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And yet, he says "... I didn’t care about fooling the diners." I agree with you, that the diner seeing what they are about to eat is an important part of the e

And yet, he says "... I didn’t care about fooling the diners." I agree with you, that the diner seeing what they are about to eat is an important part of the experience. But Chang seems to be saying that even that is not the point! The results (including diner experience, and the honesty of that experience) don't matter. It is purely about instilling and maintaining a culture. I don't really buy it, myself. Should they also forge all their knives from iron ore, the long slow way, before being allowed to use them in the kitchen? As other people commented, I think this is more about weaving a story and casting a glamour than anything else.

munificent 2y ago
I think a charitable interpretation of his point is "I didn't care about fooling the diners about this specific thing." But if he allows that to happen and the staff internalizes a culture of corner-cutting and misdirection, then eventually they'll start lying to customers and taking shortcuts on things that do matter.
- detourdog 2y ago
  I would describe it as "founder mode". If he lets the restaurant morph its process while he is outside the kitchen the vision is lost. Obviously young and hungry with nothing to lose but your standards one can make certain decisions that build the story and the quality. Once the weekly payroll is $140k a week plus all the other expenses selling one's name seems justified to keep the balls in the air. The problem is the idea of the billionaire chef.
- joe_the_user 2y ago
  So, the idea is the long, hard, stupid and disrespectful way. Basically, the idea is you don't want smart people who can decide what corners make sense to cut, what process to use to etc. And this is because you don't want to have to rely on their intelligence. You want to rely on only your process, so you hire those without sense or intelligence as you expand.
- kelnos 2y ago
  I have mixed feelings about this sort of thing. It's saying you don't trust your people to make the right decisions. That you don't trust them to understand the difference between a shortcut that does and doesn't matter. The fact that Chang's staff emailed them to say "hey, we've started taking this shortcut" is a reason to trust them. Any deviation from the plan, and they let him know? Great! But he thinks that if he allows good shortcuts, sometime later, they'll start taking bad shortcuts, but he'll never find out, or won't find out until it's too late? It's profoundly insulting. But at the same time, fighting human nature is hard. Judgment will suffer while under stress, and working in a kitchen is certainly a poster child for "stressful situation". Even with the best intentions, bad decisions will be made, even if they seem like good decisions in the moment. I still think we should strive for that trust, though. Making people stick to an inefficient process where they can't see the reason for it is how you get detached, uncreative employees. > I think a charitable interpretation of his point is "I didn't care about fooling the diners about this specific thing." The funny thing is I actually do think he should be caring about this. Bringing out a chicken to show customers, and either explicitly saying or even implying that they're going to take that chicken back to the kitchen, carve it up, plate it, and bring it back out is a statement of intent. If you don't do it that way, then that's dishonest in a way I'd consider really bad. If I found out that parading the chicken out to my table was just a gimmick, and that's not the chicken I ended up eating, I'd feel lied to (or at least very much misled), and that would affect my enjoyment of the experience and my desire to go back.
TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
Yes, this is nuts. It's performative micromanagement for the sake of maintaining status. If the end product is indistinguishable, and the user experience is inferior (because it takes so much longer, and customers are just sitting there, waiting, hungry...) literally the only difference is the assertion of management/owner status for the sake of it. That might have some marketing leverage for a restaurant, but "We write everything in machine code with a biro before hand-assembling it" isn't going to win any hearts and minds in software dev.

munificent 2y ago

I think a charitable interpretation of his point is "I didn't care about fooling the diners about this specific thing." But if he allows that to happen and the staff internalizes a culture of corner-cutting and misdirection, then eventually they'll start lying to customers and taking shortcuts on things that do matter.

detourdog 2y ago
I would describe it as "founder mode". If he lets the restaurant morph its process while he is outside the kitchen the vision is lost. Obviously young and hungry with nothing to lose but your standards one can make certain decisions that build the story and the quality. Once the weekly payroll is $140k a week plus all the other expenses selling one's name seems justified to keep the balls in the air. The problem is the idea of the billionaire chef.
joe_the_user 2y ago
So, the idea is the long, hard, stupid and disrespectful way. Basically, the idea is you don't want smart people who can decide what corners make sense to cut, what process to use to etc. And this is because you don't want to have to rely on their intelligence. You want to rely on only your process, so you hire those without sense or intelligence as you expand.
kelnos 2y ago
I have mixed feelings about this sort of thing. It's saying you don't trust your people to make the right decisions. That you don't trust them to understand the difference between a shortcut that does and doesn't matter. The fact that Chang's staff emailed them to say "hey, we've started taking this shortcut" is a reason to trust them. Any deviation from the plan, and they let him know? Great! But he thinks that if he allows good shortcuts, sometime later, they'll start taking bad shortcuts, but he'll never find out, or won't find out until it's too late? It's profoundly insulting. But at the same time, fighting human nature is hard. Judgment will suffer while under stress, and working in a kitchen is certainly a poster child for "stressful situation". Even with the best intentions, bad decisions will be made, even if they seem like good decisions in the moment. I still think we should strive for that trust, though. Making people stick to an inefficient process where they can't see the reason for it is how you get detached, uncreative employees. > I think a charitable interpretation of his point is "I didn't care about fooling the diners about this specific thing." The funny thing is I actually do think he should be caring about this. Bringing out a chicken to show customers, and either explicitly saying or even implying that they're going to take that chicken back to the kitchen, carve it up, plate it, and bring it back out is a statement of intent. If you don't do it that way, then that's dishonest in a way I'd consider really bad. If I found out that parading the chicken out to my table was just a gimmick, and that's not the chicken I ended up eating, I'd feel lied to (or at least very much misled), and that would affect my enjoyment of the experience and my desire to go back.

TheOtherHobbes 2y ago

Yes, this is nuts. It's performative micromanagement for the sake of maintaining status. If the end product is indistinguishable, and the user experience is inferior (because it takes so much longer, and customers are just sitting there, waiting, hungry...) literally the only difference is the assertion of management/owner status for the sake of it. That might have some marketing leverage for a restaurant, but "We write everything in machine code with a biro before hand-assembling it" isn't going to win any hearts and minds in software dev.