Despite what reality TV might have you believe, most restaurant kitchens aren’t filled with filth and egos. Most of the time you’ll find teams of creative and hard-working cooks who love life behind the scenes. To separate restaurant fact from fiction, read on to find out what it’s truly like behind those double doors—and how it affects your meal.

The head chef doesn’t usually cook.

The more famous the chef, the less likely they’re doing day-to-day work. Instead, a head chef is focusing on big-picture issues overseeing taste, developing the menu and the recipes, teaching the cooks and managing the kitchen.

You often can tell how clean the kitchen is by the bathroom.

Sanitation is just as crucial to most restaurants as it is to you. The cleanliness of the staff and the equipment is really important to chefs. If in doubt, head to the restroom. If the bathrooms are dirty, you can count on the kitchen being dirty.  It speaks to the overall fastidiousness of the general manager.

Chefs read your reviews online.

Chefs care about restaurant reviews—especially yours. While press coverage is vital, chefs are avid followers of Yelp, Twitter and Facebook. They absolutely listen to what people have to say because a restaurant doesn’t exist without a guest. While some chefs often ignore first-time diners (too subjective), complaints about saltiness (a matter of personal taste) and the type of cuisine served (a misunderstanding of the restaurant’s intention), they do pay attention to regulars and recurring criticisms. One chef says, “If there are a lot of complaints about a particular item, it’s my job to ask, ‘What are we doing wrong?’ One bad experience of, ‘My food was cold,’ is a local issue of execution. But if I see three comments about cold soup, then I’m looking for systemic problems—ingredients, preparation or a person—and need to make a change.”

Discover what else they won’t tell you here.