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A letter about sexism from this celeb chef has lessons for all men on how to be an ally.

The recent "revelations" of rampant harassment in the restaurant industry weren’t exactly a shocker to the women working in it.

Or the men, for that matter.

This isn’t just a matter of a few bad eggs and ​we all know it. For every John Besh splashed across Page Six, we can assume hundreds, if not thousands, more chefs run kitchens just like the ones his female employees described.

Something’s broken here.

It’s time that chefs and restaurant owners candidly acknowledge the larger culture that hatched all these crummy eggs, and have some hard conversations amongst ourselves that are long overdue.

Let’s start with this:

Assessing a woman as a body, rather than as a person with a mind, character, and talent, denies the full measure of her humanity.

It’s wrong and it demeans us all. Men shouldn't need to be told this. They shouldn’t need to be told that the high stakes of elite kitchens don’t justify the ugly machismo that runs through so many of them.

There was a stretch in the late ’90s at Gramercy Tavern when all the senior chefs in my kitchen were women. Night after brutal night we faced the same pressured ballet of high heat, 86’d salmon, and tickets spitting out of the printer at a clip too fast to meet.

The only difference was the quiet; the smack talk was gone. These chefs were tightly focused, competing against themselves and not each other. I recall a group of French chefs were visiting at the time who had a good sneer over the male to female ratio in the kitchen. I also recall they shut up pretty quickly once they saw the food.

As men, it's time for us to take responsibility for the culture of sexism in restaurant kitchens — and to fix it.

My kitchen is hardly perfect.

I’ve let my temper run high and driven the pressure up. I’ve brushed off the leering without acknowledging its underlying hostility. I once called a journalist a 'rumor-mongering b***h' for printing gossip that hurt my staff, a gendered slur that I regret.

But, I count myself lucky. I had a father who wouldn’t allow disrespect of my mother, and that lesson sunk in more fully during my formative years than the casual misogyny I saw everywhere else. It made it an easy choice to turn away the high-paying bachelor parties that wanted to rent out the PDR and bring in a stripper, which isn’t an environment my servers signed on for. It made it a no-brainer to fire the creep of a staffer who snapped pictures of his female co-workers in their changing room without their consent. And it makes it easy for me to see that it’s time for men in the restaurant industry to say to each other: enough.

Deep down, men know that sexist shit-talk is just a lazy substitute for real wit.

They know that work is not sexy time. They know that if they have to insist it was consensual, it probably wasn’t. They know that women really don’t want to hear about their boners (and that they shouldn’t say boner because they’re not fifteen.)

I imagine leaders in our industry will now come rushing forward with talk about how women should feel safe and valued in our restaurants. But is it any wonder that this sexist culture persists in professional kitchens when most of the women are gone from the back of the house by the time they hit their 30s? When the ones who remain are paid, on average, 28% less than their male counterparts?

We need to do more than pay lip service to fixing this. It’s not enough for us to ask, "How can we behave differently around our women employees and coworkers?" Instead we should be asking "What barriers to their success do I owe it to them to remove?" Those of us with our own kitchens should be asking "What have I been able to take for granted on my way to the top that women often can’t, and how can I help fix that?"

We all sweated and scrapped and worked damn hard to get where we are, but most of us did it without the added torment of sexual harassment.

A generation ago, American chefs were the young upstarts, bucking old-world conventions and forging a new path. We were the ones to watch. Is this the end of that era? Or do we have a second act in us, one in which we excite eaters more than ever because we’re empowering a new generation of talent?

Chefs are a tough bunch: canny, creative and quick on our feet. That’s why I’m betting our industry can shrug off its leering lizard skin and get this right. I’m betting that we’re smart and confident enough to level the playing field and create real opportunity, or at least learn how it’s done from the new crop of women (and men) running their own kickass kitchens humanely and winning awards, all while parenting young kids. I’m betting we can reinvent our industry as a place where people of all genders feel safe and prepared to lead.

Some aging bros may give us flack for it. But only until they see the food.

This story first appeared on Medium and is reprinted here with permission.

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The chef of the #1 restaurant in the world is feeding Rio's homeless people for free.

Average cost of a meal at Massimo Bottura's Osteria Francescana in Italy — recently named the #1 restaurant in the world by World's 50 Best​? $234-$260.

Cooks prepare food at Refettorio Gastromotiva. Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/Associated Press.

Average cost of a meal at Bottura's new pop-up restaurant near the Olympic Village in Rio? $0.

Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/Associated Press.

The guest list, however, is even more exclusive: You have to be homeless to eat there.

Patrons wait to get into Refettorio Gastromotiva. Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/Associated Press.

Bottura and his local partners have loaded the cafe — dubbed Refettorio Gastromotiva — with features absent from most soup kitchens: uniformed waiters, art on the walls, and five-star cuisine.

"This is a cultural project, not a charity," the chef told the Associated Press. "We want to rebuild the dignity of the people."

And the food source? Leftover ingredients from the Olympic Village.

Human beings waste lots of food — much of which is still edible, just simply left over. According to a Natural Resource Defense Council Report, as much as 40% of the food produced in the United States goes uneaten annually, up nearly 50% since the 1970s.

"The project is important since it deals with sustainable food and fighting waste, which is a global scale issue," Tania Braga, head of sustainability and legacy on the Rio 2016 Organizing Committee, told Eater in early August.

Bottura has done this once before, and it's kind of become his thing.

Massimo Bottura. Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/Associated Press.

At last year's Expo Milano, Bottura salvaged 15 tons of food waste from the event to feed homeless residents, refugees, and other hungry people at a derelict theater, also outfitted to resemble a fancy restaurant.

The goal, he explained, is to draw attention to the issue of food waste, while simultaneously giving the restaurant's needy patrons the ability to dine in an atmosphere that honors their humanity.

The restaurant is slated to continue to operate when the cameras pack up and go home.

Refettorio Gastromotiva will have served 5,000 meals to homeless men and women in Rio by the time the Olympics end.

After the games, Bottura intends to transform the space — which his group has leased for 10 years — into a restaurant that serves a paying crowd for lunch and uses the proceeds to feed the homeless in the evenings.

And it's already a hit with the clientele.

As Valdimir Faria, a Rio resident who dined at Refettorio Gastromotiva during the Olympics, told the Associated Press, it's not just about the food:

"Just sitting here, treated with respect on an equal footing, makes me think I have a chance."

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Why cooking is a metaphor for life, from a professional chef.

"If you follow a recipe, you know exactly what you’re having for dinner."

The more time I spend hunched over my prep table surrounded by scorching hot sauté pans, the swirling winds of the convection oven, and the fryer oil that simmers away ever so patiently, the more I think about life and this world we live in.

Photo via iStock.

I’ve convinced myself that the kitchen and how we approach cooking, ingredients, and recipes can be the perfect metaphor for life. By understanding the relationship between these two, I’m able to see life in a way that makes a lot more sense.

Sometimes we ask questions, and sometimes we seek answers that are hard to find. This comparison helps me, I hope it will do the same for you.

1. If you follow a recipe, you know exactly what you’re having for dinner.

But what if you  let the recipe serve as a guide, instead? When you don’t follow the rules to a T, you’re much more likely to end up with something different. Different can mean bad and inedible, in which case, I hope you learn from your mistakes. However, if different means exciting and undiscovered flavors you didn’t know existed, you then realize that it can be a lot more fun to blaze your own trail, to draw outside the lines, trust your instincts, and give it a go, even if you’re unsure of how things might turn out in the end.

More often than not, taking the risk has been worth it for me  —  it’s never catastrophic and there’s always a lesson to be learned from failure. It has allowed me to learn something about the world and the way it works, instead of just following the directions based on someone else telling me what to do.

2. There's a lot to be said for being creative — in not playing it safe.

I love a good meal that becomes an adventure, where I know the chef or cook has really stepped out of his or her comfort zone in order to create an experience for the diner. It’s admirable, but it also takes practice — and courage — to try techniques we might not have mastered yet, or to choose to work with flavors with which we might not be entirely familiar. It takes courage because in this process we are, without a doubt, going to fail along the way.

Photo via iStock.

It might take a few tries to master breaking down a fish if you have never done so, or giving that immersion circulator a try to sous-vide some steaks. It might take overcooking a few meals before getting things down pat, but through all of this, you open yourself up to the opportunity to learn something new. It’s not only a new way to prepare something or even a new dish — you now have knowledge and experience to share with other people, giving them the opportunity to learn and grow. The more you try, the more you screw up. But in the end, the more you learn, and along with that are some damn good stories to tell.

3. It's not how it looks on the outside. It's what's on the inside that matters.

Have you ever salivated over a meal like one of Pavlov’s dogs as the waiter approached the table? It all looks so elegant; however, upon trying it, it strikes you as bland, uninspired, and missing something? What a disappointment. How often do we see that in real life? We learn this concepts in kindergarten and are continually reminded of it over and over again throughout the course of our lives — we need it because so often we forget.

4. Don't skimp on the good stuff.

Have you ever read over a dessert recipe and thought: "I don’t have butter, but I’m sure I can substitute it with margarine. I don’t have heavy cream, but I have some milk. The chicken salad recipe calls for mayo — I’m sure I can substitute a fat-free version, right?"

It rarely turns out fine. Simply put, corners are there to keep you on track, not to be disregarded — it might put you ahead in the short run, but in the long run, it never seems to work out.

5. Balance is paramount.

Every single dish that comes out of my kitchen has to have some balance of flavor. Not always, but for the most part, there needs to be contrasting flavor profiles: sweets, spices, acids, salts, and umami. All of these components can be splendid on their own, carrying their own merit, but when you look at these fundamentally contrasting flavors and combine them in proper proportions, they become complementary — you’ve just gotta find the right formula for you.

Photo via iStock.

Complementary means that a hint of salt in a chocolate chip cookie can be the perfect savory component to an otherwise entirely sweet treat. Or the meaty deliciousness of a good BBQ rib on a hot summer day can often be found encrusted with a mixture of spices. But they are then offset when slathered with a sweet, smoky barbecue sauce.

There are just enough contrasting elements to make it exciting. And I think that’s just how life itself works. Too much of anything can be just that: too much. It’s about finding the balance and cadence for the various compartments of your life.

6. Low and slow.

 If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, pardon my analogy, but in the world of cooking meats — specifically in smoking BBQ — magic is found in honoring the process and time it takes to develop the flavors, break down the intramuscular tissues, and allow for the smoke to seep its way into the flesh. There are ways to try to hack the system; however, it just doesn’t turn out quite the same.

Things take time, so let’s appreciate the process we take in getting there — relationships take time, and building sustainable businesses takes time. You can try to find a path that gets you there faster, but along the way, you are bound to skip over some key steps. It’s just not the same. Life takes time.

7. It's not the final dish, but rather what we learn in getting there.

 In cooking, as in life, we rush through things because we're trying to get to a certain place. But along the way, we forget to look around and notice the things that happen between the beginning and the end — what we’ve learned about the dish, how we could have adjusted things along the way. We miss those opportunities for growth.

There is so much valuable information to learn from that we often just skip right over, not realizing it’s right underneath our noses. We follow a recipe because that’s what a cookbook tells us to do. But is it not much more interesting to learn things along the way, discover what works and what doesn’t, and pass what we’ve learned on to those who might benefit from it?

Photo via iStock.

In cooking, as in life, we’ll get to the end, but how did we get there? Did we follow instructions every step of the way, or did we use the recipe to guide us, allowing us to season it in a way that represents who we are? How we get there says a lot about the race we’ve run.

8. Sometimes your dish doesn't turn out right.

Things happen in the kitchen. I’ve ruined my fair share of meals and fallen short of impressing guests, dates, and, frequently, even myself. That’s part of life. Things don’t always go as planned and we certainly don’t always get what we want. But if you never had an inedible piece of fish, then you would never truly know what it meant to have one that was absolutely delicious. If you’d never tried an overcooked and dried-out steak, then you’ll never appreciate when your favorite restaurant cooks your New York strip a perfect medium-rare — just how you like it.

The less-than-desirable meals allow us to appreciate the ones we most enjoy, and the same phenomenon happens in life. It’s not always sunny outside, but if it were, it would get pretty damn boring. If we knew that we would never lose our loved ones, we wouldn’t appreciate them nearly as much.

When life could have given us a little more, we have the perfect opportunity to reflect back on the things for which we have to be grateful.

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A street vendor in Singapore is being recognized as one of the best chefs in the world.

For over 100 years, the Michelin Guide series has represented the gold standard for fine dining all over the world.

If you've never been to a Michelin-starred restaurant, your imagination has probably conjured up something like this:

If you knock those napkins over you feel like you're about to be arrested. Photo via iStock.

You might be seeing tablecloths, candles, and menus with words like "reduction,"  "consommé," and "foam." Your dishes are tiny yet mysteriously filling "deconstructions" served "over" this with a "drizzle" of that. You walk away feeling less like you had a meal, and more like you just had your tastebuds wistfully guided through a symphony of flavor, texture, and harmony the likes of which you may never be able to experience again. Mostly because you can't afford it.

In recent years, however, the Michelin-star experience has been changing.

Many have criticized the Michelin company and its rating system, saying it's too biased or its methods too secretive, or that it's just generally not an accurate measure of the planet's "best" restaurants, as it claims to be.

British chef Gordon Ramsay isn't just a loudmouthed reality show host. He has 16 Michelin stars. Photo by Gerry Penny/AFP/Getty Images.

Yet the Michelin star remains a coveted symbol of excellence for chefs all over the world. They work toward it, fight over it, and clammer for it like nothing else. It's their Nobel Prize.

In response to some of that criticism, Michelin has been expanding its reach to include food from more and more corners of the globe.

One of the most recent inclusions is Singapore, the Southeast Asian nation most known (culinarily speaking) for its street food.

A street vendor in Singapore. Photo by Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images.

The streets and markets of Singapore are filled to the brim with so-called "hawker stalls" — tiny, intoxicating food stands serving up spicy, savory, sticky, fried, baked, and steamed flavorful bits of magic. The stalls are a national treasure in Singapore, and they're slinging out some of the best food that money can buy.

Singapore just became home to the first Michelin-starred street vendor in the world.

In a tiny park neighborhood called Outram, sits a hawker stall called "Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle."

Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle. Photo by Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images.

It's run by Chan Hong Meng, a Malaysian born, Hong Kong trained chef whose chicken, pork belly, rice, and noodles have been known to create three-hour lines around the block in Singapore for years.

Meng recieved a phone call from Michelin in July 2016, inviting him to a gala. He was surprised, to say the least.

"Are you joking?" Meng recalls in a video for Michelin. "Why would Michelin want to come to my stall?"

Chan Hong Meng at work in his stall. Photo by Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images.

They weren't joking, and they awarded him one of the highest honors in all of food.

Photo by Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images.

The Michelin guide's expansion into Singapore represents a significant shift in what is widely considered the "best."

For decades, Michelin-starred food was synonymous with "expensive." Now you can get a Michelin-starred dish for under $2. That isn't just affordable ... it's symbolic.

Chef Meng winning his Michelin star. Photo by Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images.

The standard-bearers for what counts as "fine cuisine" have begun to recognize that the best food in the world is not limited to Western countries, or to posh restaurants with tablecloths and napkin towers.

You can find culinary and cultural magic in the hidden corners of the world. You can find it in the smoke-filled markets where chefs are serving simple cuisine on paper plates to massive hungry crowds.

You can find it wherever you look. You just have to be looking for it.

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