The Reach of a Chef Read Free

kitchen for the land of milk and honey, and most of the rest craned their necks to see what was out there.
    What were “chefs”? What had become of them? Even one of their best had realized he was out of balance, wasn’t sure anymore who he was or what he was supposed to be doing. It was a brand-new role. There were signs of what the new American chef was becoming, or might become, in Puck, Lagasse, Vongerichten, Keller, and even chefs lesser known outside their markets, such as Joachim Splichal, of the Patina and Pinot restaurants, who in a decade created a series of successful establishments and sold this business to a big company for a boatload of cash. But there was no known long-term model.
    For better or for worse, chefs were stepping out of their monk’s robes, slipping off their clogs, and donning pairs of hand-stitched John Lobb loafers. They were moving into the realm of commercial branding. America loves the notion of the chef as artist, the creative genius working magic in his or her kitchen. That same chef, however, is considerably less compelling when he or she becomes a commercial for raisins or espresso or pots and pans. So what will happen to our perception of the chef? The chef is in transition. The chef is looking for his shoes. But with the phenomenal popularity of this once blue-collar labor and the potential dollars to be generated by it—whether in pots and pans, salsa, baby food, spice rubs and sauces, or in television shows, books, and rollout restaurants—chef branding, with its product lines, multiple name-recognized restaurants, and entertainment venues, has lured the chef out of the kitchen.

     

    The esteem accorded well-known chefs had another effect outside the industry: The new recognition ignored the dues paid, glossing over the work that got them there, of how hard and how long they struggled, the ongoing grinding toil of the devoted and talented chefs in the early phase of their careers. Which is why we now get perplexed articles in the Wall Street Journal headlined “Reality Bites: Would-Be Chefs Vie for Stardom,” an article noting a 40 percent increase in enrollment in culinary programs to 53,000 students over the past four years, attending “in the hopes of becoming the next Emeril, Mario Batali or Bobby Flay,” and the resulting disgruntlement when that doesn’t happen or even come close. The story not only lays bare the typical career circumstances of a recent graduate—with eighty-hour workweeks and a salary in the low five figures—but interviews culinary school graduates surprised and miffed at eighty-hour weeks and a salary in the low five figures.
    They’re mad because this is a part of the industry they didn’t see when they signed on—it simply isn’t much on view. They see Batali and Flay and Lagasse doing shows, having their faces and names on books, entertaining bestseller-worthy crowds at their signings and demos, and opening fleets of hot, A-list restaurants. They see Thomas Keller, the apotheosis of the American Chef, in magazines and on network television, but not the labor of his four hundred employees, the staff that allows Keller to be who he is and to remain there. They don’t see Emeril Lagasse’s twelve-hundred-plus workers or the legions who drive Wolfgang Puck’s empire.
    Those chefs are the models of the future. But where had the artist gone, the figure the American restaurant-going public most adored? What did it mean to be a chef? What happened to chefs cooking? Had the profession spun out of control? Had we, the audience? What was going on here? Had we built it up too high, being a chef? Are we in danger of burning out on chefs, of suddenly turning on them, shouting that they have no clothes on, and dumping them in favor of the latest pop idol or sports giant?
    Perhaps, on the other hand, our chef-mania, our grossly out-of-touch understanding of the work, is a good thing, a way for America to at last get a grip on its own relationship with