A head chef has won £20,000 for racial and sexual orientation harassment after his boss ranted that ‘Mexicans were not reliable people’.
A tribunal heard the comments came after head chef Cesar Omar Perez Vargas walked out of a busy Sunday shift because he had been given an ‘unreasonable’ 60 customers to cook for – more than he was contracted to serve.
Musician and then owner of the business Francis Rockcliff said that he would call the Home Office to make sure he was ‘sent back to the country that you belong’.
He also said he would tell officials that ‘you have been sexually harassing all the male staff.’
Mr Perez Vargas took the upmarket Pot Kiln gastropub in Thatcham, West Berkshire, to a tribunal.
During the proceedings, Mr Rockcliff denied that a social media post referring to Michelin trained chefs as ‘people with sautéed egos’ was ‘directed’ at the chef.
But a panel found that anyone who was aware of the circumstances around the end of the chef’s employment may consider that this is ‘exactly who they were referring to’.
The judge upheld Mr Perez Vargas’ complaints of unfair dismissal and race and sexual orientation harassment and awarded him £20,444.24 in compensation.
The tribunal, held in Reading, heard that Mr Perez Vargas starting working as a chef for the Pot Kiln in November 2019.
But in April 2022 an ‘extra burden’ was placed on kitchen staff when the Pot Kiln went from having four chefs to two.
Mr Perez Vargas said things ‘came to a head’ on a busy shift that August. The tribunal panel heard that after walking out, Mr Rockcliff followed the chef outside and the pair ended up having a heated conversation on the street which left Mr Perez Vargas feeling ‘shocked, threatened, insecure’.
The chef claimed his boss told him: ‘I knew that you Mexicans were not reliable people. I will call the Home Office and make sure that they send you back to the country that you belong. I will also tell them that you have been sexually harassing all the male staff.’
He also alleged Mr Rockcliff told him that he will ‘make sure that no one will give you a job anymore’.
Mr Rockcliff – a musician who goes by the professional name of ‘Rocky Rockcliff’ – denied making those comments.
That evening, Mr Rockliff went to the chef’s home and collected his keys.
Reading employment tribunal, where a panel upheld Mr Perez Vargas’ complaints of unfair dismissal and race and sexual orientation harassment and awarded him £20,444.24 in compensation
The following day, Mr Perez Vargas – who felt as if staff were being ‘overworked’ – handed in a letter of resignation.
It was heard that Mr Rockcliff sent a text message to staff the following day on how he was ‘changing the kitchen culture’.
‘I finally lost all the dinosaurs/old brigade chefs to my great relief,’ he wrote.
The director also wrote that he was ‘not sure that Eastern Europeans or Latin Americans have an innate understanding of English regional cookery and/or Mediterranean classic cuisine’.
It was heard that Mr Rockliff also made a social media post referring Michelin trained chefs as ‘people with sautéed egos who have lost their mojo for the love of cooking and who have overcooked their wallets for fame over food’.
During the hearing, Mr Rockcliff was ‘emphatic in stating that he is not racist’.
The tribunal said that while Mr Rockliff has a ‘tendency to talk about people in stereotypical terms’, they concluded he did not discriminate against the chef.
Employment Judge Andrew Gumbiti-Zimuto said that while the way the boss had expressed himself was ‘problematic’ and ‘offensive, he added: ‘We are quite satisfied that the reaction that Mr Rockcliff had to the events on 7 August was a sort of reaction that he would have had with anybody regardless of their race or sexual orientation.
‘It was, in our view, a natural response on the part of Mr Rockcliff to be offended by the fact that an employee had walked out on the service.’
But, they said that his behaviour after Mr Perez Vargas walked out of the shift could amount to harassment and was ‘conduct which had the effect of violating’ the claimant’s dignity.
EJ Gumbiti-Zimuto said that because those comments were clearly related to his race, ‘we are satisfied that it related to the protected characteristic of race’.
He added: ‘Because the comments made reference to (Mr Perez Vargas’) sexually harassing all male staff, that it also made reference to his sexual orientation and therefore, in our view, was related to sexual orientation.’