Andy Richardson: Can't stand the heat? Get out of the kitchen

He'd already served eight courses from his nine-round degustation and was in the midst of plating 33 puddings in nine minutes flat. Each was as pretty and fragrant as an Henri Fantin-Latour painting.

The chef barked his instruction to a fellow cook. As the nano seconds passed, he emphasised the urgency. "Now, please." He was in no mood to hang around. Helpfully – or so I thought – I picked up a wooden-handled palette knife and passed it to him. "Here you are, chef."

It was the wrong one. "Stick to writing, word monkey," he said, not missing a beat. The kitchen burst into spontaneous laughter as the chef's hands continued to whizz. Your put-in-his-place columnist opted for sagacious silence. "Service please. Table three. Go, go, go."

Kitchens are thrilling like a book by Stephen King. They're weird like a night in a crocodile onesie with Milton Jones. They are rock'n'roll like an afterparty with Keith Richards, Anita Pallenberg and a kilo of devil's dandruff. I spend more time in them than any non-chef ought to. They are not a place for the faint-hearted.

At a time of night when I ought to be relaxing to D'Angelo CDs, sipping hot chocolate and stepping into my camouflage Uniqlo slippers, I'm often hanging out in temperatures of 29C where the language is blue and the team are working shifts that they comically call AFD – that's All (something) Day.

The heat comes at the pass, the culinary equivalent of the front row at a Foo Fighters gig. Decisiveness is king. Split second decisions are made from 7pm to 11pm to ensure guests have the best possible time and come back for more. There's no let up. "Push, push, push. Come on, boys."

The worst kitchens are like a bad day in Syria. They are places for tin hats, desensitised ears and skins thicker than a rhino's uncle's armour-plated, Teflon-covered backside. One of the region's craziest chefs cooks in Birmingham. His staff usually last as long as it takes to fill out their P45s. He uses his pre-dinner buns as missiles and abuse flies like a volley of bullets at a shooting range. The chef – no name, no pack drill – makes Gordon Ramsay look like the Dalai Lama. Jungle law applies.

Others have a saner approach, figuring that kitchens are no place for egos. They treat their staff like humans, offer helpful suggestions when things go wrong and make sure harsh words are kept to a minimum. Their staff show respect: it's the way things ought to be. The food is invariably better.

Taking photographs in working kitchens is like being embedded in an army patrol in Helmand. You hope for anonymity and know you're doing your job well when the chefs either ignore you or make jokes at your expense.

There is much to observe. Chefs dance around their kitchens like mannequins in carefully-orchestrated syncopation. There's no room for the personal space that office workers or shift workers enjoy. Cooks hover from work station to station, dashing here and there with knives in hand, F-bombs at the ready.

One of my favourite chef incidents involved a man who thought lying would be the best policy to avoid responsibility for a damn silly mistake. As Bill Clinton, Jonathan Aitken, Jeffrey Archer and Richard Nixon all found out; lying is for mugs.

The cook had been asked to roast a rib of beef but had overcooked it to the point of ruination. Rather than fess up, he decided the best way to avoid a rollocking was by telling a big fat porker. So he took the rib of beef from the oven and hid it in a huge pot that was bubbling on the stove. When asked where the rib was, he lied and said somebody else must have taken it. The head chef frothed and foamed, venting his fury at anyone daft enough to get in his way while hunting for the missing rib. Ovens were checked, store rooms were searched, fridges were emptied from top to bottom. The rib was nowhere to be found.

As a heated service came to an end, the head chef's anger had passed and the team were cleaning down after a hard day's cooking. The mendacious cook who'd hidden the rib thought he'd got away with his subterfuge. Happy days. Until the head chef looked at his cook and said: "Could you empty the stock pot, please?"

The cook prevaricated, trying to find a reason not to carry out the simple request. It was in vain. And as the stock pot was drained, the missing rib revealed itself. The cook's career came to an end in less than a minute and the roasting he received was as intense as the one he'd given the rib.