Anyone who passed through the rigours of the Irish education system can recognise how a bully, even one who is in a position of power, operates.
The notion that control can be achieved only through intimidation and (in sixties Ireland) by actual beatings, is a common assumption in our education system.
Unfortunately the same is true in the traditional training of kitchen staff.
Not too many years ago we were allowed to observed the horrific and even sometimes physically dangerous treatment meted out to unfortunate commis chefs in English kitchens.
That these kitchens were producing starred Michelin food is to me irrelevant.
My original training in Snaffles in Dublin, although extremely hard work, was never enforced by either abuse or brutality.
When I moved to France and worked for a few months in the Loire area I met with this for the first time. There I met a chef who because he had been trained in the kitchen from hell felt obliged to do the same in his own kitchen.
I would prefer to forget my time there.
From there I went to work in a kitchen in Kent where the boss, Michael Waterfield, also the head chef, treated all his staff with kindness and politeness, and where it was a pleasure to work.
This kitchen please note produced delicious food which was recognised as the best in the South East of England at that time.

When I got around to running my own restaurant in Waterford in the nineties I resolved to run it as Michael Waterfield had done.
That I succeeded in running an amicable kitchen I think could be evidenced by a staff party last Sunday, three and a half years after the restaurant closed, where it was obvious that we were still all great friends. (I rather fear that we all laughed so much we may have prematurely cleared the restaurant we were meeting in)

I always remember a constant customer (a priest in fact) saying that he loved to hear the laughter coming from the kitchen in Dwyers when he dined. Not very professional I know but surely an improvement on streams of abusive language coming from the stove.

I have to add at this stage that Dwyers was an extremely successful restaurant, rated in Irelands top ten by John Mc Kenna and Sunday Business Post’s Ross Golden Bannon as well as achieving (unfortunately only after we had closed) a “worth a detour” from the Michelin Guide.
I suppose all this is leading up to The Pressure Cooker and the televised shenanigans in the kitchen as chef Dylan Mc Grath achieved his Michelin Star.
Personally I think of this star, achieved by fear and bullying, in much the same light as the German Autobahns or the trains in Italy running on time during Mussolini’s reign.
If this is the only way these things can be achieved (and I doubt this) then they probably aren’t worth it.