- Chef Jason La Iacona is the executive chef at Miel, a small Nashville restaurant focused on sustainability and locally sourced ingredients.
- He opens up about his mental health challenges in hopes of creating a positive new culture in an industry that has long been plagued by stress and burnout.
Jason La Iacona loves food.
Grow it, cook it, share it. The chef lights up as you walk through the gardens of Miel, the Nashville restaurant where he is the head chef.
But he knows the food industry doesn’t always love him. The constant stress of his job pushed him to breaking point and into a dark place.
he is not alone. Working in the hospitality industry, where long hours, late nights, and high levels of stress are common, can exacerbate mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression. Many workers turn to drugs and alcohol to cope with the intense demands.
For an industry still recovering from pandemic-induced shutdowns, a new priority has emerged with a vengeance: employee health.
La Iacona has been open about mental health on social media and on her podcast, F You Depression. He wants to help eliminate the stigma around mental illness that prevents people from seeking help.
Combating mental illness in the restaurant industry: One chef’s story
La Iacona ended up being taken to the emergency room.
The chef came to Nashville 10 years ago seeking a job with a large hospitality group. He immigrated from Chicago, Illinois to attend Le Cordon Bleu Institute of Culinary and Hospitality. And in 2019, he started a new job.
He began working up to 80 hours a week without days off. He refueled with energy drinks instead of breakfast and got three hours of sleep each night. He pushed himself so much, he said, because he was invested in his work that he was doing.
It is no exaggeration to say that we have invested. Passion for food and cooking shines like an aura at La Iacona. A ballpoint pen is part of his uniform, tucked into the pocket of his button-down shirt, and is used to sign for food deliveries and jot down notes and reminders.
Despite working beyond exhaustion, he could not take a break from the kitchen because there was no one to take his place. He was caught up in the toxic cycle that exists in many restaurant kitchens across the United States.
The absentee manager was not receptive to his suggestions for improving organization within the kitchen, and too much burden was on his shoulders. One day everything came to a head.
He was in the middle of his shift when he asked Human Resources for help. He tried to explain his feelings.
“I don’t think it will be successful,” he said.
He went to the emergency room, but a psychiatrist could do nothing but recommend rest and time away from work. His colleagues didn’t know how to help either. He was fired from the restaurant a month later.
“When I came out of that working relationship, I had to undergo a lot of evaluation and figure out what went wrong,” La Iacona said. “How can we prevent this from happening again?”
Uninterested in the typical job postings at restaurants around town, he started looking for a new job. He applied for the head chef position at Miel, but he was nervous about putting himself in the heat of a kitchen again.
Build a new relationship with work
When La Iacona met business owner Seema Prasad, she inspired herself to set new, healthy boundaries in her working life. He was still recovering from years of constant overwork.
He requested four shifts a week. He was able to create menus, train his team to operate on nights without him, and manage kitchen operations.
Surprisingly, Prasad agreed.
“It was liberating,” he said. “I’ve never stood up for myself before. This time was different.”
Almost four years into the job, he has rebuilt his relationship with his job, but admits he still has a long way to go to change the industry’s culture for the better.
“We have an opportunity to foster a culture of positive growth,” he said. “So do your best to do that every day.”