Fresh pasta will forever remind me of the Summer I spent working at a Bay Street fine-dining Italian restaurant in Toronto. When I got the job I thought I had hit the jackpot. It was in the corporate sector of the city and it was closed on weekends and holidays and the primary rush was lunch hour. No weekends and no late nights! Jackpot. I thought. In my first couple weeks I made more money than I ever had. The food was beautiful, simple and conservative, and the pasta was the best in the city.
Yet like many places, the chef was a monster and ruled the whole restaurant like a tyrant. Hardened and mean at the ripe age of 31. He would belittle and torment his brigade, isolate and bully his stages and treat the front of house with a mix of sexism, misogyny or just plain disrespect. Nobody understood his anger.
It had been rumoured that he had something to prove because he was the owners cousin fresh out of Italy. Yet his food spoke for itself. It was good. Had he treated the people, with whom he spent 15 hours day with, with respect, he’d probably be a household name. Instead, he created a work environment where it was common for both men and women to regularly break down into anxiety induced tears. Unfortunately, most employees left forgetting the pasta and remembering a bully.
