Barney comes back a few minutes later to tell me he found Sean quivering, whimpering and snotting near some bins belonging to L’Italiano, the cheap and cheerful E. coli trap along the street. He’d apparently found some leftover Ketamine in his wallet while sitting out the back and had decided to finish it off before service. I have to say the logic of that defeats me, but then I’m very much the wrong side of forty and don’t really see the appeal of disappearing down a K-hole. Unfortunately, or indeed unsurprisingly, it seems that horse tranquillizer and veg don’t mix and he came up, or fell down, or whatever you’re supposed to do, doing his mise en place. Apparently he’d been able to cope with the puntarelle – it’s an innocuous if high-maintenance vegetable – but it was the cauliflower that sent him over the edge.
Any affection I had for Sean has now completely evaporated. The brigade is a man down and I have the double-headed ego of Andrew to massage and, quite frankly, my own hangover to deal with. I don’t expect to see Sean again. And I’m hoping he’ll be too mortified to come back and pester me for his wages. He’s only on £16,000 a year, but as they say, every little helps.
‘Morning!’ Oscar pokes his head in through the back door. ‘OK to come in?’
‘Oscar!’ I grin broadly as he walks in swathed in a thick, blue, chunky duvet coat, with a rucksack on his back and his brown leather knife roll tucked under his arm. ‘Great to see you!’ He unzips his coat and takes it off. ‘You look well!’ I lie.
He looks bloody terrible, especially under the warts ’n’ all strip light that bounces of the white wall tiles and illuminates backstage. Last time I saw him he was a plump-cheeked cherub, with blond curls, fat forearms and dimpled fists like a toddler. He loved his grub and obviously sampled quite a lot of it. Two years in France seems to have taken it out of him. He’s clearly been working his moobs off, his gut and half his body fat. He’s aged about six years.
‘How was France?’ He raises a pale eyebrow, as he looks around for somewhere to hang his coat. ‘Robuchon?’ He raises both his eyebrows. ‘Hard work?’ I hazard a guess.
‘You could say that,’ he says, running his hands through his thinning curls.
‘Over there,’ I say, pointing to the row of pegs in the corridor. ‘How long did you last?’
‘Almost a year.’
‘Impressive. That’s about ten months longer than Gordon and a few weeks less than Tom Aikens.’
‘And not quite as long as Richard Neat,’ he adds.
‘Indeed, but then he was a self-proclaimed psychopath.’
‘Great chef, though,’ nods Oscar.
‘Where’s he now?’ I muse.
‘Costa Rica,’ comes the swift reply.
‘Have Robuchon still got the one employee to one client ratio going on?’
‘Isn’t that how you maintain three stars?’
‘God, I remember hearing the old stories about Robuchon, the twenty-one-hour days, the three hours’ sleep and the endless cleaning. You’d bleach your boards, you’d bleach the floors, you’d bleach the sides, the stairs, the fridges, the walls, you’d bleach your own bloody hands off. Christ, no chef left the place stinking gently of garlic and thyme – they stank of Cif and fucking Toilet Duck.’
Oscar smiles. ‘It hasn’t changed much; he trained as a monk, what do you expect?’
‘I think it has to be one of the toughest and one of the best kitchens in the world.’
‘True,’ agrees Oscar.
‘D’you remember Jean Marc who worked here for a while?’ Oscar nods. ‘I remember him talking about the headaches he got working there. By Thursday he’d had so little sleep and so much coffee his head used to throb. No amount of Solpadeine or bloody Nurofen was going to crack that mother. He never ate because he was no longer hungry. He lived on air and adrenalin. He said he’d seen several guys have fits because their bodies couldn’t take it any more and others who’d deliberately cut themselves to get time off.’
‘Yup,’ nodded Oscar. ‘There’s nothing like a bit of self-harming to get you off work.’
‘But you survived!’
‘I did.’
‘How was Michel Bras? A walk in the park after that?’
‘Put it this way, the hours were a little better. The lifestyle was little kinder and I saw daylight.’
‘Practically a holiday then?’ He smiles. ‘Well, we’re delighted you came back to us! I can’t wait to work with you.’
‘I am excited,’ he nods. ‘Very excited.’
‘Why don’t you get changed over there,’ I point back to the corridor. ‘And I’ll meet you in a minute in the dining room. We’ve got a lot to get through …’
‘Perfect. Over there?’ he quizzes, looking back over at the minimal changing facilities in the corridor, where the boys, the girls, the chefs de partie, the commis and the KPs all slip into their Denny’s work gear.
In the old days the head chef wore a grand toque hat with a hundred pleats, which supposedly represented the hundred ways he knew how to cook an egg. The colour of your trousers denoted your seniority in the kitchen, with the darker shades reserved for the most important sous chefs and the chefs de partie. The white jackets were made from heavy-duty material to protect you from spills, burns and stabbing yourself in the chest and they were also doubled-breasted and reversible so you could hide those stains. However, in recent years things have changed. Despite being around for some four hundred years the toque hat is in decline and is really only used on cruise ships, in provincial hotels, and in all-you-can-eat buffets. Any stylish head chef worthy of his own photo shoot in Observer Food Monthly usually wears gel, some well-teased Harry Styles locks, a ponytail, or in the case of Andrew, a white Zandana – which, like all good chef headgear, releases humidity and absorbs the sweat. The hats were, and are, never about keeping hair out of the food and all about the sweat. The pouring, stinking, dripping sweat. So our commis chefs wear black skullcaps, my chefs de partie don white and the KPs have a nice black and white check.
There’s the sound of a throbbing engine roaring around the back of the mews, then a screech of tyres and the loud sounds of Eminem.
‘That’ll be Andrew.’ I smile. ‘I’ll see you both through there in a minute.’
Quite why Andrew James feels the need to drive a Ferrari, I don’t know. I do know how much I pay him. He gets around £90K a year when all his bonuses are factored in, so I don’t really know how he affords it. I suppose he’s got it on HP, but I don’t get the appeal myself. I think Andrew wants a fast car because Gordon has one and his old mate, the very talented Mark Sargent, also had one. Maybe it’s a chef thing. A sort of contagion they got from footballers. Perhaps he perceives it as a mark of his success? Or the sort of thing you have to acquire once you’ve got a star. A star, a car and a taste-testing slot on MasterChef, and you’ve made it. Or so Andrew clearly thinks.
‘All right?’ he says, about five minutes later, loafing into the dining room and chucking his leather jacket over the back of one of the chairs. He puts down his beige, perforated leather driving gloves and plonks himself down in front of me, stinking of fags and attitude.
‘How are you this morning, Andrew?’ I ask.
‘Not bad.’ He stretches both his hands above his head and yawns in my face. I am half expecting him to break wind but we are all fortunately spared that delight. ‘Tired,’ he pronounces.
And he looks it. He’s unshaven, his long dark hair is greasy, his hands look like he’s been shovelling tarmac and he’s in the same grey T-shirt he was wearing yesterday. Andrew’s a good-looking bloke, lean and long, easily over six foot. The ladies love him, but today he’d have a job pulling anyone. They’d have to be at least two pints of Gavi de Gavi down before they’d give him a second glance. But that’s usually how he likes them, drunk and brief, so he can get back to his wife without too much hassle.
‘Well, thank you for agreeing to show Oscar the ropes for the next few days,’ I start. ‘It is extremely kind of you and well beyond the call of duty.’ He says nothing. ‘Um, I was wondering if we might have a look at the menu to start off with to see if Oscar here has any ideas.’
‘Nothing wrong with the menu,’ says Andrew, swinging back on his chair. ‘I didn’t hear any complaints when I got my star.’
‘No, no,’ I agree, very quickly. This is going to be much harder than I thought. ‘Um, would anyone like any water?’
I wander over to the small bar area we have in the corner by the entrance to Le Restaurant. It is not the sort of bar designed for people to prop up for hours at a time, but it’s quite a good place to park a customer if his table isn’t quite ready. The bar itself is simple, black with a silver-polished mirror front; it has four cream leather stools for perching on, and a couple of silver bowls of skinned and hand-fried almonds. Behind are a load of glass shelves weighed down with premium whiskies, fat bottles of expensive brandy, and a collection of obscure liqueurs. Below the bar are a few bottles of Speyside chilling in the fridge, one of which I help myself to.
By the time I get back to the table Oscar has taken a large notebook out of his rucksack and is leafing through it, licking his fingers with enthusiasm. Meanwhile Andrew sits stubbornly, picking the fluff off his jeans. You could cut the atmosphere with a Global knife.
‘What have you got in there?’ I ask Oscar, sitting down and pouring the water.
‘Just a few bits and bobs that I picked up in France,’ he replies.
‘Have you got the Chocolate Fondant pudding recipe?’ I ask.
‘Of course he’s got the Chocolate Fondant pudding!’ snaps Andrew, the front legs of his chair landing back down on the floor with a thump. ‘Everyone’s got the fucking fondant recipe. Anyone who’s ever employed anyone who’s ever set foot near Michel Bras’s Laguiole has taken the fondant recipe and made it their own. Gordon’s done that, everyone has. It’s like the Basil Sorbet from Robuchon: we’ve got ours, Hartnett’s got hers, it’s in Nobu. Christ, even Jamie sodding Oliver has done a basil sodding sorbet! Everyone’s “inspired” by someone – it’s just that some of us are more subtle about it, aren’t we, Oscar?’
‘Yes,’ Oscar thankfully agrees.
‘I mean, the lemon tart recipe everyone uses is Marco’s. But I’m pretty sure Albert Roux or Pierre Koffman “inspired” it. Unless you’re Noma or even Heston, I suppose, there’s only so many times you can reinvent the wheel. There are only three or four genius chefs in the world – Ferran Adrià at the dear departed el Bulli, René Redzepi at Noma, and I suppose Jean-Georges Vongerichten in New York, but he’s doing French fucking Asian bloody confusion and I hate that shit.’ He swigs his water and belches the bubbles. ‘I can’t stand fucking coriander.’
‘I was thinking sardines,’ says Oscar.
‘They’re a lot cheaper than turbot,’ I enthuse.
‘Sardines? Who the fuck wants to eat sardines? They are itty and bitty and full of bones—’
‘And flavour,’ adds Oscar. ‘With cucumber, beetroot and razor clams.’
‘Great,’ I smile.
‘If you’re a fucking dolphin,’ says Andrew.
‘Robuchon does it,’ says Oscar.
‘Robuchon … Robuchon.’ Andrew’s head is moving side to side slightly like a chicken. ‘Are you sure you’ve got it down properly?’ He can hardly contain his sneer.
Although some chefs are famously generous with their recipes – and Gordon is one of them – there are others who can be a little bit more devious, withholding vital ingredients or specific techniques, just to fuck you up at the final furlong. But the world of top-drawer chefs is so small, most of them at some stage have cooked in each or everyone’s kitchen. Gordon trained with Marco, Jean Christophe trained with Marco, Marco trained with Raymond and Albert, Heston trained with Marco and Raymond for about three weeks in total, and then Jason Atherton, Marcus Wareing, Angela Hartnett and Mark Sargent all trained with Gordon who also trained with Albert. And so it goes on.
‘Of course I’ve got it down properly!’ Oscar looks indignant. ‘I didn’t spend a year sweating my bollocks with Robuchon to learn nothing! What else do you think I have been doing for the past twenty-two months in France if it wasn’t going from kitchen to kitchen, looking at the way they do things, watching how they work, how they plan, how they manage, picking up tips, writing them down?’ He slams his hand down on his notebook, the tops of his ears bright red with anger.
‘All right, fucking Ratatouille, what else have you got?’ Andrew nods at the book. ‘Go on …’
We are, obviously, like every other place blazing any sort of trail, a ‘seasonal’ restaurant, and we try and update our menu according to what is available and fresh, but you have to be careful. It’s not so much we have that many ‘signature dishes’ but there are certain things that people expect to see on the menu when they come here. We’ve always got a bit of pigeon, a loin of venison, and a beef shank, and then you’ve got to have some fish for the ladies because they are much more likely to order fish than anything else, plus a couple of stalwart puds. Equally, you want to keep the thing fresh and looking alive. There is nothing worse than a totally moribund menu that looks like the chef’s been churning out the same old shit for months. It needs to feel like an old friend with some interesting news. You’ve also got to keep your eye on the weather. There’s nothing like a couple of hot weeks in May when you’ve still got a heavy wintery menu to completely ruin the GP. Equally you don’t sell many salads when it snows. But changing the menu can give you all sorts of problems. You can’t overtax the kitchen with too many new moves and ideas because the chefs won’t thank you for it. So you have to move relatively slowly, much like you’re turning around a heavily laden tanker, rather than a slick and well-oiled machine.
‘Hello, ladies!’ I look up to see Jorge waving both hands at me as he strides towards the back table with shiny shoed purpose. ‘Lovely day for it.’
‘For what?’ says Andrew, staring hard at Jorge, his lank hair hanging in a centre parting.
‘Whatever you want, darling,’ smiles Jorge. He goes over and gives Andrew a kiss on his cheek. Andrew hates it when Jorge kisses him, which is, of course, the reason why Jorge continues to do so.
Jorge is my maître d’ and has been ever since we opened. He is camper than a Strictly Come Dancing judge and loved by everyone – except Andrew. Slim, dark and handsome, with hips as narrow as a pencil, he can work an Armani suit better than any straight man I know and he comes from southern Spain.
‘Jorge, d’you remember Oscar?’
‘Of course I do!’ He claps his hands together with delight. ‘I took him to his first gay club!’
‘No you didn’t,’ says Oscar, his ears pinking again.
‘Don’t tell me you’d been to the Shadow Lounge before?’ Jorge whispers, putting his finger to his lips. ‘Well, I never, you naughty thing.’ He looks Oscar up and down. ‘It is always the quiet ones!’
‘Jorge, you are incorrigible,’ I say.
‘If I knew what that meant, baby, I’d thank you,’ he says, walking through the swing doors into the kitchen. ‘All right, ladies?’ He greets the brigade in the same manner he greets everyone.
‘Morning, Jorge,’ comes the mumbled reply.
Andrew knocks back his water and slams his glass back down on the large round table. ‘So just the sardines …?’
‘Well, I have a few other things,’ suggests Oscar. ‘A ceviche—’
‘A ceviche?’ Andrew yawns. ‘You went to France and came back with a ceviche?’
‘I was thinking of adding some foie gras to your pigeon.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with my fucking pigeon!’
‘Snails with morels?’
Andrew rolls his eyes. ‘Let’s stick to what we’ve got, shall we?’
Oscar closes his book. He is smart enough not to push it. Andrew has one week left before he hangs up his whites in this kitchen and it’s simply not worth the tantrums and tiaras to pursue his own agenda just yet. I am not sure where Andrew’s going, but no doubt he’ll turn up somewhere. People like Andrew always do. They get given jobs on past glories, although how long they last in them is a different matter. But then London is littered with chefs who move from one job to another, some through disagreement, some because they want to try something new. It is not an industry that hands out carriage clocks and gold watches. If you stay ten years in a place people think you are a little odd. It’s good to move. Although few walkouts were quite as spectacular as Ben Spalding’s recent departure from John Salt; despite garnering great reviews for his twelve-course tasting menu, he marched. And he marched citing ‘creative differences’, in a manner not dissimilar to Johnnie Mountain huffing off after being humiliated by a rather smug Marcus Wareing on Great British Menu. There is nothing more flouncy than a chef with his nose out of joint.
‘Oh my God!’ exclaims Jorge, coming back through the kitchen door. ‘I can’t believe it! Sean!’ he says simply, and shakes his head. ‘Who would have thought it!’
‘I can’t say I’m surprised,’ I reply.
‘What?’ asks Andrew, looking from Jorge to me. He hates not coming to gossip when it’s piping hot.
‘Sean came in off his nuts on Special K and had a shit fit in the kitchen and has had to leave. He found the cauliflower terrifying!’ Jorge ticks each element off his slim fingers and then raises an eyebrow. Given his fondness for the local botoxeria, I am amazed his still can.
‘Is he OK?’ asks Oscar.
‘Does that mean I’m a man down?’ says Andrew.
‘Yes.’ I nod at Andrew. ‘And who knows?’ I reply to Oscar. ‘And before anyone says anything I am not getting any agency drones in at short notice. I’m pretty sure we can pick up another commis chef by tomorrow and, in the meantime, you can manage.’
‘Manage?’ Andrew gets up and walks past me like some sort of surly teenager in search of his games console, his shoulders hunched, his lank hair hanging like curtains either side of his face. He looks like an unkempt Afghan hound. And he’s got BO. The acrid wave follows after him, turning the air sour. God knows how he gets laid so much. It’s completely astonishing. I’ll never understand women – but with two divorces under my belt at the age forty-five, that’s a given.
Oscar follows on afterwards. I have a feeling this is going to be a day from hell. I need a really strong cup of coffee, something that will kick me hard in the kidneys to keep me awake. That, and at least a cigarette.
‘Oh my God!’ exclaims Jorge. At the other end of the restaurant, I jump. ‘Nooo!’ he continues with a long loud sigh as he pores over the front of house computer system. I stare down the restaurant at his hunched silhouette, backlit by the weak wintery sun, as he slowly drags his fingertip across the screen. ‘What a total cunt!’ His head rolls to one side. He puts his hands on his hips. ‘A total cunt. Why do people do this? Why? What is the point of it all?’ He throws his hands in the air with exasperation.
‘What’s the matter, Jorge?’
‘I cannot believe it! Some shit has given us a terrible review on TripAdvisor.’
‘TripAdvisor? How bad?’
‘One star.’
‘One! The cunt. Let me see!’