'Dropped 24 crème brûlée [dishes] at the last step of a staircase': 25+ Chefs discuss the biggest mistakes they've ever made in the kitchen

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    Font - 'I had to make 40 pecan and pumpkin pies... [] burned every single one.'
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    Font - r/KitchenConfidential Posted by u/crankkk619 What is your 'oh man I fed up bad story'? I'll start with mine. Accidentally left my fryer on while draining the oil. The fing heaters caught on fire and I panicked my a off. Eventually it did go away without needing any fire extinguisher.
  • 03
    Font - О НОР socialistnetwork I had to make 40 pecan and pumpkin pies for thanksgiving service, using a recipe from our sister restaurant that had regular gas ovens. We had brand-new, beautiful combi convection ovens. I made all the dough from scratch, crimped and blind-baked every single crust, added bourbon to some pecan pies, the whole nine. I should have test-baked one of each to confirm cooking time, but I was hungover and in a bad mood and forgot to adjust for our ovens.
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    Font - Burned every single one. Hundreds of dollars of nuts, dairy, eggs, and pumpkin purée, hours of time all wasted. One of the only times I've ever legitimately cried in the walk-in. The shame will haunt me forever
  • 05
    Font - fruityanddelicious This wasn't me, but I work in a gluten free bakery and a couple years ago my coworker was mass producing pumpkin pies for the holidays. We use eggs in everything (because that's how most gluten free baking works) and she left eggs out of the mix for all the pies she had made up to that point. Luckily my boss plans for mishaps and it was all good, but coworker's spirit was broken for the day.
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    Font - [deleted] I served a platter of oysters. Customer wanted lemon I went to the walk in and got a lemon I bring the whole lemon to the customers and give it to them They look at me like a complete idiot and go "Uhhhh can you cut it please?" I still cringe thinking about that
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    Font - BirdBurnett When I was starting out, I foolishly drained hot fryer grease into a plastic bucket. Didn't take long to figure out why that shouldn't happen.
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    Font - Sora1101 One of my first jobs I was in such a hurry that when I dropped my tongs in the fryer my brain shut off and I almost stuck my hand in to grab them. I stopped after a finger dipped in the oil but d that woulda been awful.
  • 09
    Font - 18+ = Brisk chirp215 My first restaurant job we would put out dipping oils for bread on the tables. One table brought in a bottle of wine that cost around $2000. They asked me to open it and when I picked up the bottle it slipped out of my hand and shattered on the table because I had just prepped some oil for their table. Shockingly they laughed about it and left me a big tip.
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    Font - imnotavampire24 We had a small "shed" in the back of the restaurant I used to work at for deliveries. I always started the day by taking everything inside, however one time, somehow, I completely missed 2 big boxes of fresh fish. Kept telling the head chef it never turned up, we even called the supplier who said it did. Went on a smoke break and thought I'd double check and guess what there it was, both boxes, I still to this day have no idea how I missed them. Obviously I did the adult t
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    Font - rahill1004 I didn't check to make sure that the Hobart mixer bowl was secured. I put 8 loaves worth of sourdough starter and water into the bowl and it dumped all over the floor. The starter is the lifeblood of the restaurant.
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    Font - He gets so pied off at this pan and throws it through the server window, stomps to the GM's office and quits because it's "too dirty."
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    Font - regnstorm90 I was doing my internship at a very fancy French place and was told to put the babas soaking in sugar syrup and gin in the walk-in. No problem. There's not enough room. I knew for a fact that chef had a full blown meltdown at another intern the day before about asking about stupid s , so I stated to rearrange the shelves to make it fit. Felt really good about myself when I balanced it on top of some bread doughs on the top shelf. Fast forward an hour, chef goes in to the walk-
  • 15
    Font - Cocktail-Concierge Not about me, but a colleague of mine changed directions too quickly whilst holding a steak which was topped with a compound butter. It slid itself right off the plate and landed right in a baby's face who was soundly asleep til then. From then on, it was never medium rare. It was medium waaaaaaaaahhhh.
  • 16
    Font - Ejohns0844 Back when I was still a dishwasher I found a bucket full of something in the back of the dish pit, I emptied the bucket and then cleaned it out. Turns out that bucket was full of a new sauce we were going to serve that day.
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    Font - lokinsw Dating a coworker is always the biggest f up K-
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    Font - Successful_Ability78. Overcooked 3 wagyus in one night for one party. Then another one for another table. I was about to start crying and got sent to clean the cooler to calm down. I redeemed myself 2 days later but f........never again.
  • 19
    Font - qa3r The CEO of north America for our restaurant chain came to visit for lunch and we only had 10 chickens made (we weren't getting more chicken til the next hour). I went to get it out of the sham and when I went to bring it to the grill I dropped the sham and lost 8 chickens. Luckily they mostly ordered sandwiches so we were able to get all the orders out with 2 chickens but I never feared losing my ng job so much for f up such an important event.
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    Font - jolloholoday If you haven't ever strained a huge stockpot full of stock straight down the sink, are you even a professional cook?
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    Font - gamerladyM A tie between the time I spilled a 5 gallon bucket of agave (fortunately it was just over half full), and the time that I cracked a spoiled egg, which somehow found its way into some fresh eggs, while I was making cookie dough. The first was a horrible cleanup, the second was the most horrendous smell. I somehow managed to not throw up, but it was a very close call.
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    Font - the_barroom_hero First boh job I roasted a whole pork belly upside down. The meat was dry as f and the delicious, crispy fat cap was a grey blob of st. Chef still served it. I felt fu ing awful, never did that again.
  • 23
    Font - Oh, same job, literally my first day, the executive chef for the whole company was there getting things going (this was a brand new location) and asked me to make a batch of the berry crumble filling. I hadn't done that one yet, but I'd made the same thing at home before so no big... Until he tasted it and goes "try that. What's missing?"
  • 24
    Font - It was sugar. sugar. In a f dessert. I forgot the king He was cool about it. Had me do it again the next day and it was perfect. "What a difference a day makes" he said.
  • 25
    Font - BirdBurnett Not my f up. University catered event. 760 covers. One of the cater guys came to my station and topped off their sugar supply. Only I did not have sugar. I have salt. During the service, the guests started to gag on the coffee. Talk about a mad rush to replace all the sugar caddies with sugar. To this day, we can only have kosher salt.
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    Font - Somodo stupid teenager working wing station, grabbed new bag of hot sauce put it in the thing and didn't know i should put the spout on before, obviously took the cap off and it sprayed like 2 gallons of hot sauce everywhere Imfao
  • 27
    Font - bluewaffleisnice Back in the 90s we had a function for 12k we had a team of commis and kps on peeling and cutting potatoes for roast potatoes it literally filled a whole walkin of pots and tubs for the potatoes. We told the commis to fill them with water before they got off. The next afternoon we went to get the pots out to cook and ive never seen so many black potatoes in my life tens of kilos of them safe to say we left toasties off that menu.
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    Font - Onk Leeian44 Was serving tables accidentally closed a check for $2500.00 instead of $25.00. It was a Saturday and it overdraftd the gusts account and that Monday was a holiday so it couldn't be fixed till Tuesday even though I immediately reversed it.. luckily the guy was super cool about it
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    Font - njsiah Very early in my cooking days I was switching jobs and stupidly decided I'd take the new one immediately and also give my old place two weeks notice. What's two weeks of double full time work? I was so exhausted that my first week was a fing mess. I managed to spill an entire box of liners all over the floor, forget to season about 100 gallons of sauce, spill half a 22qt cambro of lemon butter down the front of my coat, and apparently send out a salad with a shard of broken glass o
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    Font - TheMensChef Dropped 24 crime brûlée at the last step of a stair case like an hour and a half before service. in my defense that s was outside and was always mad slippery when wet/damp, which it was. Definitely not OSHA approved.

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