From the Front Line

Local line cook Willoughby Cooke — an alum of Robert Reynolds' ChefStudio — files this dispatch with the New Inquiry about the shitty working conditions for "me — the grunt, the cog, the line cook making your dinner." Among the complaints include crappy pay, crappy kitchen schedules, crappy levels of kitchen "bro-ness," and crappy restaurant management, the latter of which comes with this anecdote: "The sous chef leaned in and started rifling through my line... He went ballistic, shouting as he beat me over the head and shoulders with a handful of celery." [New Inquiry]