The Bear factor: How Covid, social media and TV have changed Scottish kitchens

The public perception of cooking as entertainment has included the trope of a powerful, usually angry, male chef who is in complete control of his kitchen because of fear and stress for years. But how true is this these days?

The past few years have seen Covid shut down the industry, as well as a few high-profile cases of staff speaking out against bad behaviour in the kitchen. While some of these cases do not seem to have overly harmed the head chef involved, they have opened eyes as to what some people have had to go through in the industry.

So have the honest and heartfelt reflections from top chef Heston Blumenthal about his mental health, being sectioned and feeling ‘triggered’ by hit Disney+ show The Bear, which has also shown the dynamics of fine dining kitchens, albeit in a drama format.

One Scottish chef, who has experience in fine dining kitchens overseas, gave it all up to open a widely popular cafe and brunch spot in Glasgow.

Robbie Morrow is the owner and chef at Haylynn Canteen in Glasgow’s Whiteinch, and he has spoken publicly about working long hours, being bullied and of his experience with a toxic atmosphere.

It was The Bear that sparked him to speak at the time. When asked about it now, Mr Morrow said: “I found the first few episodes of The Bear quite cheesy. But if you stick with it, it really captures the highs and lows of working within the hospitality industry, fine dining or not.

“It does help shine a light on what can be, at times, a tough industry. I do think these shows can glamourise cooking or ‘chef life’ and give a false impression of how tough it can actually be.

“A cinematic episode of The Bear can really sell the industry to people. And shows like The Bear have helped make the public interested in food, cooking, the day-to-day running of restaurants and how they operate. This is a great thing as this interest shifts to your social media and you can really use that as a tool to benefit you and your business.”

When asked what makes a kitchen environment stressful, Mr Morrow said: “It is a very high-intensity environment in a fine dining kitchen. Perfection is demanded at all times.

“If someone is bullying you, there’s someone above them in the hierarchy bullying them. Everyone’s working long hours, running on empty, probably not eaten all day and that leads to people with short tempers.”

As for public attitudes towards staff in kitchens, Mr Morrow said he thinks in general, people do tend to avoid places that are known to mistreat staff. He said: “Social media plays into this. Businesses that fail to look after their staff’s wellbeing are usually called out and rightly so.”

But it is not the public that’s driving change, it’s Covid, according to Mr Morrow.

“It was the point where our industry ground to a halt and made a lot of people take a step back and look at the industry as a whole,” he said. “A lot of chefs left the industry as they could work half the hours and earn twice as much in other places such as supermarkets without the stress of a kitchen.

“I think this has made employers therefore rethink how they operate and treat staff. Places are cutting down to four-day working weeks, for example. Treating staff better, focusing on their wellbeing, not burning them out is only gonna be beneficial for your business in the long term.”

A chef who has retained some staff for as long as 20 years is John Williams, the executive chef at the newly two Michelin starred restaurant at the Ritz hotel in London. When asked about how fine dining kitchens had changed in relation to staff welfare, Mr Williams said it was about a good work-life balance with decent pay.

“I think stress levels are changing and that's changed with the number of staff that are in there [the kitchen],” he said.

“If you don't have enough staff to do something, and you're pushing to try and make things better, that causes stress. It's having the right balance of workload with the right balance of staff to be able to produce the food. That's the bottom line.”

While better working hours and conditions may have come about for some post-Covid, what about sexism in kitchens? Being a chef is still seen as a predominantly male profession. I was at the recent Michelin awards and while they showed a powerful film featuring female chefs running Michelin star restaurants, there were very few female chefs on stage receiving accolades. There is also the wider conversation around diversity and inclusion in such male-dominated places. How many female, trans and non binary people feel like it is not an avenue they can pursue?

Lorna McNee, one of the chefs in the Michelin video and head chef of the one Michelin star Cail Bruich restaurant, was not put off working in fine dining due to her gender or the male-dominance of the field. In fact, she said it made her more determined. “ I didn't really think of it in that way. I thought about it in the fact that I love food, I'm passionate about it, I'm a chef rather than being a female chef, but it was more about determination to what I wanted to do and it didn't put me off.

“All it made me do is know that I've got to work hard and push hard and be able to have thick skin.”

Ms McNee said she thought the way in which people were treated in kitchens was also getting better. “ People are more aware of it now, it's much more talked about. But I believe that most of that is in the past, and kitchens have completely changed from what they used to be and from what they are now.

“I think what they are now, and what everyone's striving to be, is to make it a much more work-life balanced industry, and we try to make sure that everyone that's with us is well looked after.”

Bleecker Burger founder Zan Kaufman has spoken out about diversity and inclusion, something she has built into the entire eco-system of her business. She said: “We’re seeing a shift in society where things like diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are suddenly being rolled back.

“Big companies, that seemed to be leading the way in these areas, are now openly undoing everything they worked for over the past few years. It feels like watching a series of falling dominoes.

“If companies are so quick to take these policies down now, did they ever truly believe in them? Did they actually believe in diversity, in gender equality, in trans equality? Because it seems like they were just ticking boxes until they felt it was no longer convenient.

“The industry must change. Recruitment should prioritise fair representation and inclusive opportunities. Marginalised communities are being dismissed while the wrong people dictate their experiences.”

While we might enjoy watching the kitchen drama on the small screen, the reality of living that drama seems to be abating.