“Yes sir !” From the Michelin-starred restaurant to the corner bistro, this is the mantra mechanically repeated at the moment of “fire” by entire generations of cooks in all the brigades of France. This military organization – chef, sous-chef, head of party, commis, dishwasher, assistant cook -, modernized in the 19th century by the grandfather of haute cuisine Auguste Escoffier, produced the best by placing French gastronomy on the roof of the world… like the worst. Out of sight, the basements of restaurants are, even today, the scene of insults and violence.
Eloi Spinnler, 28 years old, renowned chefPride, in Paris, had the bitter experience when he arrived at the age of 15 in this atmosphere where stress and demands mix: ear pulling, punches, threats, intentional burns. “I didn’t have the maturity to say stop. I didn’t know how to distinguish what was normal from what wasn’t. When you’re not good at school, when you make a mistake spelling by word, that you don’t know how to write a CV, it is very complicated to break an apprenticeship contract. You are a prisoner with your executioner”, he remembers.
These abuses are reminiscent of those denounced by third year Bachelor students at the Parisian hotel school Vatel who went on strike last April to protest against the alleged violent and inappropriate behavior of certain teachers in the training restaurant. A source close to the group assures “that no complaint has been filed” and that an alert system was put in place within the school in September 2023, without it having been “triggered until here”.
“We are paying for decades of excesses and abuse. Our role is to try to change things so that the next generations do not have the weight of this legacy,” hopes Florent Ladeyn (39), finalist of Top Chef in 2013, and owner of The Auberge du Vert Mont (1 star in the Michelin Guide).
Michelin-starred French chef Florent Ladeyn (d) in his restaurant in Lille, May 25, 2022
© / afp.com/DENIS CHARLET
For several years, chefs have dared to speak out in an environment where silence reigned until now, for fear that the doors of prestigious establishments would close. The Instagram account “I say no, boss” is full of hundreds of testimonies reporting violence. Several associations have been created, such as “Bondir. e”, which organizes prevention operations for young students in hotel schools, including Manon Fleury (32), a rising star of French cuisine at the helm of Datil, its Parisian premises open since the start of the school year.
“Cooking had never had its #MeToo period. When I started, we could never have talked about these subjects. Before, schools were even complicit. Today, they do not hesitate to change the internship student”, assures the young woman, also very committed to promoting the feminization of the stoves. “Here, that’s the whole point: to show once and for all that women do not have to choose between their career and private life,” she proclaims.
100,000 cooks left the restaurant industry during Covid
Also on the menu of grievances: the pace of work, in a sector in tension which saw more than 100,000 cooks disappear into thin air during the pandemic. “During Covid, the cooks, most of them partially unemployed, saw that there was a life outside the kitchen,” explains Matthias, 32, head chef in an establishment in the capital.
To attract candidates, restaurateurs have not hesitated to remove the sacrosanct break leading to two services per day, or offer positions with three consecutive days of rest. This is the case in the establishments of Eloi Spinnler or Florent Ladeyn. To this, the northern leader adds six weeks of paid leave and exceptional bonuses. As a result, he has very little turnover within his teams: “It’s not the world of care bears but we try to change things on our scale.”
In his entourage, the vast majority of chefs continue to be hit by a chronic shortage of labor, which has become very volatile. Between 200,000 and 300,000 jobs are unfilled in the sector. “Words have less weight. A cook who comes to provide service at lunchtime will not necessarily come in the evening and in the best case scenario, he will send an SMS to warn,” notes Florent Ladeyn.
Even if a majority of employees (61%) today prefer to earn less money but have more free time, according to a Ifop study of January 2023 for the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, the question of remuneration is also crucial. The average salary of a chef rarely exceeds 1,500 euros net at the start of their career. “In the old restaurant where I was, the boss decided to give one continuous day per week and removed a break, for the comfort of his chefs. And the salaries are more attractive than a few years ago “, notes Matthias who nevertheless had a series of short-term experiences. “I love this job but I don’t find myself in this system which lacks educational and caring managers,” he laments.
Numerous business failures
For chefs, the equation holds. Their low margins complicate their absolute necessity to offer more attractive remuneration. The crisis is violent in the hotel and catering sector, which accounts for nearly 7% of French GDP and has 2 million employees. According to data from the Banque de France published in mid-November, the number of business failures in the sector from January to October increased by 52% compared to 2022! During Covid-19, 121,230 establishments took out a PGE (state-guaranteed loan), i.e. one in two companies in the CHRD sector (cafes, hotels, restaurants and nightclubs), for an average amount of 91,500 euros. , according to data provided by Umih, the main employers’ union in the hotel and catering industry.
With inflation and the impossibility of finding accommodation in big cities, the work weighs on the teams, which restaurateurs have to coax twice as much today. “We are coming out of two years of assistantship and we are having difficulty repriming the pump, with employees more detached from their work. We are entering much more intimacy than before. People listen to each other more and are listened to more “With the good and the bad sides. Individualism takes precedence more than 20 years ago”, assures the Lille chef.
An observation shared by the boss of Umih, Thierry Marx, who has just left the Mandarin Oriental in Paris where it had two stars to concentrate on his “committed” gourmet restaurant Onor : “There is no longer this sacrificial relationship at work.” This great business leader, at the head of a group of more than 800 employees, has implemented a simple managerial method: “tough with facts, kind to people”, a “very short chain of command”, “very precise feedback” and “one-on-ones” with his colleagues every three months “to find out where they see themselves in two years”. He prefers to apply a few “tips” rather than “grand managerial theories destined to remain on a PowerPoint”: “1. Learn to talk to yourself. 2. No excessive pressure. 3. If you delegate a task, you have to learn to control to avoid falling into anger.
Everyone has their own little recipe. In her small Parisian restaurant, Eloi Spinnler sees her role as that of a “non-commissioned officer”, not just there to take Instagram photos with the “foodies” but to “get her hands dirty”. Ex-rugby player Florent Ladeyn focuses on “the collective above all”. Manon Fleury on “collaborative management” with her assistant and partner. In the years to come, all these chefs are aware that technology, robotization and climate change will further disrupt their sector with the disappearance of certain tasks or the reduction of their cards. If the kitchen has not yet completely woken up from its nightmare, with the new generation, the dream is allowed.
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