I am addicted to yet another show!  And of course it is about food: Chef Hunter, airing Thursdays on the Food Network. Even though I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the restaurants are involved with the show solely  for the marketing opportunity and that many of the people involved are “playing” to the camera, it is still the most realistic look at how restaurants run to date.  Realistic in a way that brings back all the really stressful bad memories of the years I spent working in restaurants.  Don’t get me wrong, there were good times too, but unless you have worked through a VERY busy dinner shift at a popular restaurant, you really have no idea how stressful trying to serve food to non-starving people can be… Unless you watch Chef Hunter.

The premise is simple really.  A restaurant needs a new Executive Chef, so a head hunter brings in two candidates to compete for the job.  Each Chef is given a night to plan a menu and run said restaurant.  At the end of the show, one of the Chefs gets the job.  What could be stressful about that, you may ask?  EVERYTHING!  First of all are these poor Chefs.  Most of them seem legitimately talented and really want AND need the job.  But remember, they are coming into established restaurants that already have popular menus.  For example, Border Grill was featured on an episode and the Two Hot Tamales basically said, “We want a chef that can cook our food.”  What’s the big deal?  Well, most highly trained chefs want to cook and create their own food.  Not follow a recipe.  Which is why I find it strange that part of the audition is always for the chefs to create and cook their own menu.  Why? If they are all simply tasked with properly following a recipe, then wouldn’t that be a better test?  But,  I digress.  Secondly, are the managers and corporate chefs.  I have worked with guys like I see on chef hunter.  I am sure you all have too.  You know, yelling, degrading, sarcastic and generally just VERY nasty.  It saddens me to see so many very popular restaurants ran by such shitty managers.  Thirdly, the staff.  Both back of house and front of house.  The line cooks have to take direction and learn the trial chef’s new menu.  Sometime the chef IS a jerk, but many times the line cooks are less than enthusiastic.  Then you have the food runners and servers yelling at the chef for food, then going back to tables and explaining why a cold ceviche dish is taking 30 minutes to come out.

So, you may be asking yourself, after reading the last paragraph why I watch the show at all?  Why not save myself from PTRD (Post Traumatic Restaurant Disorder) and change the channel? Because I can’t. LOL!  It is the proverbial  train wreck.   You are horrified, yet can’t look away.  Last week the Corporate Chef of Merriman’s in Hawaii, screamed at both chefs, was sarcastic to both and put down both of their menus.  Think he didn’t hire either? Think again! That is what is so crazy. If both chefs performed so poorly that you felt the need to be abusive, then why hire either?  My husband and I both said, “Poor guy.” Not about the loser, but about the chef that was hired! I mean, whom would want to work for people like this?  It does make for good television, though.

Is it good that the general public, most of whom have not worked in the restaurant business, to see this?  Yes and no.  Yes, because maybe it will give guests at restaurants a new respect about what it REALLY takes to deliver that perfect dish to your table in a timely manner.  And no, because of the very same reasoning for yes.  It dispels  the “magic” of a night out at a restaurant and maybe makes it too real.

I will continue watching Chef Hunter and continue reliving every stressful moment from my restaurant career… Besides, as harsh as the reality can sometimes be, at least it is reality (or so it is edited  so we believe so!).  Unlike so many others before and currently.  Remember The Restaurant with Rocco Di Spirito? What a contrived mess that was! Or Hell’s Kitchen? Anyone who has watched Chef Ramsay on Kitchen Nightmares KNOWS that his persona on Hell’s Kitchen is strictly an acting job.

So, thank you Food Network, for at least ATTEMPTING to create a show that tackles the stress of running a restaurant.