'Naked chef' kitchens may help to end violence

Leading French chefs, including the head cook at the Élysée Palace, are calling for an end to the culture of violence that they say is a stain on the kitchens of the country's top restaurants.

TV shows such as Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen have long shown that kitchen pressures can lead to insults, and sometimes flying plates.

But the group of chefs - including Guillaume Gomez, head cook at the French presidential palace - have declared that it is time to "lift the lid on the law of silence" over physical violence, sexual harassment and bullying prevalent in some of France's finest eating places.

They called on "all great French cooks to solemnly stand up against violence" by signing their manifesto, "Touche pas à mon commis (Hands off my range chef)".

Gérard Cagna, a former Michelin two-star chef who wrote the manifesto, said the era in which violent and humiliating "rites of passage" were concocted for assistants new to a kitchen must be pronounced over.

The call followed a violent incident this year at Le Pré Catelan, a Paris restaurant with three Michelin stars, in which a chef de partie repeatedly scalded his kitchen assistant with a white-hot spoon on the arm.

Frédéric Anton, the head chef, fired the culprit, saying that although he recognised the pressures his staff were under, gratuitous violence was unacceptable and he had to go.

When the gastronomy magazine Atabula reported the incident and called on cooks to "lift the lid" on such practices, it received a torrent of reaction from sous chefs and assistants.

Their tales of abuse ranged from a "slap in the face with a wet fish" every time one got something wrong to being "stabbed in the calves" with a kitchen knife, as well as scalded, slapped and humiliated daily.

One recounted how he and his colleagues had taken to wearing shin guards to withstand the daily kicking they would be given by their superior.

Cagna said the report had "brought tears to my eyes" and transported him to his early career at a well-known Paris restaurant, where he received a "huge smack in the back" while washing mushrooms. He resisted the temptation to punch his superior in the face, saying it would have "ended his career".

The subject was the focus of a major debate at the Sciences Po university in Paris this week at which chefs met restaurant critics. Most chefs agreed that violence was unacceptable but underlined that would-be cooks should be aware that the profession was not for the faint-hearted and required physical and mental endurance.

"I am 45, I started at 15. Yes, I have received a few kicks, yes, I have taken a rack of lamb to the head," said Christian Etchebest, a chef often seen on French television.

"It was for my own good. We have a very tough job, you need mental strength."

Franck Pinay-Rabaroust, the editor of Atabula, said: "There's a battle to rise through the ranks. Top chefs are increasingly absent from their kitchens, so second-in-commands have to make their mark and show who's strongest. There's lots of testosterone."

Vincent Crepel, 30, who runs Porte 12, a restaurant that opened in Paris in September to critical acclaim, said top chefs were like "Olympic athletes" with "no margin for error". That, coupled with long days, meant things could quickly get "electric" in the kitchen.

But the advent of more female kitchen staff and "open kitchens" with windows onto dining rooms was helping to improve the ambience. "Everything can be seen and heard, so you have to control yourselves and be more diplomatic," he said. "Welcome to the era of the naked chef."

- ©The Daily Telegraph, London