Writing a recipe for rebellion
Kitchen culture has long made martyrs out of staff. But after working long hours at little pay for most of his career, one Toronto chef is adding a pinch of new thinking
From the street, the restaurant doesn’t look like the scene of a rebellion. But inside Enoteca Sociale something important is taking place.
Beyond the door to the rustic, Roman-style restaurant, past the interplay of servers and diners, a square of yellow light at the end of the room draws the eye to the cramped kitchen.
There, the staccato sound of knives chopping punctuates clipped conversations. The kitchen tempo is fast. It’s a place of noise and action and heat where cooks slice, dice and mix, assembling plates and sending them off in rapid succession.
Curt instructions delivered in the voice that’s part drill sergeant, part professor punch through the humid air. Each command is met with “Yes, Chef,” but the simple phrase is notable for the respect and admiration behind it. It’s the sound of a title that’s been earned. Chef Kris Schlotzhauer moves smoothly among his staff, tasting, tweaking and then moving on.
His golden “dad glasses” glint under the lights, and nothing escapes his gaze.
In a space the size of a walk-in closet, where he and four others work at the restaurant near Dundas St. W. and Ossington Ave., he’s a study of calm and control, characteristics that others in the kitchen feed off.
The 32-year-old knows what it’s like to work at each station, from dishwasher to sous-chef, and he knows what it means to take pride in what you do. A firm believer in hard work and honest effort, he expects everything in his kitchen to be better.
That includes the quality of life of his six cooks.
In an industry where the norm is 60hour workweeks with pay that is effectively near or below minimum wage, Schlotzhauer took a stand. He recently limited his staff’s workweek to four days and started paying them by the hour, rather than a day rate.
The cooks work 44 hours a week, compared with 60 before. They make as much as they did before, and they get an extra day off. The announcement was met with joy. Staff exchanged hugs, handshakes and even a couple of kisses.
Fine-dining restaurants are known for chewing workers up and spitting them out, but Enoteca’s unexpected move provided a glimpse at another way.
“I think we’re going to see this more often,” said Ernesto Rodriguez, who owns Fonda Lola restaurant near Queen and Ossington.
Rather than supporting the status quo that has been known to push some in the industry towards alcohol, aggression and sometimes even addiction, Schlotzhauer wanted to show that cooks don’t need to get burned out to make a living.
“My message, I hope, is that this is an amazing industry to work in,” said the chef. “I want other people to feel the same way.”
A slow climb up the food chain
When Kris Schlotzhauer was a 14-year-old with a mushroom haircut and a mouthful for a last name, he wanted nothing more than to be the best dishwasher in Stratford.
“Where I grew up, you either work at the festival or you work in one of the restaurants,” he said of his southwestern Ontario hometown.
So, like many who make their living cooking for others, he started at the bottom of the pile, slogging his way through stacks of dishes then running them through the automatic dishwasher at the Olde English Parlour, a local eatery where he earned $6.40 an hour.
It was a tough, simple job but he was proud of it. He laughs when he remembers those early days, challenging his buddies to see who could wash the fastest, but his competitive nature hinted at something more serious.
Within him was a desire for perfection that would be a common thread throughout his unlikely career.
Cooking wasn’t a major part of his upbringing, and Schlotzhauer isn’t really sure what pushed him towards the culinary industry.
“I didn’t stand over a pot when I was 4 years old watching my grandmother cook or anything like that,” he said.
Like any devoted son he describes his mother as a great cook — and when she wasn’t around, his father could always whip up some “breakfast for dinner.” But he figures what first drew him to kitchens and a series of part-time jobs in high school — and eventually seared a love of cooking onto his soul — was the drama.
“A kitchen is a very exciting place for a kid,” he said. “There are all these grown men and women and they’re swearing and it’s hot and there’s yelling.”
Even when he was studying small business management at Conestoga College, he found work as a cook for a nearby bar and grill.
The job was just a way to make a little money on the side, but it proved to be a major distraction. While sitting in class his mind would wander back to the kitchen. He daydreamed about experimenting with different foods and creating meals from scratch.
“I soon stopped going to school and just started working more.”
But he didn’t yet dare to chase his daydreams, doubting that he had the skill to become a chef.
Schlotzhauer headed west, moving to Calgary a decade ago, where he drove a delivery truck. But the itch was still there.
When he could no longer ignore it, he quit his job and put all his efforts into becoming a chef. He found a position as a sous-chef at a Calgary restaurant and soon fell into the punishing pace of kitchen life.
Schlotzhauer worked upwards of 50 hours a week. He pushed his skills to the limit each night before dragging himself home and collapsing into bed.
There was one unexpected perk: he met his future wife — in the kitchen, of course.
“We butted heads at first,” he said of Suzy
Schlotzhauer, a pastry chef by trade.
“. . . Maybe it was that schoolyard thing where the boy pulls on the girl’s hair ’cause he wants her attention.”
The couple are expecting a baby girl in March. He worked his way up toward the dream his teenage self didn’t dare to pursue.
He earned his accreditation as a chef and honed his skills working as a souschef at several restaurants ranging from tapas to a roast house, making $13 to $14 an hour.
During his time at Charcut in Calgary, he met Grant van Gameren, a star of Toronto’s restaurant scene who was then chef of Enoteca Sociale. The two hit it off. Wanting to be closer to his parents, Schlotzhauer moved to Toronto in the spring of 2012, bringing with him years of experience that had shaped a simple question: what if cooking didn’t mean working relentless hours for little pay?