12 ms·

Fine dining faces its dark truths in Copenhagen

134 points by LordAtlas 4y ago

MontyCarloHall 4y ago
I suspect that most restaurants would be unable to exist if they paid their workers fairly. Margins are already paper-thin, so the significant increase in labor costs to fairly compensate workers would mean that menu prices would rise to a level most current diners could not afford.
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  in reference to Denmark, since there is not generally a tipping culture people need to be paid a living wage, although not sure if they are being paid fairly.
  - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
    I gotta ask why the downvotes here? I know we're not normally supposed to ask but since a lot of the comments I've made in the few days has gotten a couple downvotes seems a bit weird unless HN just went more downvote happy than usual. on edit: seems my whining paid off, still seemed weird though.
euroderf 4y ago
A bit OT but worth a mention: to read about the feudal-hierarchical system in a fine restaurant, read George Orwell's "Down and Out in London and Paris". The London part is ho-hum (imo) but in Paris he worked in a restaurant and hoo boy what a bizarre little universe contained therein. This was in the 30s iirc but I wonder how much of this kind of culture has survived unchanged to the present day.
LordAtlas 4y ago
Non-paywall link: https://archive.ph/hXOUm https://archive.ph/hXOUm
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
As an European, this is nothing really surprising here to me. The entire western economies, including EU and the Nordics, thrive on exploiting desperate immigrants, especially in low wage jobs that the locals don't want to do. That's why there's a lot of push from governments for open borders, visa free, easy-emmigration, inviting refugees and migrants, etc. to further drive down local wages and increase demand for real estate, both of which benefit the old money entrenched wealth, business and asset owning class, especially in Europe where this class is a lot bigger and richer than in the US, relative to the wage class. We're basically setting up for Feudalism 2.0 Enhanced Edition. So all the fancy workers' rights the EU/Nordics are famous for on paper, go out the window when you're a migrant worker on a visa with strings attached, and you find yourself at the mercy of unscrupulous business owners who are experts at skirting employment laws in just the right ways to stay legit, plus the government institutions responsible for regulating this, who know about these practices but turn a blind eye, as instructed by business lobby groups so "the economy can function" (you want your cheap meant, no? or the cheap strawberries? or cheap asparagus?). I wish we could stop this but it seems like consumers only care about worker abuse until it impacts their wallets and realize they need to pay more for the stuff they've been conditioned to get for cheap their whole lives.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  I’ve talked to a lot of Mexican and Central American immigrants to the US a ver the years working in service, agriculture, trades, and transportation. I’ve never once heard one of them say they thought of themselves as exploited, in fact many of them worked very hard to get here and encouraged family and friends to follow. That said, I’ve heard different things about the folks working in meat packing, just never first hand. I don’t want to make it sound glamorous, but people come, stay, and start families here for a reason.
  - brewdad 4y ago
    You can exploit someone to the edge of breakdown but it still might be an improvement over the life conditions they left behind to come to the US. That doesn't make it right however.
sva_ 4y ago
I have a few friends who work in restaurants (not Michelin-starred ones), and something I found peculiar is that pretty much all of them seem to be using hard drugs and consume excessive amounts of alcohol on the regular. A look through some places on the web where kitchenworkers exchange stories, such as /r/kitchenconfidential, confirmed to me that this is not a local phenomenon.
- bowsamic 4y ago
  As far as I’m aware that is mainly an American phenomena
  - Etheryte 4y ago
    This is very common in Europe too, in fact it's so common I've heard stories of it from nearly everyone working in that field that I've chat up.
  - sva_ 4y ago
    I've only been to the US once, and those people I talked about are Europeans.
    - emptysongglass 4y ago
      Oh yeah I have so many stories of Danish kitchen staff. One head chef kept a rock of MDMA like a proper huge rock in the downstairs locker. Cocaine use during service was de rigueur.
  - jwilber 4y ago
    The article itself is in Copenhagen? You’re just going to completely ignore that?
    - bowsamic 4y ago
      Which article?
buran77 4y ago
People love to shout from the top of the hill how much they promote equality, fair treatment for everyone, until it hits them in the pocket. Until the restaurant bill is a bit higher, until their Amazon orders aren't arriving by the end of the same day. And then they find reasons to explain why equality and fair treatment aren't for everybody. Or they close their eyes and pretend there's no problem, those people don't exist as long as you never think about them. And the reasons why poor people are universally exploited are straight forward. They have no say, and no power. When other discriminated groups (color, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) get some power they're still part of that group but when poor people get to power they are no longer poor and have very little interest in pursuing that cause. On the other hand trying to help any of these people is quickly branded as socialism (or worse, communism) and that's a scarlet letter sentence which most do their best to avoid.
- CoastalCoder 4y ago
  > People love to shout from the top of the hill how much they promote equality, fair treatment for everyone, until it hits them in the pocket. Could you clarify which people you're referring to? It's a pretty strong criticism, so painting with an overly broad brush isn't really fair.
  - buran77 4y ago
    Have you ever heard from someone saying that gender or color shouldn't matter? Sometimes they don't even just propose equality of opportunity but even equality of outcome. When it comes to the poor and their fair chance you get to watch a ridiculous spectacle where all the arguments you just heard a minute ago are turned on their head. Suddenly there are reasons why those people are in that situation and it's usually their fault - didn't work enough, study enough, picked a job that has no value, picked a job anyone can do, etc. But the reality is that it's not that the job has no value, or anyone could do it. If your trash sat in front of your house for weeks you'd pay them a yearly salary just to take it away. They get abuse because they have no choice. Somehow they ended up on that bottom rung of the ladder and society made it close to impossible to get up from there. If you want to solve other types of discrimination you intrinsically accept that the abusers will pay for it. Your board is all white men? Some will have to pay the price for centuries of abuse and make room for other genders or people of color. If you are looking for such equality you will have solid arguments to justify getting it. Until it comes to poor people and then nothing else matters, they're poor for a reason, why should you pay for lifting them up? So I'll say there's no brush broad enough to paint this with. It has been almost universally proven throughout recorded history, it has happened all over the world to varying degrees: the world needs a bottom rung to do what nobody else even wants to think about. It will make sure that bottom rung keeps existing in ample supply to achieve that and it will abuse those people because it can. It's the one universal discrimination where the power balance is so one sided it's absolutely ridiculous. It doesn't care about gender, race, religion, if you're poor you will pay for it in ways you never though exist, you will be forced to subsidize the well being of those better off. And those better off will find justifications to not do much, if anything, about it. Maybe you aren't one of those people. But you did have to ask with surprise which makes me think you never even noticed or ever really wondered.
akudha 4y ago
It is infuriating to read about “unpaid internship”. Why is this still a thing, in 2022? Even the White House interns aren’t paid until now. Why do even progressive countries like Denmark allow this? Insane
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  AFAIK, unpaid internships are a thing in the Netherlands as well. Not defending it, it's stupid, but I don't understand why the Dutch and other EU countries just roll with this. This should be banned.
  - akudha 4y ago
    Is there anyone speaking against this, at the EU level? These youngsters should form a group and fight back. I’d have guessed this to be a thing in say U.K, but it is depressing to learn it happens even in the progressive Nordic countries
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      >Is there anyone speaking against this, at the EU level? "Speaking" never changes laws in our favor though. Big changes only happen when protests and violence are directed towards the ruling class.
      - astrange 4y ago
        I meet people who believe this about universal healthcare all the time. It’s a mystery why they think this because it never actually happened, and from Taiwan to the UK they got theirs by a government minister thinking “hmm today I will create universal healthcare”. The implementation problem there wasn’t “the ruling class”, it was bribing doctors who were afraid of getting paid less. The focus on protesting is a meme from the US New Left combined with modern activist brain; “organizers” think they’re doing something by “organizing” people into getting arrested in public because it worked once for civil rights. But of course it doesn’t do anything and everyone just ignores you.
AlbertCory 4y ago
> Until recently change, Noma sent stagiaire candidates a document labelled “informal agreement” to sign. I think if it's a document you sign, it's not an "informal agreement." > His spokesperson said Redzepi had been open about the issue and participated in “hundreds of hours of counseling” I just vomited in my mouth a little. Actually, independent of the content: this article is Journalism as it's supposed to be practiced. Good work, Imogen West-Knights!
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
girvo 4y ago
How the heck is the “stage” system legal? Working, unpaid, for full time hours for three months? That’s disgusting beyond measure.
- jsiaajdsdaa 4y ago
  And in a country where these things are supposed to be guaranteed at a higher level by their government, compared to other countries. Peculiar how despite all the promises, marketing, media, and government revenue, these things still happen.
  - markdown 4y ago
    > all the promises, marketing, media? Which promises, marketing, and media?
    - jsiaajdsdaa 4y ago
      how about from the official danish government website, if you don't trust my personal experience of living in denmark and moving back to the USA. https://denmark.dk/people-and-culture/happiness https://denmark.dk/people-and-culture/happiness https://denmark.dk/society-and-business/the-danish-labour-market https://denmark.dk/society-and-business/the-danish-labour-ma...
      - bazoom42 4y ago
        I think you misunderstand what those pages are saying. Working conditions like minimum wage is NOT guaranteed by the government in Denmark. Indeed, this is sometimes called the “Danish model”, where such conditions are negotiated between employer an employee/union, and the government stays out of these negotiatons. It is pretty funny you think government guarantees has been “marketed”, when the touted “Danish model” is exactly the oppposite.
        jsiaajdsdaa 4y ago
        I find it absolutely riveting that you think unpaid labor, which is what we are talking about from the article, is legal or encouraged in Denmark, let alone the United States.
thecleaner 4y ago
- s5300 4y ago
- gunfighthacksaw 4y ago
mensetmanusman 4y ago
This is happening in SF as well. Cooks and servers that live hours away because of housing prices and now the gas prices…
j7ake 4y ago
I feel like these abuses in the workplace happen especially in industries where workers overestimate the romance of the job: fashion models, talk TV shows, science at famous places. The huge demand for even unpaid internships at these places allows employers to abuse their workers without penalty. Maybe the thing to look out for when finding an industry worth joining is to ask how the interns and fresh grads are treated.
AlbertCory 4y ago
At Google, we had almost all the big-name chefs from around the world in for a talk. Without naming names, an awful lot of them seem to have extremely high opinions of themselves.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  I think you really don't reach the top without massive ego and quite a level of obsession. Some mellow out or see that they have done it all and don't need to show off anymore, but for rest the publicity might be more about continuous validation.
- twoodfin 4y ago
  I mean, shouldn’t they? It’s a highly competitive field. I’m not sure how you’d succeed without a healthy ego, and once you’ve reached the pinnacle it doesn’t seem outrageous to indulge it somewhat.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    Well, yeah, but as Sweetness (Walter Payton) himself said: “When you're good at something, you'll tell everyone. When you're great at something, they'll tell you.”
    - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
      well, aphorism only goes so far in describing reality effectively instead of pithily. So two notes: if everyone is always telling you how great you are you would probably still be full of yourself. if you are great at something that means you are good at it, perhaps the great also tell everyone how good they are, although in my experience they just let you know they know it without being so gauche as to have to mention it all the time.
      - AlbertCory 4y ago
        [flagged]
Tade0 4y ago
I used to work with a QA specialist who was really effective at his job. Turns out he used to be a cook and after years of pulling 12h shifts sitting just 8h in an air-conditioned office for easily triple the compensation was a pretty sweet deal from his perspective.
boomboomsubban 4y ago
From my memories of "Down and Out in Paris and London," it sounds like little has changed in a century for fine dining except 70 hour weeks instead of 120 hour ones.
bogomipz 4y ago
All of this same abusive workplace culture was also well-documented in Bill Buford's 2006 book "Heat." In the book he does an unpaid internship for Mario Batali at his restaurant Babo. And many of the behaviors that would ultimately take him down are also present.
jerry1979 4y ago
The bar and restaurant workers I would hang out with never really seemed to leave work in so far as they would talk about their jobs constantly. Interestingly, the bicycle delivery people I would hang out with would rarely talk about work.
Something1234 4y ago
I've got to say I'm really disappointed in this whole thread. All the focus was on the labor issues and theories regarding that. I was honestly hoping there would be something more here. Something about cool restaurants or creating amazing experiences on a budget or even about the difficulties and struggles of the people founding the restaurants. Instead we get a pile of reddit grade whining here. Cycle of abuse and all that. Although the article is great journalism.
smartbit 4y ago
Non-paywalled link to referenced article in NYTimes https://archive.ph/L9a6p https://archive.ph/L9a6p The Island is Idyllic. As a Workplace, it’s Toxic. about Willows Inn run the by former NoMa chef Blaine Wetzel
jansommer 4y ago
I live in Copenhagen and have heard the same story from friends or acquaintances. After the pandemic where a lot of servers and chefs were laid off, the restaurants are having a hard time finding staff. Pretty much every place is looking for staff, and some are closing earlier because they can't find any. People know the conditions are horrific and seek into other industries.

134 points by LordAtlas 4y ago

I suspect that most restaurants would be unable to exist if they paid their workers fairly. Margins are already paper-thin, so the significant increase in labor costs to fairly compensate workers would mean that menu prices would rise to a level most current diners could not afford.

bryanrasmussen 4y ago
in reference to Denmark, since there is not generally a tipping culture people need to be paid a living wage, although not sure if they are being paid fairly.
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  I gotta ask why the downvotes here? I know we're not normally supposed to ask but since a lot of the comments I've made in the few days has gotten a couple downvotes seems a bit weird unless HN just went more downvote happy than usual. on edit: seems my whining paid off, still seemed weird though.

euroderf 4y ago

A bit OT but worth a mention: to read about the feudal-hierarchical system in a fine restaurant, read George Orwell's "Down and Out in London and Paris". The London part is ho-hum (imo) but in Paris he worked in a restaurant and hoo boy what a bizarre little universe contained therein. This was in the 30s iirc but I wonder how much of this kind of culture has survived unchanged to the present day.

LordAtlas 4y ago

Non-paywall link: https://archive.ph/hXOUm https://archive.ph/hXOUm

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

As an European, this is nothing really surprising here to me. The entire western economies, including EU and the Nordics, thrive on exploiting desperate immigrants, especially in low wage jobs that the locals don't want to do. That's why there's a lot of push from governments for open borders, visa free, easy-emmigration, inviting refugees and migrants, etc. to further drive down local wages and increase demand for real estate, both of which benefit the old money entrenched wealth, business and asset owning class, especially in Europe where this class is a lot bigger and richer than in the US, relative to the wage class. We're basically setting up for Feudalism 2.0 Enhanced Edition. So all the fancy workers' rights the EU/Nordics are famous for on paper, go out the window when you're a migrant worker on a visa with strings attached, and you find yourself at the mercy of unscrupulous business owners who are experts at skirting employment laws in just the right ways to stay legit, plus the government institutions responsible for regulating this, who know about these practices but turn a blind eye, as instructed by business lobby groups so "the economy can function" (you want your cheap meant, no? or the cheap strawberries? or cheap asparagus?). I wish we could stop this but it seems like consumers only care about worker abuse until it impacts their wallets and realize they need to pay more for the stuff they've been conditioned to get for cheap their whole lives.

ch4s3 4y ago
I’ve talked to a lot of Mexican and Central American immigrants to the US a ver the years working in service, agriculture, trades, and transportation. I’ve never once heard one of them say they thought of themselves as exploited, in fact many of them worked very hard to get here and encouraged family and friends to follow. That said, I’ve heard different things about the folks working in meat packing, just never first hand. I don’t want to make it sound glamorous, but people come, stay, and start families here for a reason.
- brewdad 4y ago
  You can exploit someone to the edge of breakdown but it still might be an improvement over the life conditions they left behind to come to the US. That doesn't make it right however.

sva_ 4y ago

I have a few friends who work in restaurants (not Michelin-starred ones), and something I found peculiar is that pretty much all of them seem to be using hard drugs and consume excessive amounts of alcohol on the regular. A look through some places on the web where kitchenworkers exchange stories, such as /r/kitchenconfidential, confirmed to me that this is not a local phenomenon.

bowsamic 4y ago
As far as I’m aware that is mainly an American phenomena
- Etheryte 4y ago
  This is very common in Europe too, in fact it's so common I've heard stories of it from nearly everyone working in that field that I've chat up.
- sva_ 4y ago
  I've only been to the US once, and those people I talked about are Europeans.
  - emptysongglass 4y ago
    Oh yeah I have so many stories of Danish kitchen staff. One head chef kept a rock of MDMA like a proper huge rock in the downstairs locker. Cocaine use during service was de rigueur.
- jwilber 4y ago
  The article itself is in Copenhagen? You’re just going to completely ignore that?
  - bowsamic 4y ago
    Which article?

buran77 4y ago

People love to shout from the top of the hill how much they promote equality, fair treatment for everyone, until it hits them in the pocket. Until the restaurant bill is a bit higher, until their Amazon orders aren't arriving by the end of the same day. And then they find reasons to explain why equality and fair treatment aren't for everybody. Or they close their eyes and pretend there's no problem, those people don't exist as long as you never think about them. And the reasons why poor people are universally exploited are straight forward. They have no say, and no power. When other discriminated groups (color, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) get some power they're still part of that group but when poor people get to power they are no longer poor and have very little interest in pursuing that cause. On the other hand trying to help any of these people is quickly branded as socialism (or worse, communism) and that's a scarlet letter sentence which most do their best to avoid.

CoastalCoder 4y ago
> People love to shout from the top of the hill how much they promote equality, fair treatment for everyone, until it hits them in the pocket. Could you clarify which people you're referring to? It's a pretty strong criticism, so painting with an overly broad brush isn't really fair.
- buran77 4y ago
  Have you ever heard from someone saying that gender or color shouldn't matter? Sometimes they don't even just propose equality of opportunity but even equality of outcome. When it comes to the poor and their fair chance you get to watch a ridiculous spectacle where all the arguments you just heard a minute ago are turned on their head. Suddenly there are reasons why those people are in that situation and it's usually their fault - didn't work enough, study enough, picked a job that has no value, picked a job anyone can do, etc. But the reality is that it's not that the job has no value, or anyone could do it. If your trash sat in front of your house for weeks you'd pay them a yearly salary just to take it away. They get abuse because they have no choice. Somehow they ended up on that bottom rung of the ladder and society made it close to impossible to get up from there. If you want to solve other types of discrimination you intrinsically accept that the abusers will pay for it. Your board is all white men? Some will have to pay the price for centuries of abuse and make room for other genders or people of color. If you are looking for such equality you will have solid arguments to justify getting it. Until it comes to poor people and then nothing else matters, they're poor for a reason, why should you pay for lifting them up? So I'll say there's no brush broad enough to paint this with. It has been almost universally proven throughout recorded history, it has happened all over the world to varying degrees: the world needs a bottom rung to do what nobody else even wants to think about. It will make sure that bottom rung keeps existing in ample supply to achieve that and it will abuse those people because it can. It's the one universal discrimination where the power balance is so one sided it's absolutely ridiculous. It doesn't care about gender, race, religion, if you're poor you will pay for it in ways you never though exist, you will be forced to subsidize the well being of those better off. And those better off will find justifications to not do much, if anything, about it. Maybe you aren't one of those people. But you did have to ask with surprise which makes me think you never even noticed or ever really wondered.

akudha 4y ago

It is infuriating to read about “unpaid internship”. Why is this still a thing, in 2022? Even the White House interns aren’t paid until now. Why do even progressive countries like Denmark allow this? Insane

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
AFAIK, unpaid internships are a thing in the Netherlands as well. Not defending it, it's stupid, but I don't understand why the Dutch and other EU countries just roll with this. This should be banned.
- akudha 4y ago
  Is there anyone speaking against this, at the EU level? These youngsters should form a group and fight back. I’d have guessed this to be a thing in say U.K, but it is depressing to learn it happens even in the progressive Nordic countries
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >Is there anyone speaking against this, at the EU level? "Speaking" never changes laws in our favor though. Big changes only happen when protests and violence are directed towards the ruling class.
    - astrange 4y ago
      I meet people who believe this about universal healthcare all the time. It’s a mystery why they think this because it never actually happened, and from Taiwan to the UK they got theirs by a government minister thinking “hmm today I will create universal healthcare”. The implementation problem there wasn’t “the ruling class”, it was bribing doctors who were afraid of getting paid less. The focus on protesting is a meme from the US New Left combined with modern activist brain; “organizers” think they’re doing something by “organizing” people into getting arrested in public because it worked once for civil rights. But of course it doesn’t do anything and everyone just ignores you.

AlbertCory 4y ago

> Until recently change, Noma sent stagiaire candidates a document labelled “informal agreement” to sign. I think if it's a document you sign, it's not an "informal agreement." > His spokesperson said Redzepi had been open about the issue and participated in “hundreds of hours of counseling” I just vomited in my mouth a little. Actually, independent of the content: this article is Journalism as it's supposed to be practiced. Good work, Imogen West-Knights!

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

girvo 4y ago

How the heck is the “stage” system legal? Working, unpaid, for full time hours for three months? That’s disgusting beyond measure.

jsiaajdsdaa 4y ago
And in a country where these things are supposed to be guaranteed at a higher level by their government, compared to other countries. Peculiar how despite all the promises, marketing, media, and government revenue, these things still happen.
- markdown 4y ago
  > all the promises, marketing, media? Which promises, marketing, and media?
  - jsiaajdsdaa 4y ago
    how about from the official danish government website, if you don't trust my personal experience of living in denmark and moving back to the USA. https://denmark.dk/people-and-culture/happiness https://denmark.dk/people-and-culture/happiness https://denmark.dk/society-and-business/the-danish-labour-market https://denmark.dk/society-and-business/the-danish-labour-ma...
    - bazoom42 4y ago
      I think you misunderstand what those pages are saying. Working conditions like minimum wage is NOT guaranteed by the government in Denmark. Indeed, this is sometimes called the “Danish model”, where such conditions are negotiated between employer an employee/union, and the government stays out of these negotiatons. It is pretty funny you think government guarantees has been “marketed”, when the touted “Danish model” is exactly the oppposite.
      - jsiaajdsdaa 4y ago
        I find it absolutely riveting that you think unpaid labor, which is what we are talking about from the article, is legal or encouraged in Denmark, let alone the United States.

thecleaner 4y ago

s5300 4y ago
gunfighthacksaw 4y ago

mensetmanusman 4y ago

This is happening in SF as well. Cooks and servers that live hours away because of housing prices and now the gas prices…

j7ake 4y ago

I feel like these abuses in the workplace happen especially in industries where workers overestimate the romance of the job: fashion models, talk TV shows, science at famous places. The huge demand for even unpaid internships at these places allows employers to abuse their workers without penalty. Maybe the thing to look out for when finding an industry worth joining is to ask how the interns and fresh grads are treated.

AlbertCory 4y ago

At Google, we had almost all the big-name chefs from around the world in for a talk. Without naming names, an awful lot of them seem to have extremely high opinions of themselves.

Ekaros 4y ago
I think you really don't reach the top without massive ego and quite a level of obsession. Some mellow out or see that they have done it all and don't need to show off anymore, but for rest the publicity might be more about continuous validation.
twoodfin 4y ago
I mean, shouldn’t they? It’s a highly competitive field. I’m not sure how you’d succeed without a healthy ego, and once you’ve reached the pinnacle it doesn’t seem outrageous to indulge it somewhat.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  Well, yeah, but as Sweetness (Walter Payton) himself said: “When you're good at something, you'll tell everyone. When you're great at something, they'll tell you.”
  - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
    well, aphorism only goes so far in describing reality effectively instead of pithily. So two notes: if everyone is always telling you how great you are you would probably still be full of yourself. if you are great at something that means you are good at it, perhaps the great also tell everyone how good they are, although in my experience they just let you know they know it without being so gauche as to have to mention it all the time.
    - AlbertCory 4y ago
      [flagged]

Tade0 4y ago

I used to work with a QA specialist who was really effective at his job. Turns out he used to be a cook and after years of pulling 12h shifts sitting just 8h in an air-conditioned office for easily triple the compensation was a pretty sweet deal from his perspective.

boomboomsubban 4y ago

From my memories of "Down and Out in Paris and London," it sounds like little has changed in a century for fine dining except 70 hour weeks instead of 120 hour ones.

bogomipz 4y ago

All of this same abusive workplace culture was also well-documented in Bill Buford's 2006 book "Heat." In the book he does an unpaid internship for Mario Batali at his restaurant Babo. And many of the behaviors that would ultimately take him down are also present.

jerry1979 4y ago

The bar and restaurant workers I would hang out with never really seemed to leave work in so far as they would talk about their jobs constantly. Interestingly, the bicycle delivery people I would hang out with would rarely talk about work.

Something1234 4y ago

I've got to say I'm really disappointed in this whole thread. All the focus was on the labor issues and theories regarding that. I was honestly hoping there would be something more here. Something about cool restaurants or creating amazing experiences on a budget or even about the difficulties and struggles of the people founding the restaurants. Instead we get a pile of reddit grade whining here. Cycle of abuse and all that. Although the article is great journalism.

smartbit 4y ago

Non-paywalled link to referenced article in NYTimes https://archive.ph/L9a6p https://archive.ph/L9a6p The Island is Idyllic. As a Workplace, it’s Toxic. about Willows Inn run the by former NoMa chef Blaine Wetzel

jansommer 4y ago

I live in Copenhagen and have heard the same story from friends or acquaintances. After the pandemic where a lot of servers and chefs were laid off, the restaurants are having a hard time finding staff. Pretty much every place is looking for staff, and some are closing earlier because they can't find any. People know the conditions are horrific and seek into other industries.