The evening of the Incident, the Japanese chef had been off work recovering from her fall. In the dining room there was a new girl from Venice, Lucia, with whom I would later connect very closely. Her knees were double-jointed and she had already had two abortions. She had just told me she was pregnant again but didn’t seem to give much importance to it. However, that wasn’t what was on my mind. Rather, it was the fact that the young-dude chef had suddenly decided to reward me by elevating me to the rank of sous chef, hoping, in so doing, to rid himself once and for all of the Japanese chef.
“Tonight I’m not going to do a thing. I want to see how you cope managing the dishes going out,” he said.
Thinking back, I shouldn’t have been so nervous, but being a bug under the microscope does that to you. Giulio was dashing in and out of the kitchen, creating more havoc than anything else during a dinner service that was already frenzied. The dishes weren’t complicated, but the plating was quite detailed, some I had barely glanced at being prepared, and the baked sea bream with cherry tomatoes and thyme in a potato crust was one of them. I could have cooked the dish my way, of course, but that evening I was the clone of the young-dude chef and had to perform every movement exactly as he would. I knew I had to respect the hierarchy that exists in every restaurant kitchen (no chef wants a helper taking the initiative; all they want is people to do as they’re told), but I also wanted to win his trust and maybe a little more independence. The young-dude chef was standing there with his arms folded firing away orders and correcting me the whole time. Basically, he wanted to get away with doing as little as he possibly could.
“Have you checked that the sea bream fillets are properly deboned?”
I was pulling the fish from the fridge to rinse it under running water and dry it, and looking at the long line of tickets on the rail above my head.
“Yes, Chef, I deboned them yesterday.”
“Have you sliced the potatoes?”
I was already reaching for the gastronorm full of julienned potatoes that had been left to soak in water.
“Here they are, Chef, I prepared them fresh as soon as I arrived.”
“Careful with the pan, if the heat’s too high the oil will burn.”
I took the pan off the heat although I had barely lit the gas and was just pouring in the olive oil.
“And the cherry tomatoes?”
“All ready, Chef. Cut in half and draining on the wire rack.” Out came the tomatoes from the fridge.
I added butter to the spaghetti with bottarga fish roe and stock to the surf-and-turf risotto that a table of ten of Giulio’s friends had ordered quite a while before. I was screaming at the kitchen hand for the appetizers because he was taking too long threading the shrimp and bacon onto the skewers.
“Careful with the skin. It must not come off and it’s got to be crisp.”
“Of course, Chef, crisp.”
“But don’t overcook the fish.”
“No, Chef.”
I leaned over to look in the oven; it was always on during service and therefore obviously hot.
“Three sixty-five degrees, Chef.”
“Put it up to three ninety.”
I turned the temperature dial up just a fraction, to 390°. “All done, Chef.”
I was still calling for the appetizers, the risotto was ready, the spaghetti was done, and the four baked pasta dishes needed to be pulled out of the oven before they started to burn. Everything had to go out at the same time. I lifted the sea bream with a silicone spatula, gave the potatoes a shake in the other pan to crisp up and brown them a little.
“Go, go, go! Get that bream into the oven, you’re falling behind, shit, you’re in the weeds!”
“All good to go, Chef.”
I took the fish off the heat with the tomatoes, a handful of capers, some grated lemon rind, a pinch of thyme, and a dusting of salt, then laid the potatoes over the top and shaped them quickly with my hands. I licked a finger to taste for salt, then put the pan in the oven and started plating the other dishes. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the kitchen hand was still behind with those fucking appetizers. I was ringing the bell like a lunatic to call Lucia.
“Hey, Luci, start taking out the baked pastas and the spaghetti and then come back here and I’ll give you the others.”
As Lucia called Giulio for help, I ran to the appetizer station to pull the shrimp broth out of the fridge, pour it into a bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and put it into the microwave.
“Grab the kamut croutons!” I shouted to the kitchen hand, who finally seemed to have stirred from his listless torpor and was scattering croutons over dishes on the pass, and drizzling them with parsley-infused olive oil.
“Come on, Leo, get a fucking move on, the bream is browning, come on, it all has to go out together!”
I could see the wrap balloon over the soup in the microwave. It wasn’t supposed to get too hot. I was screaming at the kitchen hand to load it on the pass with the skewers, the sauces, and the two salads. I grabbed the pot holder above the oven and pulled out the pan with the bream, placed it back on the burner to crisp the skin, stretched over the counter to get a serving plate, and started to decorate it with two thin lines of mayonnaise, some aromatic herbs, and ruby paprika. I couldn’t find the carrot curls.
“Where are the carrot curls?” I asked. “Where are they? Hasn’t anyone prepared them?” Damn it, it was me who hadn’t prepared them.
“I’m sorry, Chef, I forgot them! Can I plate the dish without them?”
“Come on, come on, move! Of course you need the carrot curls, but it’s too late now … just get on with it!”
I looked over at the pass: The plates were still all sitting there, Lucia was at the door waiting for the bream, the young-dude chef had finally stopped breathing down my neck and was getting the toasted sesame seeds to sprinkle over the salads. I turned off the gas and bent down to grab the pan out of the oven. Without a pot holder. A searing pain split my brain in two like an apple, leaving nothing but the big red numbers on the temperature display: 390°. I lifted the pan from the oven as the heat burned through every layer of skin right down to the bone, and from there to my eyes, setting off a powerful spasm, but I managed to place the pan on the pass near the serving dish that was waiting for it. My right palm was shiny and dry like a pane of glass. But I used it to pick up the steel palette, delicately remove the fish from the aluminum pan, and place it in the middle of the dish. I cleaned the edges of the dish with great care using the cloth I kept tucked in my apron strings and drizzled a few drops of smoked oil over the top. I glanced over the dishes confidently and then, finally, uttered the magic words: “Take it out!”
“In here, I’m the one who decides what goes out.”
“Sorry, Chef.”
“Take it out!”
Lucia left carrying three plates, followed by Giulio with the other two. I inched back toward the ice machine, plunged my entire right arm into it, grasped a handful of ice cubes and lifted it out, keeping my arm behind my back. I could barely distinguish between hot and cold. I could hear the water dripping onto the floor but did not utter a sound, not wanting to appear the complete dickhead I genuinely was. Then I got some butter and rubbed my hands with it, like it was some kind of miraculous medication. Nobody realized what had happened. I finished service wearing rubber gloves, my hand throbbing as if it had a heart of its own in a state of permanent fibrillation. The dishes had to go out and they had to be perfect, immaculately presented, and all at the same time. That was how it had to be and that was all that mattered.
On the way home that evening, I stopped at an all-night drugstore and bought a tube of burn ointment. My palm sported a massive blister, plus four more on my index, middle, and ring fingers, and pinky. Only my thumb had been spared. They say humans evolved larger brains after developing opposable thumbs, and not vice versa. I had saved my intelligence and my reputation. What a dumb-ass idea to put a pan in the oven. I’d never have a crappy dish like that on my menu.