Top chefs respond to the mental health crisis in Australia’s high-end restaurant scene

At 38, Jacqui Challinor has overcome great challenges to become the Executive Chef of the NOMAD group of restaurants. 

Challinor’s meteoric rise started in 2014 when she was made head chef of NOMAD in Sydney. Despite the plaudits, she noticed an unnerving level of attention on her and her food. 

“It was kind of the hot new thing at the time. So the food is yours and you have the media looking at you, and you’ve got food reviewers looking at you, and teams of people underneath you. That was stress like I have never understood. I didn’t know how to manage it.”

The long hours, stress and all the media attention triggered severe anxiety that led her to turn to alcohol, with devastating effects.

When COVID hit, the restaurants closed and she stopped drinking. 

As Challinor returned to work, this time without alcohol, she had a breakdown.

“I didn’t realise how much I was relying on it to hide the stress. I guess I just broke. I haven’t been that low in my life.

Challinor had decided to quit, but the owners of the NOMAD group told her to take time off. This support, plus the help of a psychologist, enabled her to return to work and now, her new restaurant, Reine & La Rue, has won The Age Good Food Guide New Restaurant of the Year in 2024.

Challinor strengthened the alcohol policy at work – only one drink on Friday and Saturday nights – and now does half the hours she used to. 

But the avalanche of reviews, mainly on social media, still take their toll. 

Challinor says even though the majority were positive, her brain kept focusing on the bad or unfair reviews. She received an important tip from her psychologist about how to cope. 

“For every bad review we bring up with the team, I encourage them to sandwich it with two good reviews, just to try and shift the narrative and remind yourself there is more good than the negative.”

‘If you’ve got enough followers, you’re an expert’: Neil Perry on the challenge of running a restaurant today

Even following decades of success, Neil Perry, an award-winning veteran chef, acknowledges the power of food reviewers. 

Perry has just opened his last project, Song Bird, a 250 seat Chinese restaurant, with a downstairs dedicated cocktail bar called Bobbie’s, in Sydney. 

At 67, Perry has had many successful restaurants including the award winning restaurant Margaret around the corner from Song Bird. 

“Look, it’s really tough. Song Bird and Bobbie’s is a $13 million project. Sam and I have put our house on the line. All of the wealth I’ve generated in my life is involved. I joke around, but I keep saying to her, ‘Well, by Christmas we’ll either be planning holidays next year or I’ll be selling the house’. It is that serious. If the restaurant went sideways it could be the end of us.”

But Perry, a celebrity chef since the 1990s in Australia does not envy the younger generation today and the challenges they face running restaurants.

“It’s so jumbled now, and there are so many forms of media and so many forms of communication.” 

Before social media, Perry’s restaurants would be reviewed once or twice a year and new restaurants, like Song Bird, would be given a fair bit of time to settle before being critiqued. 

“It does add distress. Will we be as good the first day we open as we will be six weeks later, three months later, six months later, 12 months later? The answer to that is no. A restaurant hits its straps at a year.” 

His own strategy is to ignore the ‘noise’ as he calls it and focus on what you can control in your restaurant.

“You have no control over that. You have to focus all your attention on all the things you have control over. And if you do that, I think you’ll have a better life. You’ll probably have a better work life because all of your energies will go into what you can change and what you can do.”

‘Seven, eight years ago, I lost two friends, both chefs, within three weeks of each other’: Ben Shewry 

Another award-winning chef who worries about young people having a future in hospitality is Ben Shewry from Attica in Melbourne. 

Shewry has released a memoir this week, Uses for Obsession: A Chef’s Memoir, an expose on the worst excesses of the hospitality industry. 

Shewry describes the hidden underbelly of his industry as being ridden with bullying, alcohol consumption, and an unacceptable level of sexual harassment of women.

“It’s still very, very, very tough for women in kitchens. We hear this all the time with new hires coming here. We hear terrible stories every year. I think we need to take sexism in the workplace and restaurants much more seriously than we do.”

In his book, Shewry describes an “oppressive review system” which he says contributed to the suicide of two friends, both chefs.

“I truly can’t say exactly why they suicided, but I do know they both lived with immense pressure in their lives. The pressure of running restaurants, the pressure of social problems maybe, I don’t know, but I do know the pressure that comes from being reviewed several times a year for eternity by food reviewers and the make or break mentality that comes with that, is not a good thing for a person’s mental health.” 

In his memoir, Shewry admits his younger self dreamed of winning awards but now he understands the joy is fleeting and unsatisfying. While he has won and lost ‘hats’ in the last 16 years he says the global restaurant industry has spent too long in the thrall of food media.

ABC broadcaster and food reviewer Simon Marnie says the consequences of bad reviews can be financially devastating.

“I know of one chef in a former three hat restaurant who lost his hat because his toilets were outside. He said it cost him $10,000 to $15,000 a month losing a hat.”

Marnie says patrons can play their part to even up the onslaught of negativity.

“It’s up to us as diners to make up our own mind. And if you do make up your own mind and you love it, tell the place you love it.”

Some younger chefs are facing the reality that owning their own restaurant in Australia is likely to be out of their reach but also a risk to their mental health.

Tim Stapleforth gave up a stellar career at one of Melbourne’s best restaurants

It’s now been six months since Tim Stapleforth opened GHOST, a restaurant on the coast at Canggu in Bali.

“I’ve seen it through the restaurants that I’ve worked at, not just in Melbourne but all over. There was one guy that I met that was so broken mentally, but still working in a high-paced environment. I said to him, maybe this isn’t for you.” 

Stapleforth says he’s had good and bad bosses in Australia, and there are some parts of the high-end restaurant culture he misses, like the ambition to be the best. 

But the downsides of Australian restaurant culture can be very damaging. Stapleforth says he thinks a lack of time for friends and families contributes to suicides in the industry. 

“Hundred per cent. You’ve got the pressure from the top, from the boss, the wages, the money side of things. Then you’ve got the guys from the bottom that you’re trying to keep happy, to just stay at your restaurant. And you’ve got a family at home that you never see.”

Stapleforth joined many chefs from around the world at this year’s Ubud Food Festival, including Deepanker Khosla (known as DK) from Bangkok. 

DK’s Michelin starred restaurant Haoma was awarded the most sustainable restaurant in Asia last year, and he now tours the world teaching people how to develop restaurants with zero waste. 

He says the best way to ensure good mental health is to include a higher purpose in your work and ignore all the reviews. 

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Ben Shewry says the hospitality industry needs an urgent injection of kindness.

“You don’t have to be an asshole. You don’t have to be a jerk. That’s how we are portrayed on the screen often. I am here to tell you, you can run a kitchen and a restaurant that is fair and kind and still perform at an elite level.” 

After 11 years, Jacqui Challinor has now resigned as Group Executive Chef of the NOMAD group.

Watch Chefs Under Pressure on ABC TV Compass at 6:30pm on Sunday, October 6 or catch up anytime on ABC iview.

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