From Recognition to Responsibility: A Moment of Reckoning for Hospitality

By John Caldwell

Since when did a restaurant hat double as a moral halo?

What about the PEOPLE?

For as long as I can remember, the Good Food Guide (GFG) hats have been the industry’s bragging rights. A badge of honour. A “we’ve made it” moment for chefs, managers, bartenders and operators who pour their whole life into creating magic on a plate.

But lately, the hats have taken on a new job description: moral judge, jury and executioner.

This year we watched a major food guide decide that entire hospitality groups would be excluded from hat eligibility based on serious allegations reported in the media  before any regulator or court had made findings, and without any transparent process for how these decisions are reached.

The allegations themselves were not small. They involved claims of underpayment, unsafe conditions, inappropriate behaviour, toxic culture, exploitation and more. These are serious issues and absolutely deserve proper investigation and accountability. No one with a conscience is minimising that. A safe, lawful, respectful workplace is the bare minimum.

But let’s call this what it is: a private guide deciding, on its own terms, to punish entire organisations  and by extension hundreds, if not thousands, of hospitality workers without any framework, consistency or due process.

And that’s where things get messy.

We need to talk about who’s actually impacted

People sometimes forget that most hospitality staff don’t run the payroll. They don’t design the policies. They don’t make executive decisions. They’re chefs, bartenders, sommeliers, hosts, dishies. They’re trying to build careers in one of the toughest industries in the country.

A hat isn’t just a pretty symbol. It’s a career accelerator. It’s leverage for the next job. It’s hard-earned recognition of skill, grit and mastery.

When a guide bans an entire employer group from eligibility, it’s not executives who suffer first it’s the workers. The chef who’s spent ten years perfecting a dish. The bartender who’s moved cities for their role. The rising star who finally earned a spot in a high-performing kitchen. The staff who’ve done absolutely nothing wrong, except work somewhere a guide has decided to blacklist.

I’ve spent most of my career helping people find meaningful work in hospitality. I’ve watched the industry reinvent itself through booms, busts, crises and reinventions. I’ve seen young cooks grow into head chefs, cleaners become managers, and teams turn venues into institutions.

So forgive me if I get defensive when I see blanket decisions wiping out the industry currency these people rely on with no regard for their careers, their effort or their futures.

Imagine working your whole career for a hat that suddenly becomes unreachable, not because of your cooking, your service or your performance but because of allegations you had nothing to do with.

Imagine trying to build a career in an industry that already struggles with retention, skills shortages and burnout, only to be told your workplace is now persona non grata in the eyes of a guide you’ve spent years trying to impress.

It’s demoralising. It’s destabilising. And frankly, it’s unfair.

People earn hats. Individuals. Teams. Venues. To strip them of the chance to compete because of alleged failures at a corporate level is the definition of collateral damage.

This is not about defending wrongdoing or dismissing the seriousness of complaints. It’s not about saying “give everyone a chance” when people have been harmed.

It’s about creating a system that delivers accountability without destroying the careers of people who have done nothing wrong.

And that’s where the current approach falls apart.

If awards want to become moral arbiters, we need a better model

If food guides genuinely want to link awards to workplace integrity, and there’s merit in that idea, then let’s do it properly.

We could start with:

1. Industry-wide standards Clear, consistent, publicly available criteria that apply to every operator equally.
2. Alignment with actual regulatory findings Let the appropriate bodies investigate and determine facts. Awards should not outpace due process.
3. Independent oversight If moral judgments are going to influence awards, they should not sit within the same organisations that publish the allegations.
4. Proportionality Venue-level issues should not become group-wide bans without clear justification.
5. Focus on workers, not headlines The system should protect careers, not derail them.

None of this undermines accountability. In fact, it strengthens it. Real reform isn’t performative; it’s transparent, consistent and fair.

So what do we want hats to represent?

Excellence? Ethics? Both? Neither?

If the hats are evolving, fine, but evolution requires clarity. Because awards aren’t just decorations. They shape careers, influence business outcomes and define reputations.

Right now, decisions are being made in ways that feel reactive, selective and, at times, more aligned to media momentum than meaningful industry reform.

And in the rush to make a statement, we’re forgetting the humans in the middle, the workers who have devoted their whole lives to this craft, and who deserve better than being wiped from eligibility because a guide decided to send a message.

So here’s the question I’ll leave you with:

If hats are going to become halos, shouldn’t we make damn sure the people wearing them and the people judging them are treated with the same fairness we expect in every other corner of the industry?

Because right now, it feels like the people cooking the food are paying the price for decisions made by people who never step foot in the kitchen.