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The former head chef at Comedor, Gabe Erales, won the 18th season of Bravo’s “Top Chef” on Thursday evening, a crowning honor of the television’s outstanding cooking competition show.
As the star of Erales rose, details emerged that the star chef was fired from the modern Mexican restaurant in 2020 for violating the restaurant’s policy on harassment and discrimination. Although members of Top Chef’s production team knew details of the layoff, both from conversations with restaurant management and Erales, Bravo continued to air the season with a winner that ended just weeks after filming was completed.
In December 2020, Erales did not respond to a request from the American-Statesman regarding the dismissal, but the El Paso native who helped put the upscale downtown restaurant in the top 10 of the Austin360 Dining Guide in 2019 as well as honors procured by Texas Monthly and Esquire Magazine confirmed details of his layoff with the American-Statesman this week.
Review 2019:Comedor’s sophistication is unmatched in Austin’s Mexican restaurant scene
Erales admitted having a consensual sexual relationship with a female member of his kitchen staff in the summer of 2020 – and then cutting her hours off in November after returning from taping the Portland King-Making culinary show in September and October . Erales said he cut the woman’s hours due to her performance, despite comedor cooking partner Philip Speer telling the American statesman he did not consider the woman’s work a sufficient reason for the hour cut.
At the time of the chef’s departure in December, the owners of the Comedor said that Erales was fired for “violating our guidelines and behaving contrary to our values.” In June, Speer told the statesman that Erales had been fired for repeated violations of the company’s ethics policy regarding harassment of women.
“After returning from ‘Top Chef’ as a manager, I made some business decisions that affected this employee and were found to be discriminatory, and I realized that these were bad decisions,” Erales told the statesman this week. “I’ve spent the past six months really thinking about these mistakes and taking the steps necessary to become a better husband, father, cook, and leader through therapy and spirituality.”
Erales told the American statesman that his physical relationship with the kitchen worker ended after he returned from Portland, but that he continued to communicate with her unprofessionally.
The statesman does not name the employee due to the nature of the allegations. She declined to comment on this story.
A spokeswoman for “Top Chef” declined to comment on the story. A source close to “Top Chef”, who spoke on condition of anonymity for not having the authority to speak publicly, told the American statesman that the show learned from Comedor in December that Erales was charged with violating however, the restaurant’s harassment policy said the restaurant did not provide any further details about the sacking.
The source said Erales told the production team that he had a friendly relationship with a member of his kitchen staff, a relationship Erales told them that ended in August, and that Erales said he later cut the employee’s hours down. The source said that in addition to a pre-casting background check, the company investigated Erales’ behavior on the set of “Top Chef,” found no problematic behavior, and decided to continue airing the show as planned.
Re-cutting the season was not considered, the source said, adding that scrapping the entire season would not be fair to the other 14 cooking candidates and a production team that had endured the challenges of the pandemic in producing the show.
When asked about the details behind the show’s discovery of information about Erales’ sacking and why the season of “Top Chef” was allowed to air despite knowledge of his resignation in the spring, a Bravo spokesman said the network did not have one Comment.
The revelations come amid a national reckoning of the sexual harassment of female employees in various industries. A recent survey of women who work as waitresses, bartenders, or other roles in the food industry found that 70% of women had been sexually harassed by their employers, colleagues, or customers, according to a report by CBS News.
Erales, who plans to open the Yucatan-inspired Bacalar restaurant on Rainey Street in the fall of 2022, believes that manager-employee relationships “are very detrimental to the work environment and will definitely affect the success of a business, especially a kitchen, affect “. that “my position as a restaurant authority will be important in the future and I know that in order to improve our industry, creating a positive, non-toxic work environment begins with a check-and-balance plan that must be followed before the doors open to open.”
The recently gilded TV star, whose only previous job as head chef was during a brief stint at the Dai Due Taqueria at Fareground, says he has never had a sexual relationship with anyone who reported directly to him at Comedor or any other restaurant . He says his firing served as a growth moment for him to focus on his responsibilities as “an honest husband and a focused leader.”
“I am even more grateful to the management team for enforcing their core values to ensure a safe work environment, because without this I would not have been able to cope with my personal challenges,” said Erales.
The “Top Chef” winner receives US $ 250,000 from sponsor S.Pellegrino Sparkling Natural Mineral Water, an article in the “Food & Wine” magazine and an appearance at the “Food & Wine” Classic in Aspen.
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