Pop Culture
The One Detail That Can Make or Break a Chef Movie
Why a towel says so much about a chef.
In a restaurant 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 towel: It dirties your uniform, the towel will drop if you suddenly move, it’s easier to grab something from your hip than your shoulder, and—as he put it—it’s “[insert expletive] embarrassing.”
A towel hasn’t gone on my shoulder since.
Instead, every towel has remained clasped to my hip—a practice you can observe in nearly any well-regarded, fine dining kitchen throughout the world. According to former Eleven Madison Park line cook—and current Food52 Test Kitchen manager—Alison Buford, you should keep two towels on your hip. “I was taught that your front towel is for wiping your hands and surfaces and to have a second towel tucked in [your] back apron strings so you always have a dry towel at the ready to handle hot things,” she said. You would never catch her draping a towel over her shoulder.
The disdain for shoulder towels extends to the internet. In a Reddit thread debating the acceptability of shoulder towels in professional kitchens, the top comment made it clear: “You aren’t in the kitchen to wax a car, your towel should be in your hands, on your apron or on a table/surface, never your shoulder.” Another user summed it up with just seven words: “Disgusting. Dirty towel, dirty jacket, dirty chef.”
Despite consensus among professional cooks—who call this cloth a side towel, after all—the shoulder towel persists, most visibly in films and TV. It’s the kind of insider detail that a movie or television show should get right—and when they don’t, it’s an obvious tell that someone didn’t do their homework.
With this in mind, let’s towel-track some notable kitchen-focused shows and movies and compare it to their Rotten Tomatoes scores. My thesis: The best films are the ones where the towels stay by a chef’s side.
The Bear (2023)
As if they were working right alongside Alison, the cooks in The Bear keep two towels on their waist—and it stays that way throughout the show’s first two seasons. Known as one of the more realistic portrayals of restaurant work, much of The Bear’s accuracy can be attributed to input from the show’s culinary producer Courtney Storer and actor, producer, and professional chef Matty Matheson. Rotten Tomatoes: 99%.
The Menu (2022)
In its searing critique of elite restaurant culture, food media, and people that write articles over-explaining the importance of side towels (uh oh), The Menu needed to nail the visual details of fine dining to stick its satirical landing. Spoiler: It does so very, very well—and when you observe the line cooks working for Chef Slowik (played by Ralph Fiennes), you’ll notice their side towels are just that: hip height. Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
Burnt (2015)
Bradley Cooper’s character in Burnt is an amalgamation of culinary cliches (i.e. he’s toxic, but talented!). Despite learning his craft at “the best restaurant in Paris” and being on the verge of getting his third (fictional) Michelin star, Chef Bradley routinely dons a shoulder towel. Rotten Tomatoes: 28%
Ratatouille (2007)
The attention to detail in Ratatouille is consistent with the rest of Pixar’s critically acclaimed films: exhaustive. From the succinct explanation of the French brigade system to the chefs emphasis on cleanliness and organization, there’s little wrong with this animated masterpiece—and there’s no shoulder towels to be found in the restaurant’s kitchen. Rotten Tomatoes: 96%
Kitchen Confidential (2005)
An adaptation of Anthony Bourdain’s popular memoir, Kitchen Confidential—which coincidentally also stars Bradley Cooper—ran on FOX for one season in 2005. As The Ringer’s Mara Reinstein puts it, this show “was The Bear before The Bear.” The only problems? It’s not very good—and it has shoulder towels. Rotten Tomatoes: 65%
Final Thoughts
If you notice a shoulder towel in the trailer for a television show or movie that’s attempting to realistically portray restaurant cooking, watch something else.
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