Did you ever watch someone get proven wrong in real time and just sit there smiling? My buddy runs a small bistro and he had this salad with candied walnuts, three kinds of citrus, and a fried goat cheese thing on top. His prep cook quit and he couldn't find anyone, so in a panic he stripped the plate down to greens, one dressing, one crunch. He was sure people would notice. Nobody did. Tickets actually came out faster because his one guy left could knock out a whole night of prep in an hour instead of three. Sales went up. His stress went way down. So yeah, I don't think it's just your kitchen culture, most plates have too much junk on them and nobody ever eats it anyway.

The referral thing is real but I'd push back a little on the idea that networking replaces applying. In my experience you still need the app in the system, the referral just gets a human to actually look at it. I did the same retail to IT jump a few years back and my first offer came around app 60 or so, but it was a referral too. The cold apps mostly died in the ATS black hole. So yeah, work the network hard, but keep applying because the referral usually needs an open req to attach to.