do with cooking. My life has become an unending chore of managing interpersonal conflicts, time off requests and scheduling concessions. Long gone are the days of riding a wave of adrenaline and brute forcing one’s way through a dinner service. It is a quiet existence of closed office doors and uncomfortable conversations. The individual employee rarely considers their collective impact on the chef. And they shouldn’t have to. But it is substantial when added up. The sum of a kitchen team’s needs can rapidly erode the singular chef’s patience and empathy. If I’ve learned anything from having nearly two dozen employees it’s that every day, it’s something. (And that there’s always someone using the bathroom)

It is in those moments that I reflect on all the headaches I caused for my former chefs. While independent thinking and creativity drive entrepreneurship, there’s a time and a place. Publicly challenging your superiors as an enlisted, hourly waged grunt isn’t the most productive or appreciated way to suggest ideas. Conformity was just not something I excelled at and I didn’t feel that I had to.  But now I understand why leaders often value average, obedient followers over high-performing, outspoken malcontents.

My bad on that one, fellas.

There’s a balance to be struck, for sure. Those with the conviction to think outside the box can be very valuable teammates. And in my opinion, a good leader will address discontent, hear out ideas and expend some effort to get people to buy into the vision. But there are limits and I can totally empathize why someone would throw their hands in the air and explain that “if you don’t like it then you are welcome to explore other opportunities.”

On the other hand, being an opinionated know-it-all is perhaps what has gotten me “this far” in my career and it’s very obvious now that this is a feature and not a bug. So I suppose everyone in my life, myself included, is going to have to get used to it. A respected outlet comes along and gives me a forum -- one turn of the wrench and the pressurized fire hydrant that is my brain ejects thoughts.

The conversation Julia and I had easily consumed the hour, and as is on brand for me, I jumped erratically from topic to topic. But obviously, a lot had to be left on the cutting room floor. And I suppose I can’t help myself and feel the need to provide further elaboration. So I present what absolutely nobody asked for; even more, capricious rambling from yours truly and some additional thoughts I’ve gathered after doing what everyone tells me I shouldn’t do but can’t help myself; reading the comments.

Let’s start with the obvious one — an abrasive quote emblazoned above a photo of myself dipping fried chicken in spicy duck fat.

I have already gone on about the complexities and failures of the tipping system at great length (read here). And even I have limits on my ability to moan. But I’d like to address a theme I saw in the comments.

“What are you talking about? I like tipping.”

There are only a few categories of people who like tipping; the woefully misinformed who think the tipping system gives you license to save money and control your experience at a restaurant. I assume they believe they’re very clever capitalists saving $15 a month on the aggregate of coffees they didn’t tip on. John Steinbeck’s observation on American culture feels appropriate — “socialism never worked in America because poor Americans don’t see themselves as an exploited proletariat but rather as temporarily embarrassed millionaires”.

The second advocate here is the big one. It should go without saying that the unscrupulous business owner has a lot on this race horse named Artificially Subsidized Labor Costs. They parade that pony to Washington every year to make sure that tipping reform never sees a federal tribunal.

And the third group which should also be obvious; guest-facing, tip-earning employees. Typically high-end bartenders and servers that work at any restaurant Yelp would slap three to four dollar signs on. The champions cracking your PBR or serving you a turkey club are working pretty hard for 20% on a $22 check average. I salute you. It’s usually the server with a liberal arts degree who can charm a 25% tip on a $60 rigatoni or a $1500 Burgundy that find tipping to be a wonderful compensation system. Their hourly rate can be in the hundreds of dollars.

That’s all well and fine. Don’t hate the player, hate the game. But the game really does suck a whole lot. It’s so broken that we’re going to need a federal level systemic reform or what’s more likely; Jesus. Hoping he’s coming in hot in the fourth quarter for a last minute run. Because there are big problems on both sides of the swinging kitchen door.

As someone who has worked a great deal on the guest-facing side, I respect the skill it requires. Most chefs simply don’t have enough charisma and empathy to do that job. It takes a great deal of restraint and emotional awareness to be treated like shit and not be able to curse, grimace or throw a pan in the dish pit. Not only that but to smile and carry on as if you were happy to be belittled. It takes skill. And to my chef homies, your time as a cook should be seen as grad school, that is, as training and resume building. While you should be paid a living wage, I also concede that it should be paid at the level of an apprenticeship or training program relative to the prestige and success of the restaurant. So to the line cooks (and I was one of them) staring at the servers counting money and nibbling on French fries at the pass, having not a care in the world — no one’s stopping you from making a career change. Own your decisions. Or as a former sous chef of mine used to say when my face became dour and my body language suggested violence,

“Hey man. I got news for you. You chose this.”

But to my front-of-house fam and the mixologist elite, if you benefit from this mess at least own the gross disparity and see how this system fails almost everyone in the chain. Don’t go into the comments section aghast and shocked at a spicy take. My comment was a generalization for effect. Obviously, there are plenty of people who like tipping — the people the system benefits. That’s like being surprised landlords support gentrification or corporations are happy to protect campaign financing laws. Broken systems that are broken for everyone don’t tend to last very long.

So I’d like to reiterate; tipping fucking sucks. If it doesn’t suck for you, congratulations, I suppose. You’ve got to advocate for yourself and a girl’s gotta eat, no shame in that. And no singular individual has the gravity to change an entire market force. Rarely does the singular hero appear who can move the needle on any social issue. I’m not trying to paint you as some sort of villain. But as someone with an overdeveloped sense of self-shame I feel the need to project it onto others and ask everyone to look in the mirror from time to time.

This incited a surprising amount of vitriol. A slew of comments displaying impressive mathematical prowess that a pair of Jordans will last a couple of years whereas you could easily pass six Michelin stars of food down the toilet in 12 hours or less.

While I don’t dispute the latter observation, and I commend your fiber intake, the comments section missed the point. The point isn’t the value perception and utility of your fashionable sneakers you can’t walk normally in lest you crease the toe box. The point is the massive disparity in markup and ethics a consumer will tolerate for personal fashion versus food.

(I acknowledge I am the opposite of a hypebeast. I am a muted vole when it comes to fashion. So you can make fun of me all you want. But at least you’ll never catch me standing in line for overpriced streetwear. Actually, you won’t find me standing in line anywhere because if I’m not staring at a deep fryer, I am supine by my own design.)

A shoe that costs pennies in materials to manufacture, is knowingly made with exploited labor through a highly unethical supply chain and bloats dramatically in price near the end to make the rich richer? With relatively little in the way of domestic job creation and next to nothing on federal tax contribution? People are enthusiastic to participate in that system. For considerable chunks of their meager incomes.

A chicken farmed with great care and compassion, cooked by a technician who has trained for years at their craft, brought to your table with a smile after surviving a supply chain that unavoidably deals in death and provides meager incomes at every step to only make a few dollars for the small business owner? Could I convince you to buy that for $27? “One star. Won’t be coming back”

Again, I’m not asking anyone to fix it or that chefs should get anymore social heft than they already get. Our worth to society was greatly inflated and is rightfully regressing to the mean. But I do ask for some self-awareness and a little energy devoted to examining your consumption habits. I suppose if it means you can display wealth, culture and status to your peers then the sky is the limit. But if it means participating in something personal and fleeting that you can’t show off to anyone then the purse strings all of a sudden tighten.

Most of the world willingly pays for exaggerated markup on the skill required to design and manufacture beautiful clothing, so you’re not alone. But it is odd to me how cooking will forever remain low-skilled labor with poor value optics. There are levels to this game, certainly it is no remarkable feat to fry an egg or to make a Hanes t-shirt. But I get a lot of comments about how eating out doesn’t make sense when you can make a similar meal for a quarter of the price. Then I ask you; how about the time? The time to procure, ideate, cook and clean? I welcome challenges from anyone that has never worked in food service to be dropped into a New York City apartment and make a great meal happen in 30 minutes. I would welcome challenges from any chefs as well except I am decidedly old and rusty. Like Michael Jordan’s tenure on the Wizards, I can bring greatness now and again. But to lay waste to my enemies each night and to fight a battle is asking a bit much of my knees. Still, I would clearly wipe the floor with your average home cook. The same reason I wouldn’t challenge my accountant to a personal tax filing race or try to duel my contractor on a paint job. Could I do it myself for cheaper? Yes. But at immense personal cost in time and misery.

So my message is this — something I’ve been touting somewhat counterintuitively for many years now. If you don’t like the price of eating out then don’t eat out. If you don’t think it’s a good value then don’t participate in the system. Learn to cook. I wholeheartedly encourage it. Zero sarcasm or trolling. There will be two outcomes. Either you come to appreciate how much work, skill and time it requires to craft even a tepidly enticing menu, or we get the whiners out of the customer pool. I am pleased with either outcome.

The chef’s journey we were sold is highly problematic from the modern lens. The expectation was that we go to Europe, sleep on a couch and show up every day to knock on a three Michelin starred door and beg for an unpaid job. You would be so lucky as to be given an opportunity, not the other way around. There was no discussion of why such profitable and famous restaurants required slave labor to flourish or of the privilege required to even afford the process of sleeping on a couch in Europe. Or how to afford the legal fees for work immigration. Or what combination of gender, skin tone and education level allows one to knock on a door every day without being turned away each time.

But let’s assume you succeeded in surmounting all of these obstacles and then you spend a year in Copenhagen or Lyon or San Sebastián. All you meaningfully trained on was the sort of absurd minutia that signal three Michelin stars — cleaning stoves with cotton swabs, perfectly dicing pine nuts or going deep into the forest to pluck a half kilo of rare mushroom that is only edible for a two-week window — that sort of madness you can cultivate when you have an embarrassment of riches. But let’s say you did it. I commend your dedication and work ethic. Few industries love performative overworking more than chefs. You have admittedly been exposed to some very avant-garde ideas and met some very driven, similarly privileged people. You can reminisce about all the absurdity you endured together at the bar, looking like a bunch of homeless Princeton alums and carrying a similar haughtiness. You are now supposedly a legend. You will theoretically never need to hand out another resume, you have access to all the world’s best kitchens and you are ready to complete your training. You need only conquer the trials and earn the title of Jedi Knight.

I’m sorry to disappoint you but that’s not quite how it works. The truth, as always, is far more disappointing. These chefs rarely give a shit about you until you’ve sacrificed your entire youth to their cause. The state of mentorship in our industry is depressing and nearly nonexistent at the supposed apexes of our craft.

My advice to aspiring chefs remains the same. Go find a bistro where they peel potatoes every day, where there’s a chef who is at least a high-functioning alcoholic and you are expected to maintain a knife. Burn yourself, eat shit, get yelled at, but just fucking cook some food. Go somewhere where you’re going to have the sensuous feel of kosher salt in your fingers every few minutes. They used to say you’ll get bad habits if you don’t start somehwere with a Michelin star. If you’re the sort of dipshit that can’t unlearn a bad technical habit, then you were going to be a pretty bad chef (and human) anyway. The Michelin stars would only serve to inflate your unassailable ego.

But that is how Bourdain saw the chef’s journey. The romance of sacrificing everything for the craft, taking your knives with you around the world, working in places of culinary worship where the refinement and attention to detail was what we looked skyward towards, an Archdiocese of Brunoise. Though my love for the man is bottomless and even reading him in 2024 stirs my heart, he got this part wrong. Because he never lived it. He fantasized about how maybe his life could’ve gone differently. Instead of working in low-rate hotels and banquet halls in his youth that perhaps if he trained at Le Bernardin he would’ve been a different kind of chef. His level of participation was that of a loving patron and champion of all those who cook for a living. He never had the pleasure of being subjugated by one of these demi-god level chefs in their starry temples. He never had the misfortune of experiencing how human they are.

The first chapter of Medium Raw, Bourdain’s bloody valentine to all those who cook, is a decidedly erotic telling of eating ortolan in the back room of a made man’s restaurant with all the other caporegime of New York’s chef mafia. Ortolan is a decidedly illegal and cruel delicacy but is a supposedly incomparable gastronomic experience. The story didn’t age beautifully. Society generally frowns upon secret boys’ clubs with strange closed-doors rituals these days. Especially after Jeffrey Epstein was murdered committed suicide. There is no longer a charitable assumption for clandestine gatherings of the rich and powerful. But to Bourdain this was an assemblage of heroes. He had to pinch himself to find that he was dining in the pantheon of chefs he so admired. And because he was so humble and self-effacing he could just be grateful for being in such lauded company.

I ain’t never been invited to anything like that and I likely never will be. And that’s okay with me because I’ve become exceedingly anti-social and unpleasant in person. But more importantly, it’s because I don’t worship those men. For that’s exactly what they are. Men. Flawed, mortal and small like the rest of us. And I say that out loud. And no one likes being reminded of their humanity when they are accustomed to being celebrated for their immortal contributions to art.

Maybe my invite got lost in the mail.

I lived the chef’s journey and I carry the scars externally. I sharpened my knife every day, I pushed myself to be the best, I deprioritized everything in my life that didn’t take place in a kitchen for fifteen years. I made salads, passed my purees, cut fish, roasted ducks and sous-vide lamb loins. I peeled soft-boiled quail eggs, fermented juniper berries and shaped hundreds of celery roots into perfect spheres. I put five Michelin stars under my belt. I became a sous chef at the “Best Restaurant in the World”. I did everything Bourdain said I should do short of jumping on a plane and have sauce pans thrown at me putain nappe and more dulcet French curses.

So I had the misfortune of living the reality whereas he had the privilege of separating the art from the artist.

I respect these chefs. I’m not saying that were I given the same opportunities I could achieve what they achieved. I’m not saying that I could do better. I know what I’m good at and what I’m not. But I think it’s long time we stop with the hero worship and along with it, put an end to the hero’s journey. It isn’t a hero’s journey. It’s a thankless craft. It’s not lucrative, it’s not balanced and none of that is changing anytime soon. Becoming a chef is a really strange decision to make for yourself but if you choose it you need to painfully examine why you are choosing it. There can be a lot of reasons but if you check the box for any of the following; control, fame, money, power, respect — you in the wrong business, baby. You should only do this if you have an unimpeachable compulsion to do so. And even then, if it’s your love of cooking and the camaraderie that keeps you going, be careful as you climb.

It’s lonely at the top and there isn’t a cutting board.

Reviews are tough. It took a long time for me to set my boundaries but I once allowed the insanity of reviews to light up my phone in real time. It was not a great period for my mental health.

Each bad review would have me spiraling. I would watch a tenth of a point wobble up and down over the course of a weekend with bated breath. I self-medicated. A lot. It hurt my feelings every time someone criticized my cooking and left disappointed. I took it personally. I felt the end was near with each scathing comment.

You’ll be happy to know I have since moved past this level of neuroticism but that’s just a snapshot of why chefs get so salty about the whole matter of review culture. There’s a lot riding on our review averages, there often isn’t a stack of cash to wipe our tears with and unwarranted attacks and incisive takedown pieces can have meaningful effects. Imagined or not.

It’s a complicated dichotomy.

On the one hand, play like a champion, no excuses. A great operator will rise above the average. You don’t stop shooting because of a slump, you don’t hang your head if you lose a game. There’s a whole series to play, stay the course, maintain confidence, sports metaphor!

But on the other, it is odd to me that I am something of an expert in my field and yet I have such a concerning number of lay people thinking they know better than me. Perhaps this is what being a woman in academia feels like. Despite overwhelming evidence of qualification and a prolific body of work, I face unending doubt from armchair chefs. There are few industries and crafts where so many people believe themselves to be something of an expert without ever having been the man in the arena.

I’m not a believer that cooking requires talent. I don’t really have much stock in the concept of “talent” in general. As someone who was considered to be among and surrounded by talented children, it’s highly overrated. It is more likely an indicator of poor mental health in adulthood than anything else. I’ve known dozens of generational talents that ended up burning up in the atmosphere. So know that I think everyone should find cooking accessible rather than esoteric, and that anybody can become a great home cook should they have the gumption.

But that being said, being a professional chef is a bit of another matter. And that I will claim expertise on. As the saying goes, “lieutenants concern themselves with cavalry charges, generals think about how to feed the horses”. As with other leaders in team environment, technical professions, I am so far past the basic elements of my craft that I spend nearly all my time organizing logistics. The basics are table stakes. Properly executed food is the barest measure of success, a well-conceived dish is hardly something I spend much time on. I need a well-conceived dish to survive the dinner rush.

And that’s with only one restaurant! (At the moment)

It isn’t meant to be a flex and it isn’t meant to be dismissive. I’m not perfect, and you should feel empowered to voice your opinions. But as you’re noticing a theme here, look in the mirror and learn to zoom out. As if me telling people to work on self-awareness would have some sort of impact. Otherwise comments sections woudln’t be comments sections, I suppose. And sometimes there is valid criticism in the amalgam of reviews, I always look for the signal in the noise. But more often than not, it is just a reminder of what the internet has done to society — removed the filter and the decency from people and shown us that anonymity makes us monsters.

There is no cuisine that enjoys greater value perception than Italian cuisine. Especially in New York City. People are now bidding on reservations, for the opportunity, to buy pasta and pizza that average a 10-12% food cost on a check average of more than a hundred dollars.

This is going to require an entire post one day. Lucky you. But it’s just that impassioned of a topic for me. The (typically) white men who claim I “race-bait” them on Instagram and am just “wearing my shame from being bullied as a kid” and perhaps my favorite, “you’re a loser”, don’t have to read it. But it’s the facts. Much like a highly sought after pair of Jordans, there is seemingly no limit to how much time and money people will spend to eat from la cucina.

Life isn’t fair. I accept that. And all the people who want to keep it that way love reminding those afflicted by the rigged stakes that that’s the case. So there is a part of me that is reluctant to advocate for improvements in equity and equality.

But also, fuck that.

The disparity is too jarring. As someone who actually loves Italian cuisine, I find it funny that a cuisine so reliant on simplicity and excellent ingredients, elemental cooking at its finest, can have its star dishes ballooned to such heights. I use this dish as my punching bag constantly, but cacio e pepe has so outkicked its coverage that it should have everyone’s jaws on the floor staring at its supermodel price tag paired with its 5’11” boyfriend ingredients.

Pasta (00 flour, semolina, eggs, water), pecorino romano ($0.70 an ounce for high quality cheese), black pepper ($0.50 an ounce) and salty, starchy pasta water and people are clawing down the doors for the privilege to pay $27 on a dish that cost about $3 to make.

Meanwhile every food writer ever has been tasked with a “Cheap eats of Chinatown Listicle” where they encourage a four restaurant walking tour and you could have two dozen dumplings, $6 for six. The summation of your contributions to four different Chinese restaurants taking silver to the almighty West Village Italian-American phenotype, of which there are infinite.

Dumplings have animal protein in them, might I remind you. They have to come with a soy sauce-based, vinegary dipping sauce and/or chili oil and each one is individually stuffed and wrapped by a Chinese auntie and then boiled by a Chinese uncle who really needs to stop smoking cigarettes. I don’t make the rules.

So you’re telling me it’s just the setting then? That adding a server with a Bragard apron and English as a first language changes the calculus? That’s all I’ll have to do? Hire all the aspiring musical theater grads in Midtown and give them a button-down, an ordering pad and a G2 Pilot 0.5mm? (It’s a fantastic pen, all other opinions are wrong).

No one’s going to fix this. I probably won’t see it in my lifetime. And Little Italy and what’s left of Chinatown alike may be under water in forty years anyway leaving us to squabble amongst the crabs. But it never hurts to ask questions. I find that’s how I do my best work.

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There’s a whole lot more to talk about. It would be impossible to cover the breadth of concerns we as operators have about the restaurant industry. And in the grand scheme of things, none of it is terribly important.

And yet the industry is America’s only semblance of a social safety network and is ubiquitously participated in nonetheless. So perhaps there’s something there worth thinking about sheerly based on quantity.

I can’t help but get the feeling from reading the comments that we, the restaurant industry and its patrons, are having a fundamental disagreement in a swiftly crumbling marriage. On one side, the chefs, were given a forum to discuss their feelings. We were told this was a safe space. We vented a bit, we have some pent up anxieties after supposedly being the “essential worker” spine that carried this country on its back during a global pandemic. So the tone was certainly … a bit negative.

But then a lot of the reaction we got was dismissal, anger, hurt feelings and resentment. “Well, forget it, we can’t do anything right and I’ll just stop going to restaurants altogether then!”

Slow down, papi.

I am grateful for my customers, guests, fans, whatever you want to call them. The overwhelming majority of those who would get this far in my Substack are people I cherish and am grateful for every day. On the good days when my hip impingement isn’t screaming at me to sit down and there were no plumbing crises, I look up at a power I don’t believe in and am thankful that I have been so lucky in life. So lucky to get to do something I love, so lucky I get to do something so tactile and with such immediate results and satisfaction. To bring happiness every day, to be in a room full of fun music, smiles and laughter. To play with fire and to even have enough people give a shit to hear what I have to think just because I have a particularly satisfying vehicle for delivering calories.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to have my feelings.

Anyone who grew up Asian-American in the 90s has had plenty of people tell us to put those pesky feelings away. Nobody has time for your bullshit, et cetera, et cetera, look at how hard penguins have it living in the Antarctic (actual parenting tactic I’ve experienced).

But keeping my feelings inside for decades, not feeling like anyone wanted to hear them, wanted to experience them — it poisoned me. I was riddled with enough depression, stimulants and anxiety to subdue a particularly gleeful Golden retriever.

So I’m not doing it anymore. My thoughts and feelings will have their day in court. You don’t have to participate. You can call me a bitch, a loser, a race-baiting, squinty-eyed pussy who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Whatever you want. I just wholesale delete my message request inbox these days.

Because all I hear from that noise is, “well, it looks like I made some good points.”

E :)