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“I'm not an asshole. I'm a perfectionist. I want this done like this, and that's it.” Lorna McNee · The Go To Food Podcast

Food & Beverage · September 2026

“I'm not an asshole. I'm a perfectionist. I want this done like this, and that's it.” — Lorna McNee, The Go To Food Podcast

Asked what people get wrong about chefs, McNee takes on the tyrant-kitchen stereotype directly. She says she does not want her team working long hours and treats them as well as she can, and that the reputation comes from the moment you have to tell someone the same thing twice. Being exacting about how a dish is done, she argues, is not the same as being cruel.

Transcript

The Go To Food Podcast Around 33:48 into the episode
Lorna McNee

People thinking that all chefs are wankers. Yeah,

Ben Benton

chefs are lovely.

Lorna McNee

Some of them. I guess thinking that, yeah, that we're that every people, I think people seem to think that all kitchens are like work you over hours, don't want the best for you. Like I genuinely want the best for my team. I don't want them in here. Like some of them are in here long hours, but it's because they're either slow at what they do, they're still trying to learn what they do. So it's like, I don't want them in here all those hours. I treat them as well as I can. I'm not bad to any of them. And some people will come in and because they're not understanding something and you're given, no, this is how you do it, this is how you do it, the pressure of doing that, then all of a sudden, you're an asshole. I'm not an asshole. I'm a perfectionist. I want this done like this, and that's it. Like, just because I'm hard on you doesn't mean that I'm a bad person. I mean, I'm an arsehole. I'm not punching you, kicking you, throwing you around the kitchen. I think people have this thing that, oh, chefs scream and shout and all that. It's no, we're all very passionate, we're all very firm and like perfectionist, and this is how we want things to be. And that annoys me. People just think, oh, chefs are assholes.

Ben Benton

Post-service. I mean, you've got a 50-minute drive to get home. But post-service, what little snacks are you putting together for yourself? What's your treat after service?

Lorna McNee

I like a crisp sandwich. Yeah,

Ben Benton

nice. Or a

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode

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