10/21 - What A Towel Will Tell You About A Chef Movie

And McDonald's shakes hands with Krispy Kreme.

Big Brain Stuff:

-Select McDonald’s will now sell Krispy Kreme doughnuts at breakfast time. Exciting news for all that enjoy delicious things, but there’s no bigger winner than Epic Meal Time - if that still exists. A McGriddle slammed between two Krispy Kremes would’ve been an appetizer for 2011 Muscles Glasses.

-Unbeknownst to me, Busch makes broth. If things work out, Restaurant Adjacent will release its first piece of video content next week: a dog and human review of Busch Turkey Brew. 

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What A Towel Will Tell You About A Chef Movie

In a high end kitchen, a towel never goes on your shoulder. 

I learned this the hard way. Two months into my first cooking job, and somewhere in the middle of what I thought was an impressive shift, I tossed a towel over my shoulder. 

The chef noticed, looked me in the eyes, and plainly said, “You know this isn’t your movie, right?”

He then outlined the harms and uselessness of the shoulder tower: it dirties your uniform, the towel will fall off, it’s easier to grab something from your hip than your shoulder, and - as he put it - it’s “fucking embarrassing.”

A towel hasn’t gone upstairs since.

Any line cook knows this, and every successful chef lives by it: towel on the hip. Here are some choice comments from a reddit thread titled “Towel on your shoulder” that further illustrate the point:

Despite consensus opinion among professional cooks, the shoulder towel persists in practice and media. The shoulder towels of poorly trained, disillusioned chefs inform movie and television producers, those producers create shows with fictional shoulder-towel-wearing chefs, we watch the shows, and then when we “play chef” on Thanksgiving, we toss a towel over our shoulder. It’s a reinforcing loop of shoulder towels.

Everyone’s done it. If I didn’t shoulder towel in front of a career chef, I’d still be doing it. 

A shoulder towel is the sort of insider detail that a movie or television show can ignore. But for kitchen movies that ask you to take them seriously – movies interested in getting the details right – a towel should be on a hip and never a shoulder. 

So, let’s towel-track some notable kitchen focused shows and movies and pull their Rotten Tomatoes scores. My thesis: the stuff worth watching doesn’t shoulder towel.

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The Bear (2022)

Double hip towel for Carmy, and it stays that way for the entire first season. This show is as close to realistic as you’ll get. Birkenstock clogs, deli containers, the collective culinary Noma boner – it’s all there and it’s a big reason why The Bear might be the show of the year. Rotten Tomatoes: 100%. 

Burnt (2015)

Bradley Cooper’s character in Burnt is nothing but an amalgamation of misinformed culinary cliches. He’s toxic, but talented! He loves drugs, but is sober now! And yes - of course - he’s on the verge of getting his “third star.” Despite working through the best restaurants in Paris, Chef Bradley Cooper routinely dons a shoulder towel. Rotten Tomatoes: 28%.

Ratatouille (2007)

Pixar would never, so they didn’t. The attention to detail in Ratatouille is consistent with the rest of their films: impossibly absolute. No shoulder towels to be found. Rotten Tomatoes: 96%.

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As of today, my thesis holds - a shoulder towel is an indicator of a sloppy chef and an even sloppier chef movie. However, this could change soon.

There has never been more interest in chefs and restaurant culture than there is today. The success of The Bear proves and exasperates this. Since The Bear’s release in June, Aimé Leon Dore released kitchen inspired clogs, Birkenstock clogs worn by chefs became hard to find, and you signed up for a newsletter called Restaurant Adjacent that’s sole purpose is to make kitchen culture more approachable. Increased attention on chefs should bring increased industry knowledge, and with that, the gradual disappearance of shoulder towels in movies and television.

Going forward, the absence of a shoulder towel won’t guarantee that a chef movie is worth watching. But, in the event that you do see a serious cooking movie with a shoulder-towel-having chef: watch something else.

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Thank you all for reading. This is still the most fun part of the week, every week. Love you all, share this with someone if you’re into the kind of thing, and most importantly: have a great weekend.