Margaux

How she left the restaurant industry

Margaux shared with me her experiences in the kitchen and how it made her leave the industry. She talks about bad encounters, harassment and how leaving doesn't mean failing. We often consider ourselves weak when questioning our professional career, so hearing it from someone who has gone all the way reassures. With her cat Umami in the background, we call over a video call and share stories. 

Back then, Margaux started a bachelor in law but quickly realised this was not her way. She found herself at Ferrandi, a hospitality school in Paris, for a Bachelor in Culinary Arts and Entrepreneuriat. The first year was tough, she said. It´s a different kind of tough. In law school, you study; if you fail, you haven't studied enough. In pastry, if you mess up a Foret Noire, you mess up a Foret Noire, and there is nothing you can do to fix it.

In her first internship, she landed in a fine-dining restaurant. The interns were highly competitive, wanting to be the best to impress the chef. Every day, that competition started all over again, and it was clearly a toxic environment for someone who had just started to get the hang of making Forent Noires. The chefs didn't teach anything nor cared much for the relations between the staff, so the internship turned out to be a survival of the fittest. Her experience in her second year was no better. She arrived in a high-end bistro, Michelin starred today. She found herself being only with one other person in Pastry, almost as inexperienced as her. There were two services, both with 120 people each service. Work started at 7:30 am and ended at midnight. 

Coupure, the French name of the break between two shifts, was never taken. Or, as people say in this industry, coupures are just unpaid work hours because the restaurants are always understaffed, so you're always behind. 

The chef was a drunk and didn't care how he treated his team. No one looked up; no one cared for each other. For most of her internship, the staff bathroom was broken, and they weren't allowed to use the guest bathroom, so they went to McDonald's every time. I had a great amount of Nuggest throughout that time, she said, laughing.

One day, the chef announced that he had fixed the toilet. Margaux went straight to the bathroom, relieved that at least something worked out. During the following service, she started to have a stinging pain between her legs. It was winter, so she wore tights, but when she took them off after service, her skin came off with them. The chef used Sulfuric Acid to unblock the toilet, an acid that causes severe burns when touched. When the others saw her, they laughed, not realising the gravity of the situation.

Bad experiences like such accumulated and led to mental health problems. Margaux asked her chef to do only one service a day and leave before the second one. The chef agreed, but only two weeks later, when she was about to leave, the sous chef approached her and said, "You're not leaving; we stop with this nonsense”.

She quit the same week, having gone through anxiety attacks and reaching her limits.

The third year arrived, and so did the third internship. This time, she went to Sicily, Italy, to work in a high-end scenic restaurant. She arrived on the 7th of March 2020, and only three days later, the lockdown in Italy was announced due to Covid. She lived right next to the restaurant, which was in a small part outside of the cities. There was nothing but a grocery store about an hour away by foot. Three months later, the restaurant opened again, but having lost a lot of money during that time, they opened all day every day, which meant the team had to work all day every day. The chef was a very conservative Italian who didn't mind dropping racist comments now and then. He repeatedly said how shit of a country France was and how it´s “full of Arabs and blacks”. The restaurant's dishwasher was from Bangladesh, and the staff liked to call him a monkey and imitated monkey behaviour when talking about him. An attitude that I also repeatedly experienced in the restaurants I worked in.

Margaux was the only woman in the kitchen, and the chef didn't hold back from touching her whenever she was in his way. He often grabbed me by my waist when he wanted to pass.

A thought that leaves you in disbelief.

After finishing her bachelor, Margaux gave the restaurant scenery one more chance and applied to an Irish French restaurant around the corner. When she had the interview, the chef told her that the job was tough and that not everyone could do it. He also mentioned that there were only men in the kitchen and if she could hold up with that. It almost sounded like a threat. He said, “Come by tomorrow and work as a dishwasher, and we'll see if you can do this”. Margeaux never returned.

Today, she´s a hotel purchasing officer, managing supply organisation, food income, and expenses. It´s a desk job, but she´s happy and confident in what she's doing. Yet, she misses pastry, and one day, she wants to open a little pastry shop herself, finally being her own boss. 

I want to be able to tell a guy in the interview: are you sure you can work in a female-dominated kitchen?

Her advice to others: You will eventually feel like you can't do this like you disappoint everyone. Like you failed. Remind yourself to prioritise your health because, in the end, it's just food, and you are so much more important. It's okay to feel lost because you'll always get back on track. It´s never a waste of time to try something and not like it: trial and error.

Margaux at work