My Problem with "Heard" in Kitchens
I’ve got a problem with saying “heard” in professional kitchens.
Actually, 3 main problems, and I want to not only share them with you, but offer a practical solution, even if you’re the type of chef who’s been saying “heard” for years.
Stop saying “Heard”
Now, don’t get me wrong, I had a season where I said “heard” - I was in culinary school, it was just how communication happened. We all said “heard”.
But then, once I started working in Michelin kitchens, I actually got disciplined from saying heard.
Why?
Because in tasting menu environments specifically, “heard” causes more issues than upsides.
Considering the number of plates and attention to detail is SO complex, the expeditor standing at a pass giving orders to a team of chef-de-parties behind them needs two things to thrive: clarity and accuracy.
I mean just do the math, a 100 cover tasting menu restaurant with a 9 course tasting menu, that’s 900 plates a night. ‘
That’s more than a 400 cover restaurant doing appetizer + main course, just strictly looking at the number of “pickups” in an evening.
Layer on top of that the dietary restrictions that many restaurants juggle, adding complexity and nuance to every pickup, as well as timing with other stations that nearly every restaurant does, and it’s no wonder communication becomes an essential skill. That’s why we teach real-world frameworks in Total Station Domination!
So picture yourself, you’re standing on garde manger station, awaiting the next action item from the pass.
The expeditor calls out to pickup 4 asparagus from you, and within milliseconds of that happening, the roast station asks if they can have your beet vinaigrette for an allergy that they’re picking up.
You JUST saying “heard” creates a problem, because how does each party know you were talking to them?
SECONDLY
Kitchens are loud. You’ve got pans, utensils, plates, sizzling, the freaking hood.
If an expeditor said:
“Let’s pickup 9 buns, 2 by 4 by 3 one is gluten free”, there are actually 4 pieces of information in that sentence:
The action - pickup, not out on or ordered in, fire it now
The total - 9 buns
The breakdown - 2 top by a 4 top by a 3 top
A modification - the allergy in 1 gluten free on this pickup
Sure, in most cases when you understand every single point of that, saying “heard” is great. But what if you misheard even one of those?
Giving this broad brush confirmation can cause errors that start to snowball.
Anyone who’s worked a service that ends up being death by a thousand paper cuts knows what this feels like.
I’ll give you another one:
What if they stumble the expediting?
“Let’s pickup 5 lamb, no sorry, make it 9 lamb”
You saying heard, MIGHT mean you’re gonna pass up 9 lamb, but it’s not a guarantee. **
When “heard” is the MO, it ends up becoming this instinctual, robotic response. Because everything is “heard”, regardless of the situation.
Alright, enough bashing, what in the world do I prefer instead? Let’s talk about…
What Works Better
I’ll cut right to the chase, I prefer a communication element that I call a mirrored callback.
Some of you folks have called this the “repeat method”. It’s effectively the same thing.
Yes, this means completely eliminating “heard” from our vocabulary; we don’t need it anymore.
And it’s literally as easy as it sounds. Just mirror back whatever you just heard.
Expeditor: “Pickup 5 lamb”
Mirrored Callback: “Pickup 5 lamb!”
or
Expeditor: “Fire 8 artichoke”
Mirrored Callback: “Fire 8 artichoke!”
The reason I call it a mirrored callback is because I actually don’t mind slight tweaks to this as long as you maintain accuracy and clarity.
Just like a mirror, right? What you perceive is effectively the same thing, but it might be slightly different based on the fact that the mirror skews it a bit.
Plus, the method can sometimes feel a bit robotic and I don’t think it always allows for fun and personality, which most of us know can make service so much more enjoyable.
What mirrored callbacks might look like: :
**Expeditor: “**Pickup 5 lamb” Mirrored Callback: “Yes 5 lamb”
or
**Expeditor: “**Fire 8 artichoke” Mirrored Callback: “Firing 8, chef”
And the beauty of this is, because it’s mirrored, it has this other, kinda cool similarity with a mirror. It calls out problems.
Think about walking down the street, or stepping into an elevator, and after looking into a mirror you see you’ve got some hair out of place, or some parsley in your teeth. That mirror identifies the problem for you.
If someone does a mirrored callback and it’s WRONG, it’s often going to get fixed.
And that’s actually the MOST optimal time to solve the problem. Not when you’ve just pulled 6 plates and you really need 8, not when you’re halfway through plating, and most of all not when you’re passing plates to front of house.
You want to nip it in the bud ASAP, and mirrored callbacks, even though they takes an extra second, allows for real-time understanding confirmation and problem solving in a way that “heard” does not.
Alright, considering I already knew this might lose me some readers, let’s cover some…
Common Rebuttals
Alright, before you head to the comments, hear me out.
Some folks might ask,
“But the military uses ‘Roger’ - why can’t we use “heard”?”
Yes, there are a TON of crossovers from the military into professional kitchens.
But this one falls apart pretty quickly when, one, the main use of “roger” is with radio communications, so there isn’t an opportunity for multiple messages being received at the same time.
And secondly, roger, specifically the morse code for “R” in the telegraph days, was a quick response to send, and that made sense because you literally had it written in front of you what the other person said, there was no room for confusion.
To me, this is comparing apples to oranges - and that’s why it is actually okay for you to probably comment “heard” in response to this blog post 😉 one way communication, folks.
“But ‘heard’ is just like ‘behind’ or ‘sharp’!”
No, it’s not.
Back in the EARLY days of Total Station Domination, I had a module called Kitchen Fluency where i covered what I called “Hazard Label” phrases, just to try and help those that are new to professional kitchens.
These are “behind”, “hot”, “sharp” - and these are often 1 way communication elements.
The onus is on the person with the hazardous thing to communicate, and it typically doesn’t get a callback.
Two-way communication benefits immensely from the mirrored callback, so that’s why I prefer it.
“Saying ‘heard’ builds camaraderie in kitchens”
Don’t get me wrong, the feeling of an entire brigade saying heard in unison and being a part of that, or the cheeky inside joke of saying heard outside of the kitchen like at the gym or something, yeah it’s fun.
I agree with you - but in the context of needing to perform, preventing problems and ensuring success, my preference is to leave no room for error.
If there’s one thing chefs know how to do, it’s find ways to joke around, and so to me, camaraderie can still thrive without “heard” - I mean heck, team cohesion might even go up because there are less mistakes happening during service!
“But it’s the shortest and fastest way to communicate”
Okay this is probably the MOST common one. What’s shorter than heard, right?
It’s one syllable, it’s easy to say, it’s SO quick.
But the second you didn’t catch something and have to get ask a 4, 7, 12 word sentence question to someone, boom, you’ve lost all your “time savings”, right down the drain.
I was working with this food business once where one of their investors had this saying, he said “don’t step over dollars to pick up pennies” -and this is an exact example of that.
It’s chefs who want quick and ambiguous communication to save a few seconds, at the expense of losing MINUTES during service because they didn’t hear the expeditor right and now they have to redo the whole pickup.
In Summary:
The traditional "heard" in kitchens may fall short in high-stakes culinary environments, where clarity and accuracy are paramount.
This post challenges this norm and proposes "mirrored callbacks" as a superior alternative for chefs, culinary students, and restaurant staff. Embracing this method enhances communication, reduces errors, and could revolutionize teamwork in the hospitality industry.
If any of this resonated with you, I’d love to continue helping you in your career - first off, I have an industry podcast that I know a ton of you love listening to while you prep, I’m finally getting back to publishing those and I have some really exciting chefs I’m booking for that
Next, I write a newsletter all about industry news where I basically remove the click bait-y articles and only share the types of stories that contain impactful lessons or pieces that are worth your attention
Lastly, I run a specialized culinary program called Total Station Domination where I teach principles and habits for how to prepare, perform and problem-solve in professional kitchens, including communication frameworks to help make sure you can consistently crush service.