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Food|At These Restaurants, Feeding the Staff Comes First
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AT THESE RESTAURANTS, FEEDING THE STAFF COMES FIRST
The “family meal” tradition of serving workers before customers is getting new
life as a perk, a motivator and a teaching tool.
New
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At Le Bernardin, Noah Steers, 26, is the first chef ever hired just to cook for
the staff.Credit...Clay Williams for The New York Times
By Julia Moskin
May 24, 2024Updated 10:15 a.m. ET
When Eric Ripert was a young cook at La Tour D’Argent, possibly the oldest
restaurant in Paris and certainly one of the stuffiest, all the cooks sat down
before service to a proper French meal: appetizer, entree, dessert and cheese.
He is hardly nostalgic for his time there. (“I have PTSD” from the experience,
he said.) But he had that meal in mind when he posted a job opening for “Staff
Meal Chef” at Le Bernardin, his temple of seafood in Midtown Manhattan, making
it one of only a few U.S. restaurants to hire a chef just to cook for its own
employees.
Serving and sharing a meal before diners arrive is a longstanding tradition in
the culinary world — at restaurants that can afford it. In most kitchens,
especially in fast food and casual dining, workers have to stagger their breaks
and bring or buy their own food. Even at high-end restaurants, staff meal has
often been a last-minute effort, with line cooks scrambling to refuel their
co-workers as quickly and cheaply as possible.
But many American chefs are devoting new attention and care to staff meals, or
family meals, as they are often known. In a notoriously abusive industry, the
mental and physical health of employees has become a priority, and retaining
staff has become an imperative amid a post-pandemic labor shortage. With
benefits and perks like family meal, restaurants are trying to build loyalty
among employees. Increasingly, they’re are also using the meal as a teaching
opportunity, a testing tool and a creative incubator.
Image
More than 100 people work at Le Bernardin on any given day, and the restaurant
serves them all family meal twice: before lunch and dinner.Credit...Clay
Williams for The New York Times
Image
At Mr. Ripert’s direction, Mr. Steers serves meat or poultry (like
za’atar-spiced chicken, above) to the staff almost every day. “They get tired of
seafood,” Mr. Ripert said.Credit...Clay Williams for The New York Times
Mr. Ripert said that he created the position at Le Bernardin because the daily
struggle to get family meal ready affronted his pride in a kitchen that runs
like clockwork. “It got under my skin,” he said.
Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.
Julia Moskin covers everything related to restaurants, chefs, food and cooking
for The Times. More about Julia Moskin
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