When they told me there was a place looking for a cook, behind Vicolo del Fico, near Piazza Navona, I was tempted to say no, for the usual reasons. Déjà-vu should be opening soon, maybe in a week, two at the most. Instead, I wrote down the number, called Arturo — the owner — and the very next day I was standing in front of his restaurant. I hesitated for a moment before entering the dusky glass doors and decided there was no point putting on my interview face today. Then I stepped inside.
The place must have seen better days. A spacious room in a vaguely art deco style with a pretentious-looking mirror taking up most of the wall behind the bar. Old-fashioned beer taps, glass shelves groaning under an array of bottles, a somewhat glum air about the place, like an old wooden jewelry box with crumpled velvet lining, but not too bad. The restaurant area followed on from the bar, same chairs but rectangular tables rather than round. The place was utterly, wretchedly empty. And I don’t just mean there were no diners, who at this time — it was about six thirty in the evening — wouldn’t have arrived yet; I’m talking about the staff. You could hear a pin drop. No one setting up tables or sweeping, nothing other than a poignantly sweet jazz trumpet playing in the background. The only person in the restaurant was a gentleman of about sixty with a thick mane of pure white hair, combed straight back and falling onto his shoulders. He smiled and approached me with his hand extended. He had to be Arturo.
“Leonardo, right? Do you like this track? All Blues by Miles Davis, one of the best albums ever … listen, listen here …”
“Pleased to meet you … Arturo?”
“Yes, yes, that’s me, come here, come over here, I’ll show you around. Have you heard of Miles Davis?”
“I’ve got quite a few of his records — I love Kind of Blue. This summer I was working at the Verve during the jazz festival.”
“So, you’re a jazz-loving chef? Do you play any instruments?”
“No.”
“Oh, that’s a shame, that’s a real shame. Come, come, I’ll show you the kitchen.”
“Is there anyone working in there?”
“Nah, no one. Out of the blue that son of a bitch walked out on me and I can’t close down while I look for another chef so I’ve been doing everything myself.”
“You mean you tend bar, take orders, and cook too?
“I have to, who else otherwise? And it’s not the first time, either. I’ve been doing this job forever. I was born into this life, customers, bars, restaurants. I was born into it.”
The kitchen was a black hole, the likes of which I had never experienced before. To enter it, you went down three steps and then you were in a kind of windowless basement, with glaring neon lights. The first thing I saw was a filthy slicer clogged with bits of dried prosciutto fat and old cheese. There’s nothing worse than sticky cheese for messing up the functionality of such a superb machine — the same kind that ransomed a piece of my thumb. At the Verve I would hover and fuss over the slicer as if it were a woman too beautiful to be left alone. It was always gleaming, wiped down after every use, taken apart and cleaned meticulously every blessed night, no matter how late we finished. The pasta boiler was switched off but still full of cloudy, yellowish water with dried starch residue sticking to the sides and the baskets. Of which there were only two, with the third missing. Next to the pasta cooker was a hot plate, blackened by the meat of ages, never touched by a scraper, and with the grease chute completely blocked.
While Arturo was talking, I opened the oven door and found the same grunge. The oven in itself was not half bad, a self-cleaning Rational that couldn’t be more than three years old. Unbelievable that it was already in this woeful condition. I continued looking around, and the way the equipment was positioned was anything but typical: six cooktop burners in the center with a lopsided hood above — filthy — a pasta cooker, hot plate, and fryer along the wall. The pass — a steel trolley on wheels — over on the opposite side, near the steps leading out of the kitchen. So to hand dishes to the waitstaff, you were forced to go around the cookers and, on a really busy night, waste an awful lot of time zigging and zagging.
The floor was grimy, a minefield of leftover food scraps; and I spied a couple of mousetraps. The dishwashing area was separated by yet another step and contained two oversize dishwashers. I concluded that either this place used to be really busy or everything was bought at some liquidation auction. It transpired that the chef who preceded me was an alcoholic psychopath with manic depression, a compulsive masturbator, as well as a thief and a lowlife.
Apparently Arturo was drowning in a sea of shit at the moment. He didn’t give a damn about my CV, he was just happy to find himself face-to-face with a wholesome-looking young guy who might turn out to be a stroke of good luck. He was already listing his grand designs, the potential of the place, the dishes that did really well and for which masses of hungry customers would happily wait in line. The more he talked — and I listened — the more he convinced himself I was the chosen one capable of turning this dire situation around. He apologized for the mess. Shit, even he was disgusted by the state of the kitchen, but that bastard had left him in the lurch, without warning, a real douche bag; he took his money, though. That he made sure he got, and the minute there was the smallest glitch, he took off without a moment’s hesitation. But Arturo’s tough. He refused to give in. He’d created this place from scratch. The best dishes were his own creations, and he’d been doing it all by himself for nearly two weeks. I can understand that; shit, after working fifteen hours straight, doing everything yourself, the last thing you feel like doing is cleaning. And if this place interested me, we could grow together, work out a plan, and he was willing to share the rewards as well as the workload. Plus we were only a stone’s throw from Piazza Navona — so customers simply stumbled into the place — and he made a meat loaf that was the stuff of legends.
“But you don’t even have a kitchen hand?”
“Believe it or not, that heathen took the dishwasher along with him. He found a job in another restaurant, and besides lifting my money and my knife kit, he took the dishwasher and the waitress with him. They all ditched me.”
In reality, all I needed was a place without too many hassles to bide my time until the opening of Déjà-vu, and if he thought he could trust me, he was making a big mistake. Then again, I certainly didn’t trust him either.
“What were you thinking in the way of wages?”
“You must be used to chef’s wages in grander places than this. Here you’ll have to roll up your sleeves and grow with me.”
“Yeah, sure, so do you have a figure in mind, a contract?”
“For the time being, no contract. Let’s say we start with a month’s trial, how about that? We don’t really know each other, do we? I can give you twelve hundred euros a month, six days a week, dinner only, from five p.m. onward. How about it?”
“It’s not a great wage. Plus, there’s a lot of work to do in the first few days … Can I have a look at the menu? That’ll give me an idea.”
He handed me a menu, all crumpled up and coffee stained. No removable pages; it’s definitely been around for a helluva long time. No seasonal dishes. I gave it a cursory glance, with a quick look at the prices — not high but not dirt cheap — and mentally priced the ingredients and judged the difficulty of the dishes. There was no coherence in terms of culinary philosophy or any consideration for the work that needed to go into prepping and serving the dishes. Each dish stood alone, entirely disconnected from the next. The famous meat loaf — which I discovered was a recipe of Arturo’s mother’s, God rest her soul — was written in a larger font, indicating its status as the highlight of the restaurant. I looked at the desserts.
“Arturo, here’s the deal. I’ll accept the amount you’re offering, but you’ll pay me every night. I will do dinner service for the trial period, and when I finish, every night, you’ll give me my fifty euros. Then maybe we can talk about a contract.”
“Can you start tonight? I have a table for five booked, and this way you can start giving me a hand and getting a feel for the place …”
And so, here I was.
No chef’s whites, just a clean T-shirt, a cap on my head, and a sauce-stained apron tied around my waist, while the range hood whirred, making an infernal, rattling metal noise.
But all things considered, tonight I’d be getting my hands on €50 — better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
Arturo was one very strange character. When I arrived he was at the bar, and when I left he was still there, often rambling on in his own peculiar way, without any pauses, to some unsavory-looking characters. But I didn’t give a flying fuck; that was his business.
After a week, I asked him for a kitchen hand and he gave me the green light to find one. A few days later a waiter joined the staff, a young guy who rode a Honda 600. We talked about bikes and found common ground, and things started to look up. Even though the kitchen was a god-awful sauna, I wore my blacks and felt very professional. Arturo liked it and was always asking me to go into the restaurant and explain dishes to the diners; he was thrilled to show off his new chef.
The restaurant was staying afloat. I don’t know how or why, but we always managed to get between twenty and thirty covers a night. Arturo’s forehead sported permanent beads of sweat and this worried me. I kept on working and waiting for Déjà-vu, content to fuss over the stove and chat with the waiter. Arturo didn’t mind us having the odd drink, and I was never entirely sure whether or not he was drunk.
One evening the kitchen door opened, and a cute girl with a pixie haircut and huge dark eyes appeared, asking if she could have a word with the chef. I told her I was the chef. She was genuinely taken aback. She’d had a really great meal and never imagined that the chef would be so young. What time do you get off? she asked. Soon, I replied, and she said she’d wait for me outside and we could go for a drink. She’d known Arturo for ages and had left his place many times the worse for wear. Her name was Samba.
Her name made me laugh. We called the kitchen hand at the Verve Mambo, and now all I needed was to meet Polka. But I didn’t tell her that.
She had a fantastic bicycle with an aluminum and carbon fiber frame and disc brakes. It probably cost as much as my motorbike, I mused. She was self-assured and a little taller than me. She loved to eat well and said that it was true, the chef before me was indeed a stuck-up piece of shit, my cooking was much better. Even the meat loaf was better. Time flew, and we found ourselves in front of her apartment building. We’d had quite a lot to drink, and she said, Why don’t you come up, and so I went through a cavernous and untidy kitchen where she told me her mother was sleeping, and to not worry about anything. Her father was from Algeria but he wasn’t around anymore — that’s all she said, he wasn’t around anymore. There were photos of her with long hair, and I sensed something awful in her life, but I didn’t believe it had anything to do with her father.
As she spoke, I wondered where the hell the logic was in my stupidity. I was twenty-six, I had had a sore back all day, my temples were throbbing because of the booze, but I was happy to be a chef because I was about to screw a customer. She obviously craved human contact, and the nearest human to her right now was me. Her home was a dusty attic near Piazza Navona, with stacks of books all over the place, crumbling stucco in a state of disrepair. The apartment had once belonged to rich folk but had fallen into the hands of people who couldn’t afford its upkeep. But it was still beautiful, maybe even more so than originally. Even Samba was beautiful just the way she was, with that thin veil of despair, the only thing covering her naked body but not diminishing her dignity.
Life is strange, all right, and I was grateful that Déjà-vu hadn’t opened yet, because I needed a night like this, with Samba reminding me of when I used to use food to pick up girls at the university. I watched her breasts moving in sync with every beat of her heart. I couldn’t hear it — her heart, I mean — but I could see it. I think cooking has taught me to know people more deeply than studying anthropology ever could.
I’ve learned to expect the unexpected behind my pots and pans; all that matters are the details, and I scoff at those who worry themselves sick over possessions and having their needs fulfilled. I’m the one who fulfils their needs, when they’re hungry or they want to celebrate something. Like stoned drug addicts, they fall into my lap, and I try to not disappoint them. From time to time, I’m the one who’s stoned and falls. I’m not interested in sous-vide cooking and I don’t need a de Mani-cor range cooker to get my fix of satisfaction. Whereupon, I fell asleep and had a beautifully vivid dream. I dreamed that I wasn’t me.