Burnt Hands Perspective
This is a raw and unfiltered look into the state of the restaurant industry as a whole, powered by longtime friends Chef/Owner Antonio Caruana and former bartender turned News Anchor/TV Host Kristen Crowley.
Representing all aspects of the industry from the front to the back of the house we will dig into the juiciest stories and pull from decades of experience in one of the sexiest and most exciting industries in the world...the food and beverage industry.
From international chefs, sommeliers, industry pros, and so much more, this show will cover all of it without a filter. You turn up the volume; we'll turn up the heat.
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Burnt Hands Perspective
Ep 35 - The Hidden Costs of Chef Life - Fame, Fantasy, and Reality: What it take to make it in the kitchen
In this episode Chef Tony and KC candidly discuss the harsh realities of becoming a chef and the misconceptions many have about achieving culinary "stardom."
• The dilution of the title "chef" – from certified professional to anyone who cooks commercially
• Celebrity chef culture has created unrealistic expectations about culinary careers and success
• Social media presence doesn't translate to actual restaurant success – "butts in seats" is what matters
• Most chefs will never achieve Michelin recognition but can still be excellent at their craft
• Local recognition systems and customer loyalty are undervalued markers of success
• Real chefs acknowledge their mentors and understand they didn't succeed alone
• Career advancement requires significant personal sacrifice – relationships, time, and lifestyle
Stop chasing the fantasy of being the next culinary superstar with tweezers and custom knife rolls. Focus on mastering fundamentals, showing gratitude to mentors, and understanding that true growth comes from necessity, not showing off.
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All right, Hello everybody.
Speaker 2:Hello Kristen, Cheers on our coffee. Here we go again.
Speaker 1:Child, I got seat. That's everybody out there. Guys, how are you?
Speaker 2:Fabulous I know.
Speaker 1:So today we're going to talk about some more stuff. Again, we're going to talk about ourselves, with ourselves, to ourselves, without a panel.
Speaker 2:Well, there's no. Yeah, the guest today is you and your insight.
Speaker 1:Hi, hi, nice to meet you.
Speaker 2:Welcome, chef Tony, to the show. It's nice to Glad I'm here, glad I could make it. I was fucking busy today. We set aside time, so you are busy. You're busy all the time. So that takes us right into today's topic. So we're going to talk about kind of the cost of becoming a chef and what chefs can really expect, because it's not all glory and fame. So where do you want to start with the cost of becoming a chef? Is it something you see more of? What do you like?
Speaker 1:Well, first is the terminology of the word chef. We've already discussed that before in previous episodes.
Speaker 2:But we are in season three.
Speaker 1:So all those people who are just turning into this or tuning into this.
Speaker 2:Go back.
Speaker 1:Go back to season one, check it out, but until then, we'll give you a quick recap. There's a definition and a term for being a chef, and then there's everyone else's opinion of it. Okay, we all know that being a chef, if you want to be certified in chef, if you're at the ACF or anything like that, there are certification qualifications that you need to follow. To become a chef, you need to run a crew of so many people for so long, you have to have so many teaching hours, you have to have so many hours of training. There are a lot of things to having the term chef as a certification. Then comes the word chef Anyone who works in a fucking kitchen and cooks, that's a chef. Now you know what I'm saying. So anyone who fucking fries anything from chicken wings, you could be the chef of a fucking sports bar and you're going to call yourself a chef.
Speaker 1:You could be a food truck chef. You can be the chef of a fucking social media. You can be a food truck chef. You can be the chef of a fucking social media. You can do whatever you want, just say you're a chef. So the word chef now is just a term for somebody who simply cooks. I think, I think that's where it went.
Speaker 2:The bastardized term.
Speaker 1:The bastardized term. So let's talk about the chefs who want to be known as a chef.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, sacrifice. Let's start with sacrifice, because people go into this thinking it's going to be fun. Well, you're never sacrificed anything. They think it's going to be fun. I can go out and party every night.
Speaker 1:I can you know?
Speaker 2:do what I want, and is that a misconception?
Speaker 1:we've seen more recently. Well, I don't know if that's a misconception. I think that's true, because that's really what's happening. I think the misconception is that they're going to do all that and then be famous.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So I think that's what it is. I think people want to be everybody. It's not think. I know, I fucking know, and you know everybody wants to be famous, everybody no matter what you're doing If you're a mechanic, you want to be a famous mechanic guy around town.
Speaker 1:If you're a race car driver, you want to be the one that beats out the next guy. To be famous and people can say it's for the passion love. All they want to, but you climb to the top of your love by being recognized for being such in such love does it make sense?
Speaker 1:yeah. So being being a chef is is not easy, because the work that goes into it is so involved and so grueling that it just gets. It gets jaded out by people with this fantasy. Okay, and what I want to tell people is this You're not going to fucking do it. You're not going to do it. You're not going to be the celebrity chef you want to be. You're not going to be the most recognized chef in the fucking world. You're not going to be the most recognized chef in your fucking city. You don't have the right to do that. Who makes that happen is the fucking city itself, the people in it and everything else. All you can do is work your ass off every day, consistently.
Speaker 1:Okay, what people get jaded on, kristen, is this. They get the um. They look at like Grant Ackett's, thomas Keller, uh, all these people who have huge accolades. Now, I can go on forever with these, the Michelin star chefs, the James Baird chefs. I can go on forever with these, the Michelin star chefs, the James Baird chefs. I attribute it to, like the. I'm going to use the Michael Jordan thing. Okay, michael Jordan is a phenomenal basketball player. Wayne Gretzky is amazing at hockey. So much good at it so much better at it, naturally, that it's worth the conversation over everybody else in the fucking world who plays basketball or plays hockey Right, and that goes in any industry else in the fucking world who plays basketball or plays hockey right? And that goes in any industry. So they have something that Michelin chefs have. Okay, michelin chefs are masters of what they do. It's a gastro type of molecular type of cooking that they're being judged on.
Speaker 1:Now I have people come out of time saying are you ever going to get a Michelin star? Absolutely not. I'm not even in the same caliber of that type of cooking. I'm not in that realm at all. My style of cooking has nothing to do with that. So I don't try and go for that. I don't compare myself to that.
Speaker 1:But a lot of people who don't understand it are the ones who do. You know, and it's big now with social media, with the aprons and the fucking tweezers and all these little things. And I'm not bashing that, because if that's what they want to do, look, if you don't know how to use a pair of tongs to do five different things in five different saute pans at the same fucking time, you have no business holding a tweezer with a micro green in it, I'll slap it right out of your hand. You know what I mean. If you can't run a pasta station, jump over to the fry real quick to pull out a cutlet that needs to be sauced over with this and you're doing all this. There's no saucier and there's no person on fish. That's all beautiful fantasy kitchen work, right. That's been exposed to us in books, magazines, social media. Yeah, things like that. That's the fantasy world and it's out there, don't get me wrong. But it's such a small percent over the millions of restaurants and millions of people working in them.
Speaker 1:So whatever happened to the normal grinding chef? That's what I want to know. Where is their recognition? So we don't have a recognition system. We don't. You either have to be recognized for being the absolute best of the best, which would be Michelin, which would be the Michael Jordan type thing. But there's so many other people playing basketball in the world and they're all good and they're all good. Go to a park in any city and work your way up the park. From recreation. You have the best guys in recreation. Go to D1, college, high school, mba, semi-pro, european. You have people all over the world who are great, but everyone emphasizes on one because he was so good. That's the same type of thing.
Speaker 2:With the chef world.
Speaker 1:But not everybody can be that. Just go to work and shut the fuck up, man. Go to work. Look at these people Read their books. It doesn't mean you're going to emulate their life. You're not going to. It's very hard to make a paycheck, make a living and also convince somebody that you're so good that they're going to open up a $2 million restaurant for you so you can go use your tweezers For you. It's not going to happen, man, it's so. I can't say it's not going to happen, but the percentage of it happening are lightning strikes Well it's the same as your kid.
Speaker 2:Like everybody thinks their kid's going to be the next pro, whatever sport player Like oh, my kid's so good, my kid doesn't good, my kid does. No, they're. They're really not they're, they're fairly average. But the people who stand out stand out because they are that exceptional at it or they just have like that je ne sais quoi, like they have that thing, like whatever it is, they have a thing. And I think a lot of people have been spoiled by seeing the television shows, seeing these people make money which technically they really didn't make money off of in the beginning. So all of that has kind of been newer, I guess, guess, to the industry, because we really didn't have I mean, when we were growing up we didn't have any shows like that, like travel shows. So that's, it's changed a lot. I've seen it change. I think that just creates a little bit of the misconception.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what it is is, like you said, not not everybody's going to get recognition. Not every chef is gonna get famous or newsworthy or gonna get recognized with awards. There's not really a lot of award systems. And here's the other problem here, folks, let me explain this to you. Every city has an award or a contest type system. Everything, every city, but a lot of cities, especially ours here they all don't take it serious. Yeah, they don't take it serious.
Speaker 1:So if you have a thing where you can call in and vote, let's say the best of your city every city has it the best of. A lot of chefs don't take it seriously or they think it's a joke because it could be rigged. It could be that it could be this, but the way I look at it is, if you're not willing to take on that challenge, you don't deserve the upper contests't work that way. You know what I'm saying. If you're not going to accept the fact that somebody won the best of because the city voted. Well, they voted, whether you like it or not. Everybody had a category and there's seven people in that category, so you had seven chances to get voted for and you got voted on it and you won. So it doesn't matter what the award system, whether it's from by the people or by a panel, or by a judging committee or by a secret shopper, it doesn't matter, you still have to win.
Speaker 1:And if you're not willing to participate in the competitions at your local level, the lowest level, how are you going to hold yourself up to being celebrated or recognized at the highest level? You can't. You have to work your way up through each incremental level of competition. Whether it's a call-in vote from fucking 27 people or a blind tasting, it doesn't matter. You know what I mean. You have to be willing to understand that the people out there have the right to speak for you, and if you don't want to partake in it, then don't talk about no fucking Michelin stars and everything else. You don't even know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. We talked about this kind of season one where you said, as a chef like you're winning every night with the people who come through the door because it's it's actual physical response. People are actually taking time out of their day to drive and see you and sit down and eat and support you as different than online popularity, because online popularity doesn't mean shit. You're not making any money off of those people unless you have some kind of good to sell them, so you have to be butts in seats.
Speaker 1:And you're not getting a real loyal commitment either.
Speaker 2:No, it's flying, You're sitting on a toilet.
Speaker 1:You're sitting on the airplane, you're doing whatever you're doing. You hit like you, move on. You hit like you, move on. You hit like you, move on. It's very easy to sit on the floor in your house while your kids are playing fucking and like you, know playing games and shit and for you to just like something. And if a million people like something, that doesn't mean a hundred of them are coming to give you a dollar no you know what I mean. It doesn't.
Speaker 2:Doesn't mean anything they don't walk through your doors. That that is for any chef, regardless of awards. You can win all the awards in the world, but if you don't have people coming in your restaurant, what good are you?
Speaker 1:Exactly, I mean you. Really it's a full package. Now I wish there was and I hope there is going to be at some point in time, an award or a recognition, not so much an award.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry More for like state local. For just normal people. Where are the normal chefs? Or you mean no, hold on, clarifyify normal, because you mean just not with the molecular gastro-infused type shell.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, let's just talk about the restauranteurs who are out there putting out a nice product with their own twist on it, don't get me wrong. But they're following whatever happened to celebration of normal cooking, traditional cooking. Now you take a piece of basil, you blow it down, you break it down, add nitrous oxygen to it. Whatever you're going to do, you're going to foam it out and you're going to bring it back to life, and now it's a basil foaming whatever. And that's great. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking that.
Speaker 2:I like that food too.
Speaker 1:I'm not knocking it. It's a very big skill. It's more of a science. It is what it is through a Thanksgiving turkey. See what I'm saying? It's just a different type of thing and I'm not good at it.
Speaker 1:So what about all the millions of people who are turning out? I'm talking about country clubs, hunt rooms, small little places, mom and pop joints, who are turning out amazing food, who aren't getting recognized, but they are putting out food that should be recognized and it is basically on yelp and stuff. But you know what? Where's the award system for that? If you're not into all this stuff, to get recognized by james beard, if your city's not good enough to get recognized by one of these things, if michelin doesn't consider your city good enough to fucking be recognized, you're not even going to be on the map. But you could be the best chef in the fucking world, but because you you live here, we're not going to pay attention to you. What happened to them? Where are we left? You see what I'm saying? We are only left at local. So you got to take advantage of local situations and the local people walking through your doors.
Speaker 2:I think most of the local show I mean most of them know about it. It's just going out of your way to do it, cause some people get locked in like in the kitchen where they're not you know, they're not looking at expanding their brand outside of it. So you have to kind of hunt for those opportunities too. Nobody's going to come and give you those opportunities. So if you're a chef, actually go out and actively look at where you can get recognition from.
Speaker 1:And remember this if you're a chef and you're creative and you have a good following behind you, don't get lost in that. There's a lot more to it. There's a lot more to it If you're going to open up and you're going to leave where you're at, to go, open up your own restaurant, your own thing, and you want to be recognized and you want to don't forget your mentors, don't forget who brought you there. There's one thing that people ask me all the time and that's like how do you know when someone's ready? It's very easy for me to know when a chef is ready to conquer the next level, the next level of commitment, and that's just simply. Just go on his fucking social media page, go on their personal profile and see what they talk about, and you'll know if they're ready.
Speaker 1:If they're talking about all the great things they're doing, how good they do this and their passion for cooking, and they started here and now they're fucking here.
Speaker 1:And if they did all that and still didn't mention the restaurant they're working in or the chef they're working under, they are not ready. You are not ready. You are full of shit and you're fooling yourself because you honestly think in your mind you're doing all this on your own, you're forgetting the foundation that your house is built on and that's how I know right there and then. So if you go in there and that probably relates to any industry I'd imagine that probably goes everywhere, right? But that's what I do. I look right on their social media and see how I talk about, how they talk about them, how they talk about themselves, and I can tell if I have an athlete coming and they're going to be a sous chef or they're going to work under me or something like that. I just go right to their social media page and I just watch it. I don't tell them, I'm never telling them, I watch all of them.
Speaker 1:I'm never telling you what I see. I just see if I feel you're ready to move on or not, if you're going to be my competition in the next year or two or not. And most of the time they're not, because they're not ready to accept the fact that they didn't get hair alone and someone else is helping them and they have a mentor and they have someone else's style your style. If you worked in a place for five years and your plating looks the same and the food looks the same and you're just rubbing off, dude, you don't have that. You, you got to understand. Now you go on the same social media page and they say I have to give all my respect to this.
Speaker 1:My mentor taught me this. I'm so proud. I can't wait to move on. I'm ready to move on by myself. Um, I'm so thankful for all I've learned here. Now you're talking. Now you're ready. Now you're going to get support from me because you're right, you can't be with me forever, you can't take my style forever and you're going to create your own style and your own palette and you're going to move on.
Speaker 2:And we know it's an incestuous, tight knit business. So you don't want to burn your bridges by doing those kinds of things Exactly.
Speaker 1:So when somebody says they're going to move on and they give no credit to where they just came from for the last three or four years, that's a red flag for me, because I can still look back and tell you all the people who influenced me and I've always said it the whole time, but it took me until I was almost 30, in my early 40s, to admit it.
Speaker 2:It's part of growth, part of aging. With age comes wisdom, right, yeah, like fine wine? I think that, yeah, and you are going to have to sacrifice, like a moth to the flame.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this discussion was kind of like Birds with desire. Oh, my God, you know what that Janet Jackson? I'm sure that's the way love goes.
Speaker 2:This is when things go off the rails and we got to end it. We just got to end it.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I think so Any any last words on. You know sacrifice and and just keep grinding to get that recognition. You're not going to be able to gain and keep everything you have. Sorry, this industry, this world, typically doesn't allow that. You're going to have to sacrifice, whether it be your free time, your family. Sometimes everything comes with a sacrifice. So if you want to advance in a culinary world and move up by opening another restaurant or growing another kitchen or spreading yourself into another part of the industry, any chance or any, any, any growth you make or any move you make, you're going to have to leave something. As you succeed in a kitchen or in a restaurant industry, typically it comes monetary. You succeed by seeing your monetary value and your growth. With that comes a new vision and the way you used to look at life when you were working is different than now. You're creating jobs for other people. You see avenues you don't see the same. You could be married for a multiple amount of years and when this happens it's happening to you and not us.
Speaker 1:So sometimes you split there and there's a lot of things that go on where you you don't see life the same way you did 10 years ago when you first got married, and now you're starting to see a whole different vision of what's out there, and that person ain't along on the same road, right? So those things are going to happen and you have to be ready for it and you have to be commit to it and you have to make that devil handshake, I guess you could say and you're going to shake a hand with somebody on some fake ass contract somewhere that's going to tell you that it's time to move on and you're going to have to make that commitment.
Speaker 2:You can't back out of it.
Speaker 1:So either people that were with you come along or you kind of fade off without them, and it's not a choice, it's just how it happens, you know, it's just natural. So the only way you're going to grow is to let go of the places you were and focus on the places you want to be, and I think that's the way you got to do it as a chef. So put down the tweezers, okay.
Speaker 1:It's okay to use the same knife for three different things. You don't need a chef roll that you got to take out every time you're going to cut this with that and this with that, just to show everybody you have the newest fucking knife. You know what I mean. How about you learn how to hone it properly? You don't need three frigging, three levels of wet stones to sharpen your knife every day, in front of everybody when you get there. It's all fucking nonsense. It's all nonsense. When you're really in the kitchen working your ass off, you'll sharpen your knife when it needs a fucking edge. You know what I mean. You'll hone it in between cuts because you don't have time to sharpen it with that fucking thing. We all do it, okay. There's a difference, though. You're doing it for show or you're doing it for necessity there. If you keep doing it for show, go show your show pony, go ahead Out of necessity those are people who grow, that's it.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:Well, I like that.
Speaker 1:Good, good to the point. Discussion today. Yeah, I like it. You feel better. Large and small, you ready, I'm ready, all right?
Speaker 2:Well, there we go. So, yeah, go on. If you have any comments, drop them below, like, subscribe, share and support everyone in the industry, and we appreciate you guys being with us smashing buttons like buttons smash don't pass.
Speaker 1:Smash don't pass all right, ciao for now. Ciao.
