Ask almost any restaurant industry veteran about her early days on the job, and she’ll regale you with tales of screaming chefs, flying hot pans and countless slammed fists. The restaurant kitchen has long been, literally and figuratively, a heated place, heightened further by chefs’ egos and a hierarchical machismo culture that prides itself on instilling fear in those at the bottom rungs.

Today, particularly in the Bay Area, things are changing. Such stories certainly still exist, but the industry is beginning to experience a shift as it catches up to a more tolerant and enlightened general workforce.

Many believe it’s the direct result of a severe staff shortage, a problem that’s made it increasingly difficult for restaurants to operate the way they once did. The culinary field has become a much broader one, too, with tech companies and other big businesses luring cooks out of the kitchen, promising more humane hours, higher pay and enticing perks. Plus, organizations devoted to labor equality have shined a spotlight on issues that historically have made the restaurant a difficult place to work.

Yet a sexual harassment case this spring highlighted that not all restaurant employees feel as if progress has been made. Celebrity chef Michael Chiarello was sued by members of his Coqueta staff for alleged explicit advances and failure to pay wages, among other accusations. This served as a wake-up call for others to focus on safe, gentler workplace environments.

“The whole culture has changed,” said Roland Passot, chef and owner of San Francisco’s La Folie. At age 61, yet still in the kitchen nightly, Passot has witnessed the evolution. “It used to be that you worked by fear, just like the Army. It was work or die. It was bad, but it existed because we didn’t know better.”

Career turning point

When Passot began work as a teenage apprentice in Lyon, France, it was a completely different time. As a chef, he said, you were tough, and the tougher you were, the more terrified people would be of you — but they would also respect you more. It created a cycle, a pattern where those who moved up the ranks would eventually become the feared. That was the ultimate goal, he explains, one that remained true for decades.

Passot remembers a particular night when he was working in Chicago for Jean Banchet at a restaurant called Le Francais. He had done something to upset Banchet, and the chef threw a hot slab of lamb at his face, straight out of the oven.

“If it was today’s world, I would be rich,” joked Passot. “I would have been like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to sue you.’”

Instead, that night was a turning point in Passot’s career. It was the day, as he says, the abused became the abuser. The chef recalls a fistfight and a screaming match before Banchet took Passot into his office, shook his hand, and essentially promoted him, giving him his own commis (or apprentice). “Then I became the king of the kitchen,” Passot said.

Passot’s is just one story, but it echoes that of countless others — accounts of physical and mental abuse, of commonplace harassment both sexual and verbal.

“When I was growing up, it was like working on a pirate ship; it was ‘Kitchen Confidential,’” said chef and restaurateur Daniel Patterson, referring to Anthony Bourdain’s tell-all book about the culinary underbelly of New York. He said sexual harassment was prevalent in his earlier years, but there was no language in the kitchen to recognize it as a problem.

Women feel more at ease

Even female chefs who came up in the industry acknowledge there has been a sea change. Melissa Perello — who runs popular San Francisco neighborhood spots Frances and Octavia — came to San Francisco in the mid-1990s, and spent those first few years in the kitchen at Aqua.

“I was very young at the time, and one of just a few women. The environment was totally different,” she said. Perello can’t pinpoint the shift, but said the kind of vibe she experienced then is now rare.

“It needed to happen,” said Perello. “If you look at things now, it’s so challenging just to find employees. You’re not even interviewing them — they’re interviewing you.”

For Passot, notorious for losing his temper by the time he got to San Francisco, changing his ways was tied to two main events. First, he was fired from a job in Dallas. Later, his wife, Jamie — the general manager of their then-newly opened La Folie in Russian Hill — threatened to quit if he didn’t stop yelling. Ultimately, Passot realized he needed to find a more effective way to manage his staff.

“I didn’t want them to fear me,” Passot said. “I wanted them to excel.”

Chefs’ new sentiment

That sentiment is one that many chefs have adopted in recent years. Plus, as Perello said, with so many more options for workers, restaurant owners are being forced to re-examine the way they do things if they want to recruit — and retain — good employees.

“It’s hard enough to compete with the other restaurants,” said Ryan Cole, owner of Hi Neighbor Restaurant Group (Stones Throw, Trestle, Fat Angel and Corridor). “Now I’m having to fight tech companies who are paying double and giving their employees equity.”

To stay in the game, Cole has adopted something of an “if you can’t beat them, join them” mentality.

This year, Cole developed a comprehensive benefits program for his employees, one that not only includes company-wide medical and dental insurance, paid vacation, pretax commuter checks, field trips and classes, but also gives customizable monthly benefits for each employee. Workers are given $100 per month that can be used toward a variety of incentives and perks, like a build-your-own wine cellar program that allows employees to “shop” the restaurant’s selection to assemble their own collections, monthly Netflix or gym membership reimbursement, Amazon or Open Table gift cards and movie tickets, among others.

Since October, he’s had zero turnover.

“It’s great, because our employees end up recruiting for us and bringing in their friends,” Cole said.

Cole is just one of the Bay Area’s restaurant owners choosing to take the “high road,” a phrase used often by Saru Jayaraman, co-founder and co-director of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United. In her recent book “Forked” (Oxford, 2016), she praises employers who don’t cut corners — or treat people poorly — on the road to profitability.

Still a long way to go

Jayaraman, who focuses much of her efforts on educating employers about how to better treat their staffs, feels strongly that there’s still a long way to go.

“This whole industry has been absurdly behind,” said Jayaraman, citing its unwillingness to raise wages alongside the rest of the working world.

A recent study by her organization found that 1 in 3 women in restaurants in the Bay Area say they are still experiencing some kind of sexual harassment.

Cases like the one involving Chiarello don’t often make it to the public eye. Complaints are usually settled behind closed doors; a chef’s reputation can be immediately tarnished whether an accusation is true or not. But a search of court records of nearly 100 top Bay Area restaurants revealed that such complaints are less prevalent than one might guess — the only other filed cases date back more than a decade.

Jayaraman said that over the past 15 years, she’s never been approached by as many employers who want to be part of the “high road” as she has in recent months.

“There is this moment of opportunity,” she said.

An eye-opener

And, as more chefs attempt to walk this new path, young cooks are taking note.

Brandon Chang is a 26-year-old cook who works in the kitchen at Mr. Jiu’s, the new Chinatown spot from chef-owner Brandon Jew. A culinary graduate at 23, Chang had his first taste of the restaurant industry at Atelier Crenn, where he did an externship as part of his program.

“It was the most eye-opening experience for me,” said Chang, who described the Atelier Crenn kitchen as quiet and militaristic. Although the food was amazing, he said, nobody seemed to be having much fun. “I wasn’t ready for that culture; nor was I experienced enough.”

From Crenn, Chang went on to work at Campton Place, where the vibe was still intense, and then to Twitter’s corporate cafeteria, where the hours were certainly better, but he felt there was less passion from the staff.

At Mr. Jiu’s, all of that is different.

“This is the first restaurant kitchen where we have health insurance, and (Brandon Jew) is trying to keep us for just eight-hour shifts. That’s also a first,” Chang said, adding that the atmosphere is much more relaxed. “He wants his food to be on point, but he doesn’t want to get so crazy with it that you’re not having fun anymore.”

Chang said his friends at other restaurants are noticing similar patterns. He recognizes that with mandatory wage increases, it’s hard for those running the show, but appreciates that they’re still trying to be fair to their employees.

Even Passot — who for so many years was concerned only about being at the top — has begun to lift up his cooks by giving them the stage on Monday nights, when the restaurant is normally closed, for their own experimental pop-ups. The hope, he said, is to build a team of young chefs who are happy and involved — and will excel with his support.

Of course, many wonder if this new culture is a true turning of the tide.

“You can have fabulous leaders, but the real question is: What will be the most prevailing, most common way of doing things?” Jayaraman said. “Will people go back to the low road once they can get workers easily again?”

Rethinking business model

Between rising rents, food costs and wages, not to mention technological advancements, restaurants’ entire business models are being reconsidered.

“Restaurants themselves are in a state of flux, and nobody knows what’s going to happen,” Patterson said.

Still, many chefs and restaurateurs say these are good, necessary steps. It’s important, they say, to make restaurants more humane places, where people are allowed to do their work in a safe environment. One where there’s no need to worry about sexual harassment — or flying lamb.

Amanda Gold is a food writer living in San Francisco. Email: food@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @AmandaGold Instagram and Snapchat: @goldelish