Richmond, Virginia, chef and restauranteur Mike Lindsey’s first taste of toxic kitchen culture began with cheesecake—thrown at him. “I was working pantry and doing salads, desserts. I messed up a cheesecake. The chef gave it back to me. I messed it up again. And he threw the cheesecake at me; he hit me in the chest with it.”
But rather than react with anger and potentially lose a job he needed, Lindsey checked himself. “From that point on, it was about me proving to this dude that I’m the best person in the building.” And he did just that.
Today the professional chef and entrepreneur co-owns the Lindsey Food Group with his wife Kimberly Love-Lindsey. The fast-growing empire of restaurants in Richmond serve up cuisines that span from burgers and fried chicken (Bully Burgers, Buttermilk And Honey) to steaks (ML Steak) and southern comfort food, seasonal fare and cocktails (Lillie Pearl, Jubilee).
Built For the Culture
Looking back, Lindsey admits the cheesecake-hurling incident was not out of the ordinary in the professional kitchen. “It’s crazy. It’s high energy…It’s yelling, it’s cussing,” he describes the culinary cooking environment. And it’s a hierarchical image reinforced in popular culture via celebrity chefs with mercurial personalities on reality TV cooking shows and within culinary history. At the root of it: control and organization to produce high-quality food.
“The type of work, the physical part, and of course, the perfection piece of it has to be at a level that is controlled. I always say being the head chef is [similar to] the culture of an NFL football team. A lot of people will also say the military because they call them [kitchen staff] ‘brigades.’ So they’re both based off very strict, harsh, hard, commanding environments or structures. The hierarchy, that control of the way things have to be done, organized, accountability—I think that structure works,” relates Lindsey, who played football in college.
“I was almost built to be in that kitchen environment and thrive in it because I could take someone yelling at me. It didn’t bother me. It was like they pushed me to be great…Fortunately, looking back, it was the key for me to be successful in this business.”
Pressure Cooker Environment
Yet for others, admits Lindsey, the demanding pace and demeanor of a pro kitchen can be toxic. “It creates this very unjust environment where you’re scared to answer questions. People quit or put their heads down,” says the entrepreneur, who recalls in the beginning of his career, the rarity of finding other Black culinary pros in the kitchen.
Continue reading over at Cuisine Noir.
Words by Wanda Hennig
Cuisine Noir Magazine is the country’s first Black food publication, launched in 2009 and dedicated to connecting the African diaspora through food, drink and travel. To read the rest of this article and more, visit www.cuisinenoirmag.com.
