Chef incentives are bad news for restaurant guests...

I have spent A LOT of time driving in my car over the last six months...resulting in a lot of time for my thoughts to wander.  I have also spent A LOT of time talking to other chefs, general managers, and owners of hospitality industry businesses.  Something that was a recurring theme was the pay for chefs; in most cases chefs' guaranteed salaries have been reduced, with business owners and general managers "making up" for this reduction by increasing the available bonus potential for chefs; incredibly tempting, and in some cases VERY lucrative.

After much pondering, I developed the following opinion over the course of several hours behind the wheel:

Incentivizing chefs is A BAD IDEA.

Some people, both chefs and their employers, will claim this is heresy.  And yes, chefs can increase their effective salary by 5%, 10%...I have even heard of a bonus program worth 30% (!) of the chef's base salary.  And everyone is always happy to make more money...BUT, what is the true cost of bonuses and incentives for chefs?

Some bonuses are good ones: the "Boss-is-a-great-guy-and-thinks-you-deserve-a-bonus" bonus, (also called the "just because..." bonus), percentage of sales bonuses, (these are great because the chef knows that the busier s/he is the more money s/he makes...usually 1% of sales or less), and profitability based bonuses.

The ones that I think are just dumb, are also those that are the most commonly deployed: incentives based on cost of goods sold, (i.e., dollar amount of all food purchased), and cost of labor, (i.e., dollar amount spent preparing the food).

And why, pray tell have I arrived at this conclusion?

The simple answer is human nature.

Most chefs will take a position and be prepared to live on the offered salary...the incentive bonus is just that: a bonus.  Found money.  An unexpected windfall.  Then there are others who will believe that they are entitled to that incentive money; that bonus money is part of their salary.

Everyone will swear up and down that they are honest people, (and most are), but when confronted with the possibility of making or losing thousands of dollars, just how honest will they really be?

Honestly?

The problem here is that despite one's honesty, there are just too many ways a chef can manipulate his "food cost", and qualify for his bonus.  "No one will ever know..."  The most disturbing, and outright dangerous, way to make your numbers is to use food that is borderline bad/should have been thrown out two days ago.  Less waste is money in the incentivized chef's pockets.  Less dangerous, but still outright poor judgement, is the temptation to use lesser quality foodstuffs; the guests suffer but the chef is winning.

An unexpected bill, anniversary, or the impending holiday shopping season will often lead the chef to find other ways they can manipulate the numbers: "finding" a few thousand dollars worth of inventory, overcharging guests on the menu/selling you a "14-ounce, select, wet-aged" steak for the price of a "16-ounce, prime, dry-aged" steak, overvaluing an item on inventory reports.

Chef's will often take similar shortcuts when it comes to keeping labor costs in line for their own personal gain.  I have known chefs who will underpay their staff, pass over very talented cooks so that they can hire less expensive, (and less talented), cooks, and who will purposely understaff their kitchens to keep labor expenditures down.

The result of all of this "scrimping and saving" is a significantly inferior dining experience for the guest, (lesser quality food, slower service because there are not enough cooks to actually cook the meal, potentially dangerous food), and a business that has been jeopardized in both the short, and long term.  Ultimately it is the greed of the chef that leads him/her to violate the trust of his/her boss that they will do the right thing, AND to disappoint, and potentially make their guests ill.

If business owners and their proxies have done their job correctly, they have hired a chef that they feel confident in.  Someone whom they believe will operate their kitchen with the same entrepreneurial spirit that they themselves have as business owners.  If they have hired the right person, they should compensate that person as well as they can up front; in return the chef should not violate that trust, and run the kitchen like it was their name on the door.    

So, here's a tough question...

I am in quite a bit of a quandary...my heart tells me that every product that I use as a chef should be from the area surrounding my restaurant; my mind tells me that I should be using the best possible ingredients available to me regardless of their provenance.

Which is right?

Is either point of view completely correct?

Is there a happy medium?

I really do not think there is a "one-size fits all" approach that can be taken.  Some operations just DO. NOT.  CARE.  Their chefs drive big gas guzzling cars, and eat burgers in Styrofoam containers...they are only concerned with the convenience of placing one order with one vendor; they do not care that strawberries or asparagus are NOT in season in January.  Neither origin nor quality of the products used are a concern.

On the other side of the coin, are the chefs that set out to use products that are only available within a certain radius of their kitchen, or in a specific geographical region.  One of the best examples of this is Chef Sean Brock's Husk Restaurant in Charleston, SC.  Not only does Chef Brock cook with ingredients that are native to and/or produced in the Southeastern US, he is working to preserve various foodstuffs from benne (the sesame seeds brought to the Americas from Africa on slave ships) to the original-pure bred pigs to traditional methods of preparation.  A semi-amateur food anthropologist and ambassador for real southern food.  What he is doing is truly laudable, and for those without the commitment he possesses: cripplingly daunting.  Here is Sean Brock on the Charlie Rose Show talking about what he does better than I can.

Of course, there are those chefs who did not set out to embrace local food as part of their mission statement, or any part of some agenda, but have come to rely very heavily on them as their careers have progressed.  Chef Andoni Luis Aduriz of Mugaritz Restaurant  in Spain admits that his interest in the produce around his restaurant was fostered in the early days of Mugaritz; it was during this time period that the dining room was devoid of customers and he and his staff had little to do other than go into the fields and woods around the restaurant to forage, and learn about was growing in his own backyard.  Building his cuisine using locally produced ingredients has worked out well for Chef Aduriz, as Mugaritz has been among the top 5 restaurants in the world for the last 5 years, and named the Number 3 restaurant in the world for the last two years!

And then there is Chef Thomas Keller.  In May of this year he was interviewed by the New York Times, to support Chef Aduriz's release of the Mugaritz cookbook coincidentally.  It was during this interview that Chef Keller was portrayed as writing off the idea of locally produced food: "I think about quality, not geography."  Two weeks after the Times piece, an essay written by Chef Keller was published in his own Finesse Magazine, in which Chef Keller addressed the true intent of his statements; while he IS concerned with carbon foot prints, and sustainability, and local producers, it is not his raison d'etre.  People's expectations of any Thomas Keller restaurant are so high, that for his businesses to survive he must find and procure and serve the absolute finest products in the world. If they come from his garden across the street or not, so be it.

So...where do I come down on all of this?

Well, first of all, I think that not showing any interest in the "quality/geography" discussion at all is irresponsible and dangerous for myriad reasons.  I feel that as a chef, it is my responsibility and duty to provide my guests with highest quality products that I can source, and I hope that I can find them with 50 to 100 miles of the restaurant.  I also feel that it is my place to scour the history of my region and my terroir for edibles that define the time and place of a guests dining experience.

As chefs we need to be active in our communities.  We need to work with our local farmers, vintners, cheese makers, fishermen, etc. and explain to them our wants and needs; to help our friends and neighbors produce, procure, and supply us with the high quality products that we are seeking.