Making Fat Duck meals gave me RSI, says chef
Kitchen worker suing restaurant for £200,000, claiming ‘arduous’ tasks caused chronic wrist pain
WITH the extravagant and eccentric dishes served up to diners at the Fat Duck, Heston Blumenthal’s Michelinstarred restaurant, visitors may wonder what exactly goes on in its kitchen.
Now a pastry chef has lifted the lid on the “arduous” efforts involved in preparing the experimental menu offerings at one of Britain’s most renowned eateries.
Sharon Anderson, 28, is suing The Fat Duck Ltd for more than £200,000, claiming she has been plagued by crippling repetitive strain injury (RSI) as a result of her time in the kitchen.
The High Court heard thast Ms Anderson was pushed too hard to create Mr Blumenthal’s eccentric dishes at the restaurant in Bray, Berkshire, leaving her with chronic wrist pain.
Her tasks included placing up to 400 sweets a day into small bags using tweezers, making chocolate playing cards before they set, and administering hundreds of tiny fingertip pinches to mushroom logs.
The Fat Duck has denied all fault for her injuries, adding the preparations carried out by Ms Anderson were commonplace in “fine dining restaurants”.
Ms Anderson of Letterkenny, Co Donegal, is suing the restaurant on the grounds on alleged negligence, arguing the work given to her was “too fast, arduous and repetitive”.
She said her RSI has led to her becoming depressed and anxious and that she has been unable to work since leaving the restaurant in November 2015, 15 months after she joined.
While most of her forearm pain has now resolved, she suffers “significant wrist pain” even after carrying out normal manual tasks such as driving, heavy lifting and cooking, the High Court was told. Her ongoing pain is believed to be the result of a torn ligament in Ms Anderson’s wrist, pinpointed by medics at a later stage.
Documents lodged at the High Court by Ms Anderson’s lawyers show that she began working at The Fat Duck as a commis chef in 2014.
At first her daily routine included packing individually wrapped sweets into cellophane bags from 7am to 11am, then creating chocolate playing cards from 11.30am to around 4pm.
Her kitchen shift then switched to making whisky wine gums between 4pm and 6pm.
In January 2015, Ms Anderson relocated to Melbourne, when the restaurant moved there during a £2.6million refurbishment of the Bray premises.
From February that year, her work followed a similar pattern to life in Bray, she claimed, although she was under pressure to handle more moulds to create chocolate cards due to wastage caused by the Australian heat.
In June, she began complaining of pain in her forearm, her barrister, Charles Robertshaw said. “By 23 June 2015, the pain had become significant and on this date she visited a physiotherapist who advised her that the pain was being caused by her long hours and repetitive work,” he continued.
She temporarily stopped work due to the pain, but three months later resumed work at the revamped Bray restaurant, before leaving in November 2015.
Lawyers for Ms Anderson, said the restaurant failed to allow sufficient rest periods or support, and “required her to work under time pressure throughout the day”.
But lawyers for The Fat Duck insisted the work she carried out had no known risk of triggering an “upper-limb disorder”, and the techniques she used are standard in the world of haute cuisine.
The case will return to court next year.