Osborne, who was in the kitchen during the 'branding' incident, understands what stress can do. "I showed my sous chef – and best friend – how to plate a dish a couple of times" says Osborne. "But one day he went to plate it a different way. In a fit of rage I picked up a whole pile of plates, and hurled them onto the floor." At the time, Osborne was working from 6.30am to 1am – six days a week – and struggling to hold on to Pied A Terre's two Michelin stars. "Stress cost me my best friend" he says. "And that still hurts."
"All I did was bark" says Wareing. "Hour after hour after fucking hour. My kitchen was almost a torture chamber. Barking was the only way I knew how to get [the staff] to do things. I didn't dare love them. I didn't dare become their friend. It didn't cross my mind to get know them as individuals. It was 'I'm going to torture you to get what I want out of you. And when you're on the floor, at your lowest, I'm going to leave you there.' I was meant to bring them back up, and dust them down. But I didn't always do it…..
"Until there was just the two of us" says Wareing. "Me and my sous chef – a French Algerian. Hard as a brick wall. A skinhead with hobnail boots. Number one and number two, and the kitchen was scared shitless of both of us. Everyone left. And, when they were all gone, I was like 'Why the fuck have they left me?'". The frightening thing was that it took Ramsay, a man not noted for his inter-personal skills, to tell Wareing that he needed to calm it down. But it worked. Wareing is now a shining example to his industry.
But the physicality of Le Gavroche was always part of the fun. Marcus Wareing remembers seeing his friend, chef Stephen Terry, getting stabbed in the leg with a fork by a young female chef. "Whether it was an accident or not, I don't know" says Wareing. "Fucking hilarious, because it was Stephen Terry. I remember Michel Roux used to walk past all the cooks with a blow torch under their arses. He would stop at one until his pants were fucking on fire. You shouldn't put a flame under someone's arse, but it was hilarious…."
And, as Gordon Ramsay found out when he trained at Joel Robuchon in Paris, chefs in France didn't have it any easier. Not during service. "Robuchon got hold of the plate, and threw it at me" said Ramsay. "It hit the side of my face. My ear was blocked with hot food, my face was burnt, and there was ravioli all over the place. I apologized, and started all over again." At Guy Savoy, Gemma Tuley – now Head Chef at Arch One – was dragged round the kitchen by her pony tail. All because she didn't speak French. So she cut off her hair.
Atherton, who is a Ramsay protegee, has witnessed violence in kitchens all over the world. "Once I was beaten to a pulp. But the restaurant I was working in at the time had a three-year waiting list to get in. I wasn't just going to give up. I asked if I could change my jacket – it was hanging off my back. But it was 'No – finish fucking service'. I came home with bruises all over my chest." He was rewarded with a Head Chef's position by the age of 24. "But I had guys by the throat" he says. "I remember head butting a guy and knocking him down the fire escape. I couldn't control myself."
Heston Blumenthal has always struggled with his anger. "It's one thing to go across to someone and smack them" he says. "When I was younger, that's what I did. But the really psychotic stuff started around the opening of the Fat Duck. I was running out of money. And I was stressed. I could have hurt somebody really badly and enjoyed it. I chased somebody in the car – in reverse. And I ran a Bedford Rascal off the road." It's difficult to believe that this is the man who has created one of the world's most elevated dining experiences. "I don't know where it all came from" he says.
That attitude isn't dead. Not quite. Despite the fact that women have better palates than men, and a greater eye for plating up, they are still under-represented in the kitchen. "They just don't have the physical strength" says [Marco Pierre] White. "It's a man's world. They're not as physically strong. You do have to be physically strong. All the pans you have to pick up – the hours you have to work. Look at the Olympics. What time does a woman run the 100 metres in? Compared to a man? You have to be physically and mentally strong in a kitchen."
Times are changing. And there are now kitchens out there noted for their sense of calm. Including the Fat Duck – Blumenthal hasn't raised his voice in six years. But amongst some, there is nostalgia for the old ways. "When I cooked, what did I look like?" asks White. "Why? I worked hard. What do today's chefs look like? Do they look like they give of themselves? Like they break their balls? Ask the boys how hard I worked. You don't see the burns on the arms. Look at a chef's hands, and see how hard they work. The cuts. The scratches. It's a different breed these days."
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