JUST COOKING, SERVICE, AND ALL THE BULLSHIT IN BETWEEN.
INDEPENDENT HOSPITALITY MEDIA
A brutally honest look at the culture, chaos, and reality of the restaurant world.
WHY WE EXIST
NOT JUST ANOTHER
SEAT AT THE TABLE.
I created Foodnbullshit as a platform to go against the current and the mainstream idea that, in this industry, everything is beautiful under the clear blue sky. To torch the popular belief that there is only one narrative. One way of seeing things.
Because I don’t buy that Instagram-ready version of hospitality that is showcased every day. And mostly, I no longer recognize the industry I spent thirty years in.
Hospitality has become this management fairy tale where everybody suddenly wants to become a brand and thinks they are “visionary,” delivering platitudes about leadership, burnout, fear, addiction, anxiety, understaffing, garbage wages, or the emotional violence of this industry in carefully curated posts written from the comfort of an office.
Everything has become optimized, dull, sanitized, and safe. And to be very honest with you, it bores the fuck out of me.
This is why this website and my pages are not packed with prepackaged slogans or ready-to-cook feeds. I try to make you think, scratch the surface, and strike a nerve.
My blog and my books are far away from digital brochures picturing half-assed truths and praising all these boring postmodern concepts and menus engineered to satisfy everyone and disturb no one.
They are about the reality of the restaurant world. The brilliance, the chaos, the bad decisions, the moments that are worth coming back for.
Not sponsored by political correctness or polished by corporate talking points.
Just the behind-the-scenes and stories from the pit and the trenches that deserve to be told.
Alex Fenot.
THE NON-NEGOTIABLE MANIFESTO
NO APOLOGIES.
KITCHEN TESTED.
INFLUENCER-FREE.
DINING ROOM-RESISTANT.
CORPORATE BULLSHIT-PROOF.
NOT HR APPROVED.
100% COOKED BY REALITY.
BIO
Alex Fénot
I am French, born and raised in Paris. I am fifty-four, and I have been working in the restaurant industry for thirty-one years.
Fuck, I've just realized it makes me one of those goddamn dinosaurs. A relic of an ancient world. A lost world.
But a four-wheel-drive T. rex, because I am as comfortable working in front of the house and back of the house. I started out as a server and worked my way up to manager and then GM in Paris and London, St. Barth’s, and Miami.
I always had that good old switcheroo in mind: moving to the kitchen. And one day I did. Just like that, out of the fucking blue. It was about eleven or twelve years ago; I don’t remember exactly.
Oh, I forgot, I’ve been living in Miami for twenty years now.
I decided to leave the dining room and work on the line because those are actually the oldest memories I have from my childhood.
When I came back from school, my Sicilian grandmother was cooking good old Italian meals. As I didn’t give a shit about homework, I learned how to make gnocchi, polenta, and Bolognese sauce, chop onions, and smash garlic before I could ride a fucking bicycle.
So there was no surprise in the family when I got my first job as a server.
I always wanted to know more about restaurants because I love them; it’s the only place in the world where I don’t feel awkward. Where I feel I belong. So naturally, I worked on both sides of the pass because you can’t separate a kitchen from a dining room. It’s a whole, like the body and the mind, the heart and the brain, God and the devil, and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It’s two sides of the same coin, and I had a blast working in it for all those years.
But in January, I took a step back to reevaluate and think. Needless to say, I was a bit stuck between a rock and a hard place because hospitality had somehow become a blurred line for me. It has changed. A lot. Not the job, no. But the surroundings.
Since then, I have been taking care of my new baby; Foodnbullshit. And I am having fun doing it.
I know your next question. Do I miss it?
Fuck yeah. When I wake up, when I breathe, when I cook at home, and when I go to bed. And my body is still biologically wired for the grind. I instinctively watch the clock around eleven a.m. Around three p.m. At six thirty. And I miss being beat up at midnight. I miss the urgency, the stress, the brotherhood, the noise, and that goddamn chaos. And that’s what I miss most.
That’s why I had to find myself another one: writing.
But this one, it’s all mine, my own private, personal hell.
Yeah, yeah, I see you coming. You’re going to ask if I will ever go back and dive back into the pit or the trenches?
You can bet your ass I will.
I am not the kind of guy who gives up, and I know that restaurants and I will meet again. Don’t know when, don’t know where, maybe some sunny day or on a slow boat to China.
Sorry, I felt like quoting Sammy Davis Jr.
Alex Fenot.
NEWSLETTER
YOUR SEAT AT THE TABLE STARTS HERE
NO SPAM.
NO SPIN.
THE GOOD STUFF ONLY
Sharp stories, honest conversations, and the occasional badly behaved opinion. Delivered when there’s something worth saying.
BY SIGNING UP, YOU AGREE TO RECEIVE EMAILS FROM FOODNBULLSHIT. UNSUBSCRIBE ANYTIME.
© 2026 FOODNBULLSHIT All rights reserved.
Contact:
JUST COOKING, SERVICE, AND ALL THE BULLSHIT IN BETWEEN.
INDEPENDENT HOSPITALITY MEDIA
A brutally honest look at the culture, chaos, and reality of the restaurant world.
ABOUT
NOT JUST ANOTHER
SEAT AT THE TABLE.
I created Foodnbullshit as a platform to go against the grain and the mainstream idea that, in this industry, everything is beautiful under a clear blue sky. To torch the popular belief that there is only one narrative. One way of seeing things.
Because I don’t buy that Instagram-ready version of hospitality that is showcased every day. And mostly, I no longer recognized the industry I spent thirty years in.
Hospitality has become this management fairy tale where everybody suddenly wants to become a brand and thinks they are “visionary,” delivering platitudes about leadership, burnout, fear, addiction, anxiety, understaffing, garbage wages, or the emotional violence of this industry in carefully curated posts written from the comfort of an office.
Everything has become optimized, dull, sanitized, and safe. And to be very honest with you, it bores the fuck out of me.
This is why this website and my pages are not packed with prepackaged slogans or ready-to-cook feeds. I try to make you think, scratch the surface, and strike a nerve.
My blog and my books are far away from digital brochures picturing half-assed truths and praising all these boring postmodern concepts and menus engineered to satisfy everyone and disturb no one.
They are about the reality of the restaurant world. The brilliance, the chaos, the bad decisions, the moments that are worth coming back for.
Not sponsored by political correctness or polished by corporate talking points.
Just the behind-the-scenes and stories from the pit and the trenches that deserve to be told.
Alex Fenot.
Why we exist
THE NON-NEGOTIABLE MANIFESTO
NO APOLOGIES.
KITCHEN TESTED.
DINING ROOM-RESISTANT.
CORPORATE BULLSHIT-PROOF.
INFLUENCER-FREE.
NOT HR-APPROVED
100% COOKED BY REALITY.
BIO
Alex Fénot
I am French, born and raised in Paris. I am fifty-four, and I have been working in the restaurant industry for thirty-one years.
Fuck, I've just realized it makes me one of those goddamn dinosaurs. A relic of an ancient world. A lost world.
But a four-wheel-drive T. rex, because I am as comfortable working in front of the house and back of the house. I started out as a server and worked my way up to manager and then GM in Paris and London, St. Barth’s, and Miami.
I always had that good old switcheroo in mind: moving to the kitchen. And one day I did. Just like that, out of the fucking blue. It was about eleven or twelve years ago; I don’t remember exactly.
Oh, I forgot, I’ve been living in Miami for twenty years now.
I decided to leave the dining room and work on the line because those are actually the oldest memories I have from my childhood.
When I came back from school, my Sicilian grandmother was cooking good old Italian meals. As I didn’t give a shit about homework, I learned how to make gnocchi, polenta, and Bolognese sauce, chop onions, and smash garlic before I could ride a fucking bicycle.
So there was no surprise in the family when I got my first job as a server.
I always wanted to know more about restaurants because I love them; it’s the only place in the world where I don’t feel awkward. Where I feel I belong. So naturally, I worked on both sides of the pass because you can’t separate a kitchen from a dining room. It’s a whole, like the body and the mind, the heart and the brain, God and the devil, and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It’s two sides of the same coin, and I had a blast working in it for all those years.
But in January, I took a step back to reevaluate and think. Needless to say, I was a bit stuck between a rock and a hard place because hospitality had somehow become a blurred line for me. It has changed. A lot. Not the job, no. But the surroundings.
Since then, I have been taking care of my new baby; Foodnbullshit. And I am having fun doing it.
I know your next question. Do I miss it?
Fuck yeah. When I wake up, when I breathe, when I cook at home, and when I go to bed. And my body is still biologically wired for the grind. I instinctively watch the clock around eleven a.m. Around three p.m. At six thirty. And I miss being beat up at midnight. I miss the urgency, the stress, the brotherhood, the noise, and that goddamn chaos. And that’s what I miss most.
That’s why I had to find myself another one: writing.
But this one, it’s all mine, my own private, personal hell.
Yeah, yeah, I see you coming. You’re going to ask if I will ever go back and dive back into the pit or the trenches?
You can bet your ass I will.
I am not the kind of guy who gives up, and I know that restaurants and I will meet again. Don’t know when, don’t know where, maybe some sunny day or on a slow boat to China.
Sorry, I felt like quoting Sammy Davis Jr.
Alex Fenot.
NEWSLETTER
NO SPAM.
NO SPIN.
THE GOOD STUFF ONLY
Sharp stories, honest conversations, and the occasional badly behaved opinion. Delivered when there’s something worth saying.
BY SIGNING UP, YOU AGREE TO RECEIVE EMAILS FROM FOODNBULLSHIT. UNSUBSCRIBE ANYTIME.
© 2026 FOODNBULLSHIT All rights reserved.