Kitchens are brutal.
Personal (and private) life is non-existent.
Time is relative.
Taking a break is an abstract concept you know exists but haven’t experienced yet.
There is nothing more important, more precious, more vital than stars.
I spent a big part of my year working for one of the most promising chefs of our generation. His innovative cuisine attracted an outstanding amount of clients.
Reservations were full months in advance. His restaurant (and name) was growing by the minute. Yet the rhythm at which everything was moving was simply not sustainable. There was not enough time on the clock. We were working 16 hours a day and still, we went to bed with a feeling of uneasiness. There was still so much work to be done.
What truly brought him to the top was his media managing skills and years of studying, and mastering, how to play the game. Because yes, everything in life can be achieved if you find the right algorithm, if you break the code.
If you don’t know this yet, Michelin stars are awarded to restaurants that offer remarkable cuisine and service. One Michelin star means you hit the Billboard charts. Two Michelin stars mean you are a rockstar. Three Michelin stars mean you are The Beatles. And who doesn’t want to be The Beatles?
The discipline that goes into this career choice is unlike anything I have ever experienced before. The amount of passion and commitment you have to possess is gut-wrenching. You have to prove yourself every day, twice a day. Every service, lunch and dinner, is the equivalent of presenting a final exam that will determine the course of your life. The pressure is unbearable. Most people crack.
Yet, you learn to push the pain out of your body. Cramps, soreness, fatigue… they are all a myth in the kitchen. I stood near a stove for 16 hours of my day, took yells and screams and humiliation and they still expected me to look sharp and neat the following day. And I did.
I learned about order. The hierarchy that goes into managing a haute-cuisine restaurant resembles the military. The ranks are set, and the lower you are on the ladder, the less you have a right to speak. If your sous-chef tells you that you are wrong; you not only have to accept it but you have to believe it.
There is passion and dedication in the métier. But there is also a lot of ego. Sometimes it is hard to speak to someone when they think themselves to be so above you. The stars, I noticed, played a big role in this ego-centered approach to things. The more stars, the highest the recognition.
And in our current times people seem to confuse recognition for superiority.
I guess the world’s priorities are messed up because humans value money more than life. They value all the wrong things.
False cool: money, recognition, fame, power, influence.
True cool: time, peace, quiet, motive, purpose, meaning.
But just like anything that brings this amount of satisfaction, playing the game can get addictive. The amount of beauty portrayed during the service I have only witnessed a couple of times in my life. While watching Don Quixote at the New York City Ballet. And the day I saw my sister give birth.
If you could make yourself invisible and stand in a corner of that kitchen you would experience art in its purest form. The way the service flows on the best restaurant in the world is like a fine piece of theater. The words are timed to the second; things have to be at the right time at the right moment. Its all a beautiful flow of plates and entrées sharply executed by commis and chefs de parties. The curtain drops with a nice plate of fromage and the finest digestifs.
I can’t help but think of Tolstoy when he said “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” I have worked in kitchens across the world and I have yet to find a “happy kitchen”.
While it is pure poetry, the dark side of the kitchen can be too heavy a burden. It was until I worked for a three-starred restaurant that I learned the shadow stars can cast on someone’s soul. The passion became an obsession and the pressure materialized into shattered plates and flying pans.
At which point do we draw the line between ambition and self-consuming obsession?
My eureka moment came when they asked me to extend my contract for a couple more years. And I owe it to a bed-time story my dad used to tell me when I was little to reject the offer. Bear with me, the story has a point.
“Once upon a time there was an apple tree in a backyard. He was young and full of dreams. His favorite part of the day was when the nighttime came and he got to gaze at the stars. He was the tallest of all the trees and bushes in the garden, so naturally he got the best view. Uninterrupted and clear star-gazing, except on the occasional cloudy days. But who could compete with clouds, right?
He had a close neighbor: the pine tree. At first, the pine tree was no rival to the apple tree’s majestic view. But time went by and the pine tree grew taller and taller covering most of the apple tree’s sky view. The more time passed the leafier the pine tree got. The apple tree eventually realized that his star-gazing days were long behind him.
One October evening the apple tree was sulking in the shadow of the pine tree. He could feel the crisp autumn wind blow between his leaves. He missed watching the October night sky. He missed the big, round, orange moon. He missed the twinkling stars.
Suddenly, he heard a thump on the ground and absentmindedly looked down. One of his apples had fallen to the ground. It had hit a sharp rock and accidentally split in half. The tree looked closer, amazed at what he saw.
He saw that on the inside of the apple there was a perfectly shaped star.
It was at that moment that he realized that the stars that he so deeply craved were always within him. All along.”
The story came to my mind a little later. I would be lying if I said that the moment I rejected the contract I thought of this bedtime story from my childhood. But I realized that it had stuck with me. I found no glory in the recognition. I found no satisfaction in the pointless pursuit of void stars.
As longs as I remembered that I had stars within me, I needed no one to hand them to me. Of course, I will continue to work with discipline and excellence.
But I will always prioritize what is important:
Love over power.
Happiness over fame.
True connections over recognition.
Meaning over influence.
No amount of money can buy one’s life purpose once they’ve found it.
