In a dinner series called the Line Up, line cooks, sous-chefs, and chefs de cuisine from buzzy restaurants get to be executive chefs for a night. ![Flowers drawn onto a photo of a plastic quart holding other kitchen equipment.]()
When Anthony Bourdainwrote “Kitchen Confidential,” a quarter century ago, he contended that line cooks “were the heroes” of the restaurant industry. “It was clear what kind of heroism he meant: obscured and nearly undetectable; all drudgery, no glory; the hustle its own reward,”Hannah Goldfield explains, in a piece, for this week’s issue, on fine dining’s longtime underdogs. Now, hastened by the exposure of social media and by having their work deemed essential during the pandemic, the era of the line cook has arrived. TV shows such as “The Bear” are honoring “back of house” heroes, and restaurants such as Le Bernardin are recognizing their labor by hiring a “staff meal chef” just to cook for the cooks. In the course of exploring the ways that stovetop toilers are getting their glory, Goldfield visits gertrude’s, in Prospect Heights, where every Monday the co-owner runs a burger special conceived by a staff member, giving someone in a less glamorous job the chance to get creative. (That day, the production manager, who oversees all kitchen prep, was serving up beef patties topped with mushroom duxelles, yellow mustard, Roquefort, and a handful of parsley, smooshed into a buttered challah bun.) When Goldfield speaks with the chef and proprietor of Tatiana,Kwame Onwuachi, he describes the changes he’s made at his restaurant to give cooks their shine: “It feels more like they’re a part of the culture that we’re trying to convey to the diners.” SupportThe New Yorker’saward-winning journalism.Subscribe today » | 
