Why we celebrate chefs but ignore the kitchen culture

In 2019, I had the chance to interview Heston Blumenthal for Lounge. The British chef, who owns the iconic three-Michelin starred restaurant The Fat Duck in the UK, had earned the moniker of a “mad scientist” for his outlandish experiments with liquid nitrogen. It was the era of molecular gastronomy and smoke was a thing in fine dining.

Blumenthal was travelling to Mumbai as part of a premium dinner series. I was told I’d get a one-on-one slot, exactly 10 minutes, to interview him. To say I was thrilled is an understatement. I had watched him whip up utterly bizarre dishes on MasterChef Australia, releasing a puff of smoke and wearing those oversized glasses. One of them included a 92-step dessert that looked like a boiled egg on top of noodles (Verjus in Egg). His composed demeanour was refreshing, especially when another popular British chef around the same time was berating amateur cooks on an American reality cooking show.

Television may well be responsible for turning chefs into stars. It continues to cast them as creative geniuses and idols for an entire generation of cooks. For both audiences and diners, a chef is someone who can make food look pretty with the flashiest of techniques in a matter of minutes. It’s a form of art elevated by dramatic camera angles and swelling crescendos. This high-stakes drama and immersion in cooking shows have had a profound impact on how we perceive chefs.

Today, the fine-dining narrative emphasises their dedication to the craft. In the Indian context, we have to thank our chefs for putting regional ingredients on the global culinary map, and challenging the stereotypes associated with the cuisine. What once felt like buzzwords—seasonal, farm fresh, local—have evolved into a movement, driven by them. We want to cook nose-to-tail because a chef said so. The Instagram chef is no longer confined to the kitchen, having stepped into social and environmental spaces as activists, using their influence and visibility to drive change.

But if chefs are passionate artists, they are also temperamental and under pressure. The adulation doesn’t take them far from the realities of the professional kitchen, where long hours, high stress and the burden to perform strip away much of the glory. The realities have hit hard over the last few weeks as the world’s No.1 restaurant faced allegations of violence in the kitchen. Noma, the award-winning restaurant in Copenhagen, is under the scanner once again for its co-founder and chef René Redzepi’s abusive past behaviour.

A 7 March New York Times article stated it had “independently interviewed 35 former employees” of the restaurant to trace their traumatic experiences working under Redzepi. Five days later, the chef announced his exit through an Instagram video.

“For a long time, kitchens were hidden spaces,” says Radhika Khandelwal, the chef-owner of Radish Hospitality Pvt. Ltd that runs Trouble Trouble (previously Fig & Maple) and Kona in Delhi. “When they became visible through the media, what got highlighted was not discipline or craft, but drama. The shouting, the pressure, and the idea of the tortured genius made for compelling storytelling.”

In 2000, the late Anthony Bourdain in his memoir Kitchen Confidential, wrote about the less glamorous side of high-end restaurants, the pressure and toxic culture that chefs seem to normalise. In one of the chapters, he dissuades aspiring chefs from entering the profession as they can expect to be treated like “cattle”.

“When I started out, I thought speed and control defined a strong chef. But you cannot build a kitchen on adrenaline alone. No dish or service is important enough to treat people poorly,” says Khandelwal, who worked in Australia for nearly eight years before moving back to India to open her own restaurant. What stayed with her from those kitchens is a strong sense of discipline, and a culture that is structured, but balanced and human.

Since its opening in 2003, Noma has been in the spotlight for its trailblazing approach to fine dining. Redzepi is widely credited for creating a new language for Nordic cuisine, one that champions sustainability through techniques rooted in foraging and fermentation. Trained at Michelin restaurants like El Bulli in Spain and Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry in California, his creative vision has helped Copenhagen earn the status of a premium gastronomic destination. In 2023, Redzepi announced it would shut down and function as a food laboratory dedicated to culinary innovation.

“Yelling or shaming the staff does not reverse the error. It only creates more panic in the kitchen,” says chef Akash Deshpande, who worked in top restaurant brands for over a decade before opening Luv, a casual fine-dining restaurant in Mumbai in 2024. “I agree we have normalised abuse in the kitchen because it is an intense environment, and at the end of the day, the reputation of the restaurant matters.”

There’s a popular line by British “rock star chef” Marco Pierre White: “A lot of people say I look like a rock star or a designer punk. But I swear it’s the job that has carved my face. It’s the hours, the stress, and the pressure. It’s not me trying to look like this.” In the 1980s-90s, White’s restaurants were frequented by celebrities and London high society for his artistic, “game changing” food featuring classics like tagliatelle with oysters poached in vermouth and white wine. But he was also known for his aggressive behaviour, was often caught screaming and throwing items, and instilling what may be called fear-based discipline in the kitchen.

We love chefs. Sometimes for a cooking philosophy or technique. Maybe for a dish that reminds us of our grandmothers. Who doesn’t enjoy watching a chef fillet a whole fish? How many of us have queued up at farmers’ markets or gourmet food stores to pick up ingredients to replicate the dishes we’d seen on MasterChef? Many of us have followed Bourdain eating through the streets of Vietnam. Chefs are memory keepers, who blend tradition, nostalgia and innovation to create stellar dishes. Can we then separate a chef from his craft?

The past few weeks have also exposed the struggles of unpaid interns, who stage (pronounced “stahj”, it is an unpaid internship where a culinary professional works in a kitchen to gain experience) at high-end restaurants to acquire new skills under a chef of repute. Several former interns at Noma have opened up about their experiences working 14-16-hour shifts cleaning and prepping ingredients.

“I agree one needs that tough experience, but in the moment, the chef’s demeanour matters,” says Gayatri Desai, the chef and founder of Ground Up restaurant in Pune. “Even a brief exchange, or being introduced to a new flavour, or simply being allowed to taste, say the lamb tartare, can make the boring labour all worth it. It gives perspective (to the intern).” Desai has staged at restaurants in Mexico and Peru around 2017, before opening her own space in 2019. “I have always judged chefs by how they conduct themselves in the kitchen and the way they handle food wastage.”

Working without a stipend to acquire a skill isn’t new; interns across professions around the world do it to gain experience and get a glimpse of a certain work culture. To learn under a heavyweight chef not only guarantees access and exposure to high-end R&D processes, but also builds industry connections.

“For me, it is the craftsmanship that matters the most,” says an Indian chef and former Noma intern for whom the experience of working under a reputed chef was career changing. “I believe David Zilber (former Noma head of fermentation) is the god of fermentation, and I was just blown away by watching him treat it like craft,” adds the chef, who wants to remain anonymous. It was not just Redzepi or Zilber, the chef says, who helped hone skills: “I picked up way more just by being around the team.”

The Noma incident has also raised concerns about the traditional brigade system common across fine-dining kitchens globally. Originating in 19th century high-end French restaurants, it follows a military-style “yes, chef” culture, where each cook is assigned a certain task within a strict hierarchy. The aim is to divide the labour and thereby ensure order, efficiency and quick service. Over the years the system has faced criticism for fostering work spaces that are driven by fear and pressure.

“Sure, the constant fatigue and frustration training your team can get in the way of leadership, but there are ways to keep everyone together,” says Desai. “For me, it starts with ensuring they eat well. Most of our staff meals are made with ingredients that I use for my pop-ups. And everyone does the menial jobs. If someone is helping me with R&D, they are also scrubbing the kitchen floors.”

Chef Abhishek Joshi, co-founder of Pune’s We Idliwale/We Idliwale Barroom, has all his staff meals with his team, “sitting in one corner on a stool, something most of them had not experienced in their previous jobs. I think it’s one of those things chefs can do to keep the tension out.” He has trained under India’s leading chefs and is no stranger to the tough realities of kitchen culture. “My team comes from all over the country, and from different backgrounds. For me, anyone with the skill and who can work hard is welcome,” says Joshi, who has been running his own kitchen for seven years.

The next moment in fine dining may not be about liquid nitrogen or fermentation, but about building kitchens that lead by example. For starters, the industry can loosen up simply by talking about it.