THIS.
Hajime Sato (Sozai, Clawson, Mich.): People don’t understand how much work it takes to make something from scratch. Like miso soup. They come in and say, “Miso soup is miso soup. Why does it cost $5?” Oh my God, people bitch. But we save all the bones from cutting the fish for the sushi bar, all the vegetable bits that we would throw away, and we use them to make stock. It takes five hours for just that one dish, and then people bitch about spending $5 when that’s how much they pay for coffee? Come on.
It’s a gift link, btw 
Some interesting takes - e.g., who knew branding was so important these days? Apparently it’s not just about narcissism and making a fast buck.
Eric Huang: You can’t be a one-restaurant chef anymore. You have to have a brand, you have to keep feeding the beast and keep your employees and keep the trains running. Cooking is the last thing I get to do every day. It’s handing out W-2s and paying bills and figuring out how to store the garbage over the holiday weekend.
Also, that people consistently expect non-western food to be cheap, a point that’s come up here on occasion:
Kwasi Kwaa (Comfort Kitchen, Boston): We are in a society where with certain things, we’re very eager to pay for quality, but with other things we’re hesitant. Especially with Black and brown food, they expect quality for very little money. The same folks that will pay over $200 for a pasta dinner, when it comes to Caribbean food, African food, South Asian and Southeast Asian food, they expect to get more for so much less. And why is that?
About going to culinary school:
Robynne Maii: I always sing the praises of culinary school, but in community colleges only. All the for-profit schools need to go away. They’re completely unnecessary and they’re predatory.
Eric Huang: It requires an immense amount of privilege to stage around Europe. And you work for free in Copenhagen or go to San Sebastián on a culinary pilgrimage, that was what everybody told us we should do. Working at Eleven Madison Park, working 80 hours a week for minimum wage, that requires support. There’s a reason those kitchens are full of athletic, good-looking white men who have families that support them.
I’ve been watching “Tournament of something or other” on Food Network ( so? Don’t be judgy) and wondering why so many are willing to do it. A lot of “Top Chef” contestants are now on Food Network.
They say “this is the biggest/most important competition”. As they introduce themselves, they are hinting at the brand thing.
TBH you couldn’t pay me to watch that. I have a lot of friends who watch cooking competitions like Top Chef, but I have absolutely no interest in the format. I stopped watching the food network eons ago.
I have read too much about the restaurant industry. It sounds like a drag. I do my part my by, for the most part, not eating in them. I’m only half joking. Ignorance is bliss.
I don’t think the author of this article did any of these chefs a favor by taking their statements from longer interviews and placing them out of context.
No one should go voluntarily into the restaurant industry (either FOH or BOH, or anywhere in between) to make money.
You go into the restaurant business by choice because you love food, either preparing it (BOH) or serving it (FOH). Making money doing it is, at best, an unintended consequence.
Those who do otherwise are tragically naive or horribly ignorant.
(Of course there are those who have no choice but to go into the restaurant business - like first generation immigrants - but those folks understand that restaurants are not a means to wealth, but survival).
Art is like that.
Exactly.
I totally get that. I should probably be embarrassed! I still enjoy watching Top Chef, and Beat Bobby Flay. My point was that not so long ago folks competed on Top Chef to facilitate opening a restaurant. Now it seems many compete to help launch a brand. Fewer seem interested in the financial benefits of owning a restaurant.
That article was seriously depressing. I helped a friend open an Italian restaurant in the Kichijoji area of Tokyo in 1996. There were 2 VERY important lessons I learned from that experience.
â‘ NEVER work for a friend. NOTHING good comes from it and your relationship gets permanently changed forever.
② Being in the food and beverage industry is extremely difficult. I make a killer NY cheesecake that everyone raves about. MANY friends and others have repeatedly suggested/recommended that I open a shop to sell those cheesecakes. One friend (who was a student) offered to back me by paying all the costs to get me a visa here in Japan to do so and the costs to open the shop. I refused profusely because I’ve experienced ①and know that although my cheesecakes are what I believe to be the best I’ve ever eaten, I’d be a seriously lousy businessperson!
BTW, my cheesecake recipe is a riff based on the standard recipe that’s on the back of the Philadelphia cream cheese box. Japanese cheesecakes are quite different with lemon juice, cream and flour almost always added. I don’t really think they belong in a NY cheesecake.
Nah. Enjoy what you like and don’t give a hoot what other people think.
Glad to see Hajime Sato has a new place in Detroit, I loved his Seattle restaurant Mashiko.
So many things to agree with, especially customer pricing expectations. Why, exactly, is it that creatives should live on love?
The only competition show I ever watched was the original Iron Chef. Imagine, waking up in the middle of the night and turning on my little non-flatscreen bedroom tv to be confronted with Allez cuisine!!… WTF is this?? 
. I was totally freaked out …
OMG, the OG Iron Chef was fabulous, tho! The camp of it all, the jury… my PIC and I still quote one female judge’s squeal of delight regarding the … SECRET INGREDIENT: LEEKS!
“Ooooh, LEEEEEKS!”
Ya had to be there I guess
It was for me almost as good as Star Trek TOS reruns …
Lotta whining there. I think they must’ve cut the parts where the chefs talk about why they like their jobs. Because they wouldn’t do them otherwise.
It was seriously awesome. I still have the companion book!
Thank You! for the gift link - always much appreciated.
I saw the word “whining” to describe the chefs interviewed and I’m really dismayed by that characterisation. Yes, these are selective quotations from longer conversations but I think the participants outline all the challenges in a clear and reasonable manner. The industry is one of those where people expect more from increasingly little— like many. Pointing this out with the hope that readers will understand the costs of operations and the people behind their food seems reasonable and descriptive. Not whining.
I was also surprised by some comments above suggesting that anyone thinking they can make a living in the restauarant industry is a fool and should be in it solely for the love of it. Yikes. It is perfectly acceptable for people to expect to get paid for their work. And if they are in a full time job, surely ensuring there’s a living wage is reasonable? And if not, then something is very very wrong. This isn’t my sector (I work in HE) but I see so many similarities as our increasing exploitation and workload coexist with growing precarity and diminishing pay. It’s messed up.
If your pleasure in the arts or in food is contingent on another existing within or just this side of impoverishment, and that you feel this is justifiable? SMH.
