Sign up to unlock the world, CNN Travel’s weekly newsletter. Get news about destinations, as well as the latest aviation, food, drinks and where to stay.
Every year when the Michelin Guide announces its starry restaurant selection in France, journalist Nora Bouzauni receives a gust of anger and resentment messages.
It was an unexpected result of her burgeoning reputation as one of the most influential whistleblowers in the French restaurant industry.
The message comes from the discouraged restaurant staff. This is full of watching you see the abusive and toxic chef who has elevated his life to hell by awarding one of the highest ads in the industry.
“It’s really straw that breaks a camel’s back,” Bouazzouni tells CNN.
Since 2017, French food journalists have reported on the toxic restaurant culture in kitchens across France. But her latest book, “Violence,” published in May, was blown the lid off the story and revealed the scope of physical, emotional and psychological abuse in kitchens across France.
Through testimony gathered from industry workers since 2020, the book tells of chefs who erupt into violent tantrums, deliberately burn staff, or throw pots in their faces if they make mistakes while serving. For people of color, it endures race-based harassment, abused and abused. For women, it is always sexually sexualized. Tapping the bottom every day, boobs say things about their appearance, and in more serious cases, raped by a walk-in cooler by a colleague.
In short, few people appear unharmed.
“The testimony that hit me the most was a very quick aim to dehumanize the people in the kitchen,” says Bouazzouni. “Because dehumanizing the people in the kitchen can potentially be exploited.”
The toxic kitchen culture is not unique to France and has been exposed and condemned for years in English-speaking countries and in European countries.
But Bouazzouni’s work sparked the national calculations in France, reaching the ears of the nation’s top lawmakers. On July 7, a move was submitted to the French National Assembly to create a committee on investigating violence in the kitchen.
“Indeed, behind the smooth, idealized image of the profession presented in various entertainment programs, there is a rigid, almost military and brutal hierarchical structure hidden,” the movement reads. “The working conditions of kitchen ‘brigades’ are often degraded, stressful, and even violent. But silence reigns…”
The mention of “military and brutal hierarchical organizations” is noteworthy as it refers to a system codified by French chefs, restaurateurs and writers August Escofier in the late 19th century. Inspired by his time in the military, the Kitchen Brigade, as is known, was modelled on the army, where ranks and hierarchies determine command chains. At the top of the food chain are chef duijn and sou chefs, followed by certain stations (sauce, seafood, cold dishes, etc.), junior chefs and Comis and chefs departies who are in charge of trainees.
The accuracy of Escofie and the professional restaurant kitchen that he inspired is respected in French culture.
But in many ways, Bouazzouni points out that it is this top-down organization that promotes a toxic kitchen culture and allows chefs to abuse staff with immunity.
Additionally, the Kitchen Brigade System has been exported and replicated in fine dining and hotel kitchens around the world by a corps of international chefs who have come to train in the birthplace of autogastronomy for decades.
“When foreign chefs start learning in France, either in school or internships, they will return to work in other countries and continue to export this method,” Bouazzouni says.
In other words, it’s a vicious cycle.
But how do we revert the French system from a century ago, replicated in kitchens around the world?
Male-dominated kitchens and high pressure situations are known to contribute to a toxic work environment for a long time, but a 2021 paper published in the Journal of Management Studies offered one compelling but simple solution.
For this study, researchers at Cardiff University concluded that there was a sense of freedom from surveillance of isolated, closed, hidden spaces far from the public eye, and a sense of freedom that normal rules do not apply.
“What surprised us in our study was the importance of the locations where chefs worked in the context of cultures of bullying, violence and attack. The kitchen environment has effectively become a different moral universe for them,” researcher Robin Barrow said in a press release.
The study was based on interviews with 47 chefs from fine dining restaurants around the world.
The French celebrity Chefdam cult also contributes to the norm of silence that has long spurred the victims. Top chefs are often lionized in long fawn profiles, documentaries and cooking shows, Bouazzouni said, adding that food media is responsible for feeding the “myth” of French gastronomic cuisine.
But in the last five years, the post-pandemic world has turned the script upside down. France is no exception to the labor shortage and the “big resignation” phenomenon promoted by the labor shortage and the work and dissatisfied employees and younger generations of Western English-speaking countries. Today, 300,000 positions in the French restaurant and hospitality industry are met, says Thierry Marx, chairman of the French Federation of Hotel Trade and Industry (UMIH).
While an average of five new restaurants open every day, 23 restaurants have their doors closed forever.
Marx, who operates 10 high-end restaurants in Japan and France, including Michelin-starred Restaurant Honor and Eiffel Tower’s Madame Brasserie, explains that the brigade system is necessary to delegate tasks and maximize efficiency in stressful high-pressure environments. However, he also acknowledged that the system is flawed and pointed out that the best chefs don’t necessarily make the best leader.
“I think we need to acknowledge that adding management courses and being competent in specialized techniques doesn’t necessarily provide administrative know-how,” Marx said. “And that doesn’t mean you can act like an executioner.”
Over the past few years, the emergence of both the film’s #MeToo movement and the younger generation who are likely to oppose abuse has helped to advance the discourse of creating a safe kitchen in France.
Bondir.E, a nonprofit founded by French female chefs since 2021, organized violence prevention seminars at culinary and hospitality schools to raise awareness early and break the cycle of violence. This is because in France, enrollment in vocational training schools can start with students aged 15, who are still very impressive and easy to teach, for teenagers.
“When you’re 15 years old, You’re still a child,” says Vittoria Nardone, a spokesman for Bondir.E. Suffering is said to be normal and a necessary part of success. When you’re 15 years old and that’s the only example you have to continue, it’s easy to accept. ”
The group has also established a helpline to help victims of kitchen violence and offers specialized training courses on kitchen communication and management.
Both Nardone and Bouazzouni emphasize that while vulnerable individuals and minority groups are simple targets, violence and abuse can be carried out by both men and women of all ages and within all ranks.
Manon Fleury, 34, one of the group’s founding chefs, continues to open his own restaurant, Datil, in Paris, which has earned a Michelin star. As boss, Fleury made an effort to run the ship in a different way than her predecessors. The restaurant is closed over the weekend, promoting work-life balance. All new staff will be given a Code of Conduct Charter that emphasizes a spirit of mutual respect and cooperation, and will be provided with leadership training to managers. Communication is also an important part of the workplace, with preservation and postservice briefings and monthly one-on-one meetings. The restaurant is also led by women.
“When I opened the restaurant, I wanted to put women in a position of responsibility. My goal was to set an example to show that women can hold these positions,” Fleury said in a statement. “…Datil has men in the dining room and kitchen, but all managerial positions are held by women.”
Marx admits that times have changed. Workers retain more leverage and have a different relationship with their work.
“Bad management is a reflection of fear,” he said. “If you fall on the most fragile thing, it won’t work anymore.”
