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The long hours, the intensity, the teamwork, the passion, the aspirations.. the burns. The very things that can excite a young chef starting out in a professional kitchen can end up being the very same things that eventually drive them out of the kitchen amongst other resasons.
The Thrillist has caught up with 8 fomer top chefs including el Bulli’s Ferran Adrià  to find why they left kitchen and what they're up to now.
We share five of the best quote below, from the joy of starting out, to the cracks beginning to appear before the final departure:
...."all of the line cooks were like my siblings and the chef was my dysfunctional surrogate parent" (Jenny McCoy)
...."he took a hot pan and took that to my backside and told me to move my ass because I was going too slow. I was 19 at the time and I was thinking, “What the hell am I doing this for?" (Trevor Bailey)
...."I had to figure out who this new person was going to be... I was pretty much dreading every day, after I quit the kitchen" (Marisa Mangani)
..."For a long time I was a cook without a country" (Barton Seaver)
...."I miss the smell of a working kitchen when you walk in first thing in the morning"(Jason Sheehan)
Click through to The Thrillist for the full interviews and to see what they are all doing now......
