There is no excuse for excessive drinking and using a fiery temper in the wrong way within a room of tiles. But the fact is it does happen. It takes years of training for some of us chefs to bring both of these excesses under control.

The cycle starts because cooking over 20 dishes at once in sink with a group of other chefs is bloody hard. Now all these dishes may have several different components with all different cooking times. One big mistake on a dish takes your attention, mixed with a waitress talking in your ear saying, ” the customer who asked for there curry hot wants you to do it again not as hot”. Now Mix that with waitresses asking at the same time how long is Mr Smiths take away order, his been waiting and he’s pissed”. You bend down to the oven, smash a saute pan into the tiles in anger to find you left the beef in to long. You suck it up, load the pan with another fillet and throw it in and turn to see the dish washer has broken 3 of you $70 dollar hand made Thai Celadon plates and well, he cops it. You turn back to the stove and feel bad that u overreacted and your emotions are in a spin. But you got to suck it up and focus on your 20 dishes, customers are pouring in and they all want to be fed within 20 minutes of ordering.

Now that all happened in a space of 5 minutes and I could go on and on with a night like that.
By the time you finish the night your head is screaming “feed me alcohol I got to unwind, so you do”. The next morning you wake up with a hang over and arrive at the restaurant. You check your bookings book and your full. You look outside and its steaming hot. You say in your mind “takeaways are going to pour in tonight no one will want to cook at home”. You walk into the kitchen and your sous chef says “the dishy has quit and he has rang and tried to find a replacement and no go”.
Its going to be a long day and night.

As you can see it takes time to master yourself as a chef.  Anger, boo’s and kitchens don’t mix. But sometimes its hard for them not to.