Ever think what it must be like to be watched all through your work day? That’s what working at a station in an open counter restaurant must be like. I assume.
You are not observed by peers but by patrons. People who pass comment and observe your every move. If they are like me they want to see how you operate, the tricks of the trade to be picked up (for example, two spoons to make a quenelle of a tartare ) and, on occasion they marvel how you can cook in 4 sq feet.
I’m sure as professionals they can tune us “observers” out. Maybe they are oblivious to us.
Yet imagine… every facial expression of your work day observed. Every messed up moment, observed. And somehow, something as delicious as this is the product of all that.