The industry reacts to Som Saa chef Shaun Beagley's dismissal last week

The industry reacts to Som Saa chef Shaun Beagley's dismissal last week after it was revealed that he is the author of a series of videos labelled ‘offensive’ and ‘racist’.

Shaun was dismissed last week after it has been revealed that in his (since deleted) videos for 'Boring Kitchen' on his YouTube channel, that he was heard mimicking a south-east Asian accent. Shaun has previously trained at Nahm and Bolan in Thailand and founded the Boring Thai brand in 2017, alongside working as a chef at Som Saa.

He runs the ‘Boring Kitchen’ YouTube channel and also owns the @BoringThai Twitter and @boring.thai Instagram accounts (previously @boring.original.thai.food) which have subsequently been deleted and made private respectively. In some of his text posts, he replaces the letter L with R and in his videos, he is heard mimicking a south-east Asian accent.

Shaun's firing was accompanied by Som Saa issuing an apology saying that the comments made by the dismissed chef were not 'of those of Som Saa or any members of the Som Saa team'.  Whilst many have lauded the restaurant's apology, there has also been some criticism too throughout the industry.

Head chef of Som Saa Andy Oliver has released a statement on social saying: "I'd like to make a comment on the recent events regarding Som Saa's employment of the individual behind the online persona, Boring Kitchen. I and the team as Som Saa care passionately about being open, tolerant and welcoming of people from all backgrounds and nationalities - whether staff or customers. But, through some of my actions and Som Saa's employment of the individual concerned, we have clearly failed to live up to that standard."

He continued: "We had previously made it clear to him that we objected to his stupid, often utterly offensive social media persona and in the end, we fired him. But, we should have seen it more clearly and we should have acted much earlier and for that, we are both saddened and sorry."

He also added: "I would also like to personally and unreservedly apologise for commenting on one of Boring Kitchen's cooking videos which have, quite rightly, been identified as highly offensive. I should have recognised at the time just how objectionable it was and I am now asking myself hard questions why I didn't."

He concluded: "I apologise again to anyone I've offended or let down. I am determined to come out of this episode wiser and more humble."

Leyla Kazim has questioned why Shaun Beagley's behaviour hadn't been identified by the restaurant in the first instance:

So the restaurant and staff really had no idea this whole time there was a massive racist in their kitchen?

— Leyla Kazim (@LeyLaLaa) July 13, 2018

In response to Andy Oliver's tweet, Holborn Dining Room chef Calum Franklin has criticised Andy Oliver's response saying: "Repeatedly referring to a racist, not by his actual name but instead as a 'social media persona' is as good as saying he's not racist *it's just the internet*"

Neil Rankin, chef patron at Tempur said that as an industry, that issues pertaining to sexism and racism need to be tacked:

I was going to stay silent on this but as a white guy that draws inspiration from Asian cultures that’s too much like the standard unhelpful white guy behaviour. pic.twitter.com/BJhimxpSBP

— Neil Rankin (@frontlinechef) July 15, 2018

Dave Ahearn has questioned the sincerity of the restaurant apology saying:

If Shaun Beagley was posting these racist things openly on social media, he was say the same (Or worse) every day in @somsaa_london and keeping