Originally Posted by
thegeneral
Three good answers to that:
1. Your tip is how you hold the staff accountable for good service. To hold the kitchen accountable for good food, you send the food back when it isn't good and the restaurant eats, pardon the pun, the cost of that
2. You pay for the food in the prices on the menu.
3. They generally get a cut of the tips. The same isn't true when you give the tips to the kitchen instead of the wait staff
4. Cooks get paid a higher hourly rate/salary than does the kitchen.
The chef probably didn't make your food.
The cooks in the ktichen generally do not get a share of whatever tip you leave.
The chef usually isn't paid hourly. The rest of the cooks are, and while they do earn more per hour than wait staff, they generaly make far less in total.