Hi everyone, welcome to pot luck food talks.
Today we have a new episode of The Line.
Have we already told all the stories we have to tell?
No way, we need to dig deep.
There must be things that we've hidden away in the depth of our conscience.
We can talk about this place.
You know which place I mean?
That place?
Which place?
Give me a clue.
Xander, you will bleep this out.
Ah yeah, the place with the foie gras and the X.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Iconic, no?
Foe gras and X on Apple, right?
Xander, also take that out please.
Okay, now if people know from that reference who we're talking about, then they deserve
to know.
Yeah, no, I think that was an easy reference.
But like, I don't care honestly.
Okay, the Spanish or the Robuchon you mean?
Let's say this guy is French, okay?
Just for neutrality.
He's a French chef.
Okay.
Three-star chef and everybody talks about this place.
I was actually going to go there, you know?
And I was working at a restaurant.
They were preparing a deal for me to go there.
And I was doing prep one day and the head chef comes and asked me directly like, you
want to know the truth?
And I was like, yeah, sure.
Of course.
Don't go there.
That's the truth.
And I didn't go there.
I picked a different place which was, I don't know if it was necessarily better.
Wait, tell me which place you chose over this place.
Camp Fala's.
Oh, fuck.
You're choosing between really, really shit and extremely shit.
As in like treatment wise, obviously amazing restaurants.
Yeah, of course.
That's the thing with this place.
There are amazing restaurants and amazing chefs and they have been game changers for
sure.
No discussion about it.
Yeah.
100%.
The stories that you hear about this place is that, I don't know, 40 people sleeping
in a basement with one toilet.
Some of the worst stories I've ever heard.
Yeah.
The one toilet where you can see the feet of whoever is using that toilet, you know?
What the fuck?
And then in the basement of the restaurant so that you wake up in the dark and you go
stairs up to the kitchen.
What the fuck is that, man?
And then you have tasks like cleaning the chef's car or washing the chef's dogs.
No way.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
But it's so legendary because I've been traveling and everywhere I go, I meet people that have
gone to this restaurant because it's super famous.
And there are always again and again and again, these kinds of stories, you know?
I can imagine.
I was actually once invited to go to this place like tour-wise, you know, to visit the
kitchen and know the place.
I'd love to do that.
And I didn't.
No, I was like, no, I don't want to go there.
You know?
Yeah.
The staff meal is another famous thing about this place.
Oh yeah?
That they have separate tables for the workers and the trainees.
And the trainees eat whatever, the dog food, whatever, you know, like pasta with salt.
Oh man.
And the workers, they have, you know, like a leg of ham, wine, separate table, of course.
And they're like, they're, you know, chilling.
Of course.
That's horrible.
That's really, really horrible.
You know, when we were out and about in town one day, I used to work at a restaurant that
was in direct rivalry with this restaurant, also because the trainees lived in the same
town.
And one time we were out drinking, we got into like a group argument with these guys
that almost broke out into a fistfight.
It was sort of like all the trainees from one restaurant and the other trainees from
another, like an 80s gangster movie, you know?
Just like, shut the fuck up, piece of shit.
Would you have like utensils during the fight?
Like, here's my extra large whisk.
Yeah, yeah.
I had, you know, easy siphon caps on my fingers and I would go click, click, click, click,
click, click, click.
But I've also heard like super old stories of this place, like 20, 30 years ago.
Things like, well, have you got, I think you have told me stories that you have gotten
one of those where a station chef comes and says, you think your station is clean?
Your station looks like shit.
I had that in the first restaurant that I worked in.
Yeah, it was horrible.
Like, now this doesn't look clean at all.
Yeah, yeah, that was horrible.
I remember like being an apprentice and like we had to sign off with the head chef and
it's very famous Michelin star chef and we would come go up there in our fucking jackets
and aprons and he'd be like, you're done, you're done for the day.
And we were like, yes, chef, yes.
You clean the prep kitchen.
And we'd be like, yes, chef, of course, chef.
And he's like, all right, I'm going to go check.
And he just walks to the elevator because there was an elevator in the, like on the
side of the kitchen, he presses the button, he's waiting for the elevator and while he
waits, sous chef is just running, runs down the stairs and runs into the prep kitchen
and we follow him, you know, because we're like, what the fuck is going on?
And he just goes to like a big container of flour, you know, like a, you know, 20 kilo
container of flour.
It just starts and this is a big prep kitchen, you know, it's wide tables, you know, and
he just like starts taking handfuls of flour and just chucks it everywhere, just in a wide
arc like he's dusting a piece of pastry and the whole kitchen is just covered in flour
and we're just standing there looking at this maniac, you know, flinging flour around, just
like defeated, you know, and then he's just like, and the head chef comes down and he
just like walks in, he sees his sous chef covered in flour, like it's so clear what
just happened.
And he looks at the kitchen, he looks at us, he's like, well, looks like shit, better clean
it again.
And it just goes back up.
That's fucking idiot.
Yeah.
But let that same restaurant, if you like fucked up sometimes, the head chef would make
you clean the walk-in freezer, minus 20 degrees, big ass freezer that you can walk into with
shelves on either side.
And there were special down jackets that you put on to go into the freezer, even just to
get something, cause it was just blasting cold.
And he would make you clean that freezer and reorganize it without a jacket.
That's, that's, that's like, I don't know if I told that story before actually.
No, that's actually quite dangerous.
Yes.
It was really fucked up.
I remember during my apprenticeship years, the thing when, have I told this before?
Like the absence of critic is enough praise.
Have you heard that before?
Of course.
I don't believe in it.
No, me neither.
But like in this, I would call it toxic restaurant culture, there is this thing that nobody will
praise you.
Nobody will say, Oh, this is really tasty.
They will only say it tells you this is really shit when it's not really tasty.
And it's kind of like a modus operandi among this, that's some kind of chef culture.
I remember in the first place that I worked, I remember I had a ceviche and when I would
bring my ceviche to point, the chef would come and he would taste it and he would give
me the bag and go somewhere else.
And I was like, Oh my God, he didn't say anything.
Yeah, totally.
You know, you know where this was really prevalent in Japan when I was in Japan and I was the
same with all the time, my head chefs, like my superiors or my sous chefs or what my chef
the parties would do that with me.
I'd be like, yeah, fuck yeah, nailed it.
You know, or if they look at a cut that you made, you know, it'd be like, like not even
say anything.
And I remember sitting in a kaiseki restaurant where you have a counter and you see all the
chefs behind the counter.
And I remember there was this one young chef and everything that he would do is basically
just assistant to the head chef who's doing all the main work.
But he would do like little things, he would mix little sauce together in glazes and like
prepare things for the chef.
And I remember seeing a really cool moment of what I thought was a really cool moment
because chef, he would like, you know, he wouldn't yell or anything, but he'd be like
very quietly telling this guy to fix something, like fix it himself, you know.
The guy would prepare something, he would taste it, he would add a little bit of this,
add a little bit of that, you know, etc.
But then there was this one moment where the, like the, I'm just going to call him an apprentice,
he handed him something and the chef tasted it and he thought for a moment and then he
just went to use it.
And I was like, man, that's probably making him really happy right now, you know, like
he didn't really show it, you know, because they're very stern, but I was like, man, for
sure this made his day, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I remember those moments many times.
Absolutely.
And I actually have to say, now that we're talking about it, I have the same thing.
So like if I'm a little bit in like a very focused mode, I'm not the most friendly person.
I'm not unfriendly, but I'm not necessarily like, hey, yeah, what's up, you know, I'm
just like, I just get on with it.
And if I didn't go to a station, I start checking things and I taste the sauce and like, you
know, say I'm tasting three sauces, I say, okay, yeah, you need a little bit, add a little
bit more lemon to this one, this one needs a little bit more salt, then I taste the last
one and I just turn around and leave.
And the guy or, you know, the chef is like, does it taste good?
I'm like, shut the fuck up.
I don't say it, but I'm thinking, I'm like, man, stop fishing for fucking compliments.
If it's not good, I'm going to say something.
All right.
Exactly.
You want your dopamine kick or what?
Yeah.
Well, you want me to do, you want to get your notebook out and I put another smiley sticker
in it or?
You want to like on your Instagram account or what?
You want me to send you a rose?
You want me to give you a kiss on your mouth?
No, we're horrible.
Good thing that we're not in charge of people.
Oh, wait.
I'm not.
Yeah.
And going back to this restaurant, we were talking about, I even once got a refugee from
that restaurant.
Like my friend Luis from New York calls me, writes me and he's like, yeah, I have this
friend who is trapped in this place and has nowhere else to go.
Could you take him in your place?
And I was like, sure, no problem.
And the guy writes me and he was like, when could be the earliest that I could move into
your place?
And I was tonight, if you want, like, I don't care.
I have a room there.
You can stay there.
And the guy just took his things and walked out of the window of the senior's house.
That's insane, man.
Man, that's, that's insane.
I saw that so many times.
He came with all these fresh stories because I mean, these kinds of places where they have
like, you know, 30 trainees per station.
When you have so many people, you need to keep them doing something.
Because if not, you're going to have like a fucking kindergarten party.
Right.
So you cannot, it has to be like, okay, there is nothing to do.
Okay, let's find.
So they would have to, and you get to see this a lot in this super high level of restaurants,
you know, to take the, to dismantle the kitchen with screwdrivers every service twice a day,
you know, to clean everything and put it all back together, which makes absolute no sense.
But I was also hear stories from people working there as actual workers, not trainees that
man, you know, like exactly like I said, I have 16 guys and I have like one fish to clean
what I'm supposed to do.
Yeah, of course.
I mean, I've, we've done this so many times and like, for example, like also in Japan,
you know, it was like that.
And so in Japan, in the work culture, at least that's how I was told when I was there, you
are not really allowed to leave before your superior does.
So if your head chef is still there, you don't go home.
If the head chef leaves, the sous chef is still there.
You don't go home.
He only leaves once the head chef leaves and blah, blah, blah.
You know, what is interesting that I had, this is a complete different thing, but I
have a friend that are the duck's hound, duckles, you know.
Yes.
Yeah.
Like, I don't know, six or seven of these and they would have exactly the same, like
a hierarchy for eating.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
And at some point, one of the dogs got, you know, had like an accident and went to the
hospital and when it came back, it lost its rank.
It was not allowed to be the number one anymore.
Oh, wow.
Yes.
No, that's pretty sad.
Sorry.
Continue.
That's okay.
So, these scenes of stagiais leaving, those I love, it's really funny.
We had a lot a few times at Mougaritz where we'd be like in the kitchen in the morning,
like drinking our shitty little instant coffee and getting ready to set out to drive to the
restaurant in bulk because, you know, you would get into cars and just fill the cars
and just drive to the restaurant.
I remember we were sitting there just overworked and tired and then this guy who'd just been
there for like two weeks, he was just like storming out and he was like, fuck this, fuck
all of you.
I've had enough.
Fuck.
And he would try to open the door, but the door was locked and he was like, ah shit.
So he just like threw his stuff out of the window next to the door and just climbed through
the window and he was gone.
I don't know.
It was the countryside.
I don't know where he went.
Nobody drove him, that's for sure.
So he must have like walked down the hill and just left.
Yeah, I've seen a few of these crazy escapes, once also a guy left and he left all his knives
in the kitchen.
I remember this place that we were, I think we told this story already, did we?
Where this guy, yeah, I think we told that story.
Yeah, yeah.
I think we were Hannes, Hannes.
Yeah, where he came back to take his stuff.
Yeah, he was ready for a fight.
Yeah, he was probably.
And we were like, hey man.
He was like huffing and puffing and we're like, oh hey, you're back.
Here are your knives.
And he's like, yeah, thanks.
Where is she?
Oh man.
Really?
Honestly, man, I was talking about this with a friend of mine because we were talking about
like stressful situations because we both had a very stressful day that day.
And we were like, why is it so stressful?
It really doesn't have to be this stressful.
We could just make good food, enjoy working together, you know, and like just, it's like
it should be a win-win situation.
We make food for a living, you know, like it's a fucking cool job.
You know, it beats sitting in front of a computer the whole day.
Most of the time, depends what you do at the computer, but you know, but it's a really
cool job.
It shouldn't, it like, of course pressure is good.
Wanting to achieve something is good, but in a healthy way.
That's it for this week's episode of potluck food talks.
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