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> Me and many other restaurant workers I knew were annoyed by his sensationalizing this. But I've never met any of them that didn't happily forgive him I know
by alexjplant 3y ago
> Me and many other restaurant workers I knew were annoyed by his sensationalizing this. But I've never met any of them that didn't happily forgive him
I know at least one professional chef who didn't. They also supposedly ran into him in the city a few years before this article was written and said that he was, to paraphrase, not an especially nice person. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I've only ever been on the periphery of the industry so I can't really judge. I have, however, worked with enough intensely-talented people to know that intense personality traits are sometimes par for the course. If you can't separate the art from the artist at least _some_ of the time then you'll run dry of things to enjoy.
- chefandy 3y agoI've known a number of people who ran into him that said he was really chill, but who knows. Most really toxic dickheads are really great at putting on the nice guy show when it benefits them. That said, everybody has bad days, and it's pretty clear he had some giant mental health issues to contend with. I have too, and while I've always been more of a social harmony type, I hope there aren't too many that judge me based on my worst days. I imagine the people that actually worked for him would probably know best, and given his status, I doubt someone that had terrible experiences would be particularly willing to step forward. I will say though that I heard a lot of really negative shit about Mario Batalli a-decade-and-a-half before he was publicly shamed for it, and never the same for Bourdain.