The power of the kitchen
I remember how much better a kitchen can make me feel. By Kate
UK
So I hoped, as I crawled along the M25, that this group would be similarly lovely; the sort that makes another late night at work no effort at all. Thank God for Green & Blue where that sums up almost every single one of our tasting crews. I don’t think I could carry on if it didn’t.
I had hoped in vain. They were a particularly poor group, truth be told. There were more than a reasonable amount of people who cannot bear, for even very few seconds, not to be the centre of attention. And it is most usually those who are neither interesting, witty or even particularly attractive who feel most strongly about imposing their ordinariness on everyone else. To be fair, there were actually enough very pleasant people who were genuinely interested (and who all apologised to me afterwards) to keep me from shrieking “oh, go fuck yourselves!” and flouncing out of the room.
But it was still tough. I had a bad cold and that was on top of a particularly hideous day; so I did not have the most wonderful evening but at least it finished early. They wanted dinner on the dot of 8.30pm and no wine (or amount of wine) was going to stop that happening. Which suited me just fine. By 8.32, I was out of the function room, right in the middle of evening service.
It has been a while since I have been in a kitchen during service. Now, if I find myself in a restaurant in a work capacity, I am outside, talking about wine. I do pop in and out during the evening but that isn’t the same thing at all as being properly immersed.
I always loved to be right in it. I don’t think I ever hugely enjoyed my time on the floor in restaurants. (Please understand that this is an industry term which means you are the person who works with guests – as a waiter, manager, sommelier, hostess etc. I do not mean I spent a good deal of my time either passed out or recovering from a clumsy fall.)
But the kitchens were something else. Sultry, intense worlds suffused with smells; men (and only very few, if any, women) working almost in a dance; everything perfectly choreographed.
I had started studying wine and decided that I wanted to know as much about food. So, on one of my days off every week, I worked in the kitchen at Mezzo. This was quite a kitchen to start in and even from the outside it had seemed like a world I wanted to be in. It was on a grand scale (those were the days when we did almost 1000 covers on a Saturday night) and everything came in mounds and piles. It was all brilliantly vivid. The colours and textures of the raw produce when it arrived, cold from the early morning. Garlic and ginger practically tattooed into your hands, thumbs stained black and sticky from picking fresh herbs; nails broken from bearding mussels. These were long days in a week of already long hours and I would walk home afterwards comatose; smelling of chargrilled meat; raw fish or chocolate and vanilla, depending on which section I had been in. I always slept really well after that.
It should be noted that I was enormously lucky to work in a kitchen presided over by Chris Galvin and so never had to deal with one of those shouty, sweary everything-on-a-knife-edge situations which are just ridiculous. And this particular kitchen served a huge amount of people during every service most days – lunch and dinner, so it was not without pressure.
Those were my happiest restaurant memories. I was in my chef’s whites and in my element and while even then, I didn’t eat much of the kind of food I was cooking; just learning about the discipline of preparation was fascinating. For me, it still is and especially now that I am increasingly interested in trying to crack the healthiest possible version of something without losing even a modicum of deliciousness.
So on Thursday I went and watched Russell and his team in the kitchen. A much smaller kitchen than the one I worked in but the moves are essentially the same. They still say “Oui, Chef” in unison. I used to always love that. You are part of an army when you reply to an order with those words. A benign, clever army who are about to serve great food.
I had forgotten how much I like good chefs as well and how at home I always feel in their world. (We will not touch on how I feel about the bad ones here). People who really know and love food and who want to create something special. Again, it might not be the sort of food I want to eat but just the fact of putting an enormous effort into creating something noteworthy is a brilliant thing to be part of.
20 minutes of watching a few courses on the tasting menu, some starters and some mains go out and I was restored. It was almost as relaxing as having a massage. Almost. This is a complicated menu with jellies, foams, artful splodges and slate plates; so there was a lot going on. All of that is pretty opposite to how I cook but that is why I want to learn about this even more. Perhaps something revolutionary will come to light and even if it doesn’t ; it will be a good experience.
So I have decided. I am going to do a shift in the kitchen soon. Properly, like I used to. Starting at the same time as everyone else, wearing whites and ruining my hands. Spend some time with the chefs. Men who make food always know how to cheer a person up.
