"Why I Got Kicked Out of a Restaurant on Saturday Night"

Interesting entry in the NY Times Diner's Journal Blog . A writer was eating dinner at a NYC restaurant. The chef was audibly yelling at the staff and the writer went back to the kitchen to tell him that we was making everyone uncomfortable and that he was "being mean".

Maybe 20 seconds after I had returned to my seat, he approached the table. He apologized, barely, and then let me know that he thought it was incredibly rude of me to come into his kitchen and tell him how to do his job. I repeated the fact that he had been ruining my dinner. But his yelling was all in the interest of maintaining quality, he said.

“I think it’s time for you to go,” he said.

“Are you kicking me out?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

Interesting situation. On the one hand, the chef is running the show so he can run his restaurant as he pleases (especially in a non-public part of the restaurant). On the other hand, if the chef is doing something to create an uncomfortable environment for diners, this is obviously a problem.

Here is the chef's response:

When I called him on Monday to tell him I was writing this post about the evening, Mr. Forgione, in fact, said that I had scolded him like a child on Saturday night. “First and foremost, you came into my kitchen and spoke to me very disrespectfully in front of my cooks,” he said. “The kitchen is a sacred space.” He told me that my reply to his attempts to explain why he was yelling, while I was in the kitchen was, “We’re not interested.” That sounds about right, since we hadn’t come to the restaurant to listen to him yell repeatedly at his staff about whatever it was that he thought they were doing wrong.

That wasn’t what got us kicked out though, according to Mr. Forgione. He claimed that he didn’t decide to ask us to leave until he explained to us tableside that his yelling was all in the interest of making everything perfect. “Well you aren’t,” he remembers me saying. “And then,” he continued, “you waved a hand in my direction as if I was an annoying bug. Someone who acts like that in my restaurant, I would never serve.”

...here we go again...
Eat, don't eat, ego/territory issues. Just a silly waste of time (the blogged event; hopefully not this thread) Move on?
[/attempt at preemtive end of thread/story]

If the kitchen truly is a "sacred space" as the chef contends, maybe he should make sure that his screaming doesn't extend past its walls and into the dining room. Once the diners can hear it, you can't control how they might react. If it were me in the dining room, I definitely wouldn't have said a word, though. I would have finished out the meal, knowing that I'd have a great story to tell.

It was really presumptuous of the blogger to enter the kitchen and/or say anything. If you don't like (something about) a place, just leave. It's not his place to tell someone else how to behave. That's pretty effing nervy, IMO and in many ways more annoying than the screaming itself.

=R=

I am very glad I am the only blogger in my family...as I generally am also the chef...

I'm with the blogger. You're ruining the dinner I am paying for, and I have the right to tell you so. Certainly if the problem was some other kind of noise, it would be okay for diners to speak up and object. But we're not supposed to notice or mind if a chef screams at his staff abusively? The notion of the kitchen being sacred space is BS, total BS. Do I get to declare my office 'sacred space' and yell at my staff? Workers should be treated respectfully. It has been my experience that people perform better when they are treated with respect, not terrorized.

Judy H wrote:I'm with the blogger. You're ruining the dinner I am paying for, and I have the right to tell you so. Certainly if the problem was some other kind of noise, it would be okay for diners to speak up and object. But we're not supposed to notice or mind if a chef screams at his staff abusively? The notion of the kitchen being sacred space is BS, total BS. Do I get to declare my office 'sacred space' and yell at my staff? Workers should be treated respectfully. It has been my experience that people perform better when they are treated with respect, not terrorized.

Temperament is just another excuse for bad manners. Apparently this chef, (no matter how celebrated), is a legend in his own mind. Sacred space my gluteus maximus. This establishment deserves to fail IMO.

Was this an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm? 'Cause I'd really like to see Larry David take on a chef like this.

Had a vaguely similar episode with restaurant in Lincoln Park. The restaurant's manager is very odd (wears dapper, light-colored seersucker suits even in the heart of winter) and runs a very loose ship. While I was there, he got into a screaming match with the valet in the vestibule, even dropping the f-bombs. Made for a weird situation.

I'm imagining the food blogger for the New York Times--who all the while the chef is throwing him out knows that he is the food blogger for The New York Times while the chef doesn't--thinking, as he's being thrown out, this is fantastic.

. . . and the chef, Marc Forgione, is the son of seminal NY food figure Larry Forgione, who probably kicked his ass after reading about this embarrassing episode in the family's culinary history. Kids!

In my opinion the only mistake the chef made was not knowing his restaurant and what can be heard in the dining room. How he treats his employees is up to him, the employees that don't like it can leave.

All other things considered, I would of booted the customer too. As a customer the correct response would of been to ask for the floor manager, explain you didn't appreciate the language, and express that you would leave if it didn't stop. But to champion workers rights and walk in the kitchen? I wouldn't of even let you sit back down, I would of politely asked you to get out of my restaurant, IMMEDIATELY. One, you're disrupting service, on a busy night, one little glitch can throw a wrench into the whole machine. Two, you're a liability, my dishwasher grazes you with a hot saute pan and we're in litigation for a year. Finally, what gives anyone the right to go into a restricted area? You wouldn't run into an examination room and ask your doctor what the hold-up was because you felt you were waiting too long.

In my opinion the blogger was looking for a fight, why else would anyone with an ounce of common sense walk right into the kitchen? It ended up making a good story and column so I guess he achieved what he was trying to do. As for the restaurant, there's no such thing as bad publicity (unless it's health department related), I'm sure it's packed with industry people after 10 p.m. who understand what the chef did.

pizano345 wrote:In my opinion the blogger was looking for a fight, why else would anyone with an ounce of common sense walk right into the kitchen? It ended up making a good story and column so I guess he achieved what he was trying to do.

Completely agree with this. Seems like the blogger wanted to promote himself and create a story of self-promotion, not actually report on the restaurant. Amazing he was able to ride that high horse of his all the way into the kitchen.

Based on the story, I'm not in love with the chef either but it's his kitchen, so his rules apply. As you said, employees who don't like it are free to leave or (I suppose) pursue legal action. They certainly don't need a self-interested blogger coming to their defense unsolicited.

=R=

More: http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2010/05/m ... s_out.html

Michael Ruhlman chimes in with Restaurant Workers, Restaurant Patrons—Disconnect Remains

I would never condone any chef’s abusing staff, of course, physically or verbally, though the kitchen was once virtually defined by this relationship. And I would go so far as to say that if a chef is yelling at staff in the middle of service, the chef hasn’t done his job and it’s too late now, just send the poor sap home.

But the fact that Mr. Lieber felt that he could take it upon himself to educate the chef is a stark reminder of how little patrons understand of the unique powerful pressures of running a restaurant and the astonishing breadth of humanity represented by a restaurant’s staff.

I would guess anyone who has cooked in a professional kitchen probably has encountered a chef who yells, etc. It is the nature of the beast, in the heat of the "battle" things can be said, f-bombs dropped, etc..(by chefs, & fellow line cooks alike, it is what it is, and I personnally dont know any cook who has run off the line crying over it, typically all is/was forgotten after the shift over a cocktail, etc. ).

With the above said, having the customers be able to hear these things is not acceptable, but no excuse for some customer to waltz into the kitchen no matter who they think they are.

how were the portions?

what he should have done is inform one of the servers or hostess that the chef was making an ass of himself and that perhaps it would be a good idea for someone to back to the kitchen and shut his yap.

sazerac wrote:...here we go again...
Eat, don't eat, ego/territory issues. Just a silly waste of time (the blogged event; hopefully not this thread) Move on?
[/attempt at preemtive end of thread/story]

You know that a thread can be over for you as soon as you stop reading it, right?

bibi rose wrote:

sazerac wrote:...here we go again...
Eat, don't eat, ego/territory issues. Just a silly waste of time (the blogged event; hopefully not this thread) Move on?
[/attempt at preemtive end of thread/story]

You know that a thread can be over for you as soon as you stop reading it, right?

Second that.

This Thread Is a Sacred Space.

This Thread Is a Sacred Space.

Ah, but the question is, which of us gets to yell and abuse the rest of the people here??

Here is a follow up to the story with Marc Forgione giving an explanation.
http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2010/05/marc_forgione_flips_out.html

It does seem from the following that both of these guys have egos which might lend to such a confrontation.

Forgione’s account of the incident is basically the same as the one on Diner’s Journal, but he resents the implication that he’s been watching too much Gordon Ramsay. “The guy wants to tell a story, that’s fine, but the guy wants to make fun of me — that’s two different things. The guy got kicked out because of his behavior, not because I watch Gordon Ramsay, whether I do or not. I don’t.” He also describes one line in particular (“I imagine his manhood suffered enough that he had no choice but to kick us all out”) as a “cheap shot,” and is incredulous that Lieber walked into the kitchen in the first place. “In a New York City place of business, if your boss is yelling at you, do you think someone off the street is going to come in and tell you to keep it down … I can’t imagine it, whether it’s McDonald’s or Daniel.” Forgione thinks he handled the intrusion well: “There are a lot of chefs that would probably be in jail right now.”

While I would not feel comfortable applying the categorical imperative to this situation it is pretty difficult for me to not appreciate the act of a patron intervening on behalf of mistreated employees granted this patron may have had ulterior motives.

bibi rose wrote:You know that a thread can be over for you as soon as you stop reading it, right?

NO!
(you get out, all of you)

...but I want to stop reading it....

I'm kind of surprised at how many people have sided on the side of the chef, since "you're not supposed to go back into the kitchen". or something.

Anyway, I'm curious to ask this;

What if you were at a restaurant and you saw a chef hitting one of his employees? Would you feel it would then be justified to go back into the kitchen and intervene?

Just curious. Not trying to start a flame war or get the thread locked or anything!

elakin wrote:I'm kind of surprised at how many people have sided on the side of the chef, since "you're not supposed to go back into the kitchen". or something.

Anyway, I'm curious to ask this;

What if you were at a restaurant and you saw a chef hitting one of his employees? Would you feel it would then be justified to go back into the kitchen and intervene?

Just curious. Not trying to start a flame war or get the thread locked or anything!

Just to be clear, I think both the chef and the blogger were wrong. The chef, if he must yell at the staff (oy!), should at least do it in a way that the customers' meals are not disrupted by it. The blogger, however compelled he was to address the situation, should have either brought the issue up with a manager or simply left. If it had come to blows, I think the same approach would apply -- and maybe even more so -- bring it up with a manager or realize that the place is not for you and leave.

=R=

elakin wrote:What if you were at a restaurant and you saw a chef hitting one of his employees?

Real pros tend to outsource the rough stuff.

elakin wrote:
What if you were at a restaurant and you saw a chef hitting one of his employees? Would you feel it would then be justified to go back into the kitchen and intervene?

nope, not my fight. Id leave, and probably call johnny law.

Elakin,

I agree with jimswside. You have no business disrupting this if it should occur. Plus, they have knives and hot oil at their disposal. Notify management or call the police but the Charles Bronson BS belongs to the movies.

The writer of this article is a hack. It's the new journalism. Make yourself a part of the story as opposed to reporting it.

jtobin625 wrote:The writer of this article is a hack. It's the new journalism. Make yourself a part of the story as opposed to reporting it.

Bingo.

=R=

yeah, I'll agree with that. But I also think the chef sounds like a hack as well. If you need to lay into your staff to that extent during service, you're simply not doing your job of laying the groundwork with them.