The restaurant business has a centuries-old suicide problem
Benoît Violier is not the first chef to kill himself. He probably won’t be the last.
By Maham Javaid
Benoît Violier’s establishment, the Restaurant de l’Hôtel de Ville in Crissier, Switzerland, was recently designated the best restaurant in the world by the French Foreign Ministry. This weekend, Violier, who grew up hunting with his father and has been described as a perfectionist, shot himself to death.
The suicide of the world’s best chef has caused many to question whether the food industry should be doing more to offer support to those whose jobs are physically and mentally grueling. After all, tragic as this suicide is, chefs have often ended their life due to the high-pressure demands of the job. In fact, it’s become almost unremarkable.
Suicide has been part of the food industry for a long time. In 1671, Francois Vatel, the maître d’hôtel for the Prince of Condé, was instructed to arrange a meal fit for the Sun King, Louis XIV. The dinner party was for 3,000 people and the prince’s relationship with the king rode on the outcome of the evening. After 12 sleepless days of preparation, Vatel was told that the fish he planned to prepare for the king had not arrived in time. He retreated to his quarters and stabbed himself to death. A few minutes later, the fish delivery arrived.
Between Vatel and Violier, there are many other similar cases, including many very recent examples. In 2003, Bernard Loiseau, a French chef, shot himself in the mouth. Last April, Homaro Cantu, a chef known for his use of molecular gastronomy hanged himself inside the brewery he was renovating.
“This crisis within the food industry is not new, it’s been this way for decades,” says Kat Kinsman, the founder of Chefs With Issues, a website that aims to serve members of the food industry who are dealing with job-related stresses and mental illnesses. According to a survey the site has conducted, depression, anxiety, addiction and eating disorders are common within the food industry. Explaining why these struggles aren’t spoken about openly, Kinsman says, “A chef’s job is to feed and nurture people and that is why they often hide that they are emotionally struggling. Everyone in the food industry is taught to be pleasant and hospitable, that’s the way the business works.” A London-based chef reported to The New York Times: People are quite macho in the industry. … It is considered a sign of weakness if you complain.”
Kinsman, who previously ran CNN’s food site Eatocracy and is an editor at large for website Tasting Table, notes that the media often profiles the suicides of the chefs striving to attain or retain Michelin stars or make-or-break reviews, but the crisis extends to farmers, restaurant owners, busboys, line cooks and sous chefs. “Hardly anyone in the industry is making big money, they are all working long hours in hot kitchens, but nobody is allowed to let the seams show,” says Kinsman.
That said, the kitchen often serves as a refuge, a place where people who have failed to fit in anywhere else have found peace. “The order and precision a kitchen requires suits some people well,” she says. But for the sake of the entire food industry, Kinsman says, it’s time to acknowledge that there is a mental health crisis and it needs to be addressed.
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