London Chef Demands Total Aryan Culinary Victory

The Independent:

A London-based chef has apologised for what his peers branded a “rude” response towards criticism, after he faced backlash online for revealing the line-up of his kitchen team at his Notting Hill restaurant.

Thomas Straker, who opened his namesake restaurant Straker’s in 2022, recently shared a photograph of his “chef team” comprising eight people, including himself.

All eight members of the team pictured were white and male, prompting complaints from social media users who believed it did not reflect the diversity of London.

I think what you meant to say was “White men,” not “White and male.” We’ve become used to these little microaggressions of course, but it should still be called out every time it happens.

Also, did you just assume their genders? How can we be sure that we aren’t looking at eight proud womxn? Do better, Independent.

Some comments claimed Straker’s team showed how the food industry was a “white boy’s club”, while others urged the restaurateur to provide chefs from minority groups a “safe place to grow as chefs”.

In other words they’re seething at an all White men cooking team and demanding privilege. They would never do the same if there were too many Blax on a soccer team, so this is purely an anti-White shakedown operation.

Straker, who found fame by sharing his recipes and cooking videos on TikTok, responded to the negative backlash by commenting: “Honestly, people need to calm down. Firstly, there is a shortage of chefs/hospitality workers. Secondly, if you feel so passionately, please go and gather CVs of any chefs you think we’re missing in the team. Solutions not problems. Thank you.”

That was not exactly the response I was hoping for, but it wasn’t awful either. Telling these people to stop being so histrionic and spend actual effort putting together a bunch of resumes for him to discard could even be a subtle power move. 

At least he’s not apologizing. That would –

However, his response has also been criticised as “rude”, with a number of chefs and other figures in the food industry weighing in on the online storm. He has since shared an apology via his Instagram Story.

“On Friday night, I put up a post of my chef team and many rightly pointed out the lack of diversity in it. I am very sorry for my initial response, where some queried whether I take this issue seriously,” he said.

“I am absolutely committed to ensuring diversity in my restaurants, unfortunately we aren’t achieving this in my kitchens currently and this is an area I know I need to improve on, making sure it is seen as a welcoming and approachable environment for all. Tom x.”

I’ve come to expect this sort of response from the non-political, but it’s always disappointing. It’s trivially easy to point out restaurants that are disproportionally lacking in White staff. Hell, pretty much any non-White ethnic restaurant will be like this, and I’m quite sure that plenty of high end restaurants are similar. Doing so will put the average, everyday person behind you, because no one likes these anti-Whites. 

The rest of the article is just anti-White dipshits bloviating about how naughty Thomas Straker has been. I won’t cover all of them, save this one bit from Hannah Norris.

While Straker’s post was not intended to stir controversy, the lack of diversity in his team has “shone a light on the broader challenges we face in kitchens these days”, Hannah Norris of Nourish PR said.

“This is a classic case of an ill thought-out post,” she told The Independent. “Thomas Straker has issued what he believed was a photo of a group of confident, strong-looking chefs ready for service but didn’t think about the optics of the image and what it represented.

“Whilst it was well-meaning I believe, a picture doesn’t lie. For whatever reason, he currently has no women or people of colour in his kitchen, so it all looks a bit ‘pale, male and stale’. Perhaps the reaction to this image will make Thomas think again a bit more carefully about who he wants to employ in the future.”

“Whilst it was well-meaning I believe, a picture doesn’t lie. For whatever reason, he currently has no women or people of colour in his kitchen, so it all looks a bit ‘pale, male and stale’. Perhaps the reaction to this image will make Thomas think again a bit more carefully about who he wants to employ in the future.”

Jaime, can we get a physiognomy check on Hannah Norris please? 

Imagine having enemies that are so thoroughly and consistently bottom of the barrel that they are viscerally repulsive to look at. Well, join PA, or the NJP, and you won’t have to imagine anymore.