All or Nothing (21 page)

W
hile I was living in Miami and working at City Cellar, my sister Joee moved to New York City. My parents planned a trip for the three of us to fly up and visit her there, and I immediately started bugging them about making reservations at Gordon Ramsay at the London Hotel. I didn't know much about Ramsay's food, but I knew his reputation as a perfectionist chef with an appetite for destruction. What really intrigued me was what I'd heard about his show,
Gordon Behind Bars
, on which he visited an English prison, set up a kitchen called the Bad Boys' Bakery, and taught twelve inmates how to cook. The idea of filming this show in jail made me laugh, and I imagined how a collection of hardened inmates with zero impulse control handled it when Ramsay inevitably starting cursing and yelling at them.

But as the four of us sat down at his restaurant in New York and I eased into a beige chair, jail was the last thing on my mind. I looked around, taking it all in. The lighting at Gordon Ramsay was soft and low, all from candles instead of lamps. The silverware was first-rate Christofle; I had never held a fish knife that was so small and flat. The hand-crafted Bernardaud china, with its unique patterns, was the perfect balance of contemporary and traditional. Instead of gilded walls or fresco-covered ceilings, like at Alain Ducasse's Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo, there were mirrors everywhere that gave the place a cool, elegant vibe.

I eagerly grabbed the menu and began to study it.

Roasted Foie Gras with green apples, turnips, watercress, and smoked duck

Ravioli of lobster, langoustine, and salmon poached in a light bisque, oscietra caviar, and sorrel velouté

Bresse pigeon with grilled polenta, smoked ventrèche, braised shallots, and dates

Mango, jasmine, and passion fruit soup

Lemonade parfait with honey, bergamot, and sheep's milk yoghurt sorbet

This was different from anything I'd seen in Florida—a contemporary menu completely built on French ideas and techniques. When our food arrived, I was equally impressed. The appetizer of Roasted Foie Gras was luscious, perfectly cooked, and delicately topped with Maldon, chopped chives, and truffle. The Ravioli of Lobster was flavorful and blended perfectly with the saltiness of the caviar and the pungency of the sorrel velouté. The touch of bergamot added character and gave a distinct flavor to the flawless Lemonade Parfait.

I was even more in awe of the presentation—the precision and craft executed on the plate was extraordinary. I could tell that each herb, garnish, and dribble of sauce had been thoughtfully arranged. Staring at the parfait, I marveled at the geometry of the tulles, which were suspended over a symmetrical arrangement of honey drops. This wasn't just food; this was art. The waitstaff operated like synchronized swimmers, clearing and serving in unison with equal parts strength and endurance. I could feel my blood pressure rising with what I can only describe as a culinary boner. Anthony Bourdain would have called that meal “food porn.” I left the table feeling titillated and wanting more, only vaguely aware that this level of excitement was dangerous for someone like me.

Before we left, I asked for the restaurant's manager. “This may sound kind of weird,” I told him, “but I'm a chef in Miami, and I'd love to work here.”

“Send me an email,” he told me distractedly, “and I'll forward it to the chef.”

I knew Gordon Ramsay probably received a million fucking résumés a month, most of which never saw the light of day. Still, I wasn't going to miss this opportunity. At the hotel I fired off the most sycophantic email I could conjure. Even I nearly got sick reading about my training and passion for food and how I would move heaven and earth for an opportunity to work at a restaurant the caliber of Gordon Ramsay. But I meant every word.

The next day my parents and I were standing in the American Airlines terminal at LaGuardia Airport waiting for our flight back to Florida. Pearl Jam's
Vitalogy
was cranking on my iPod. When I heard the call to start boarding, I stood up, grabbed my backpack, and headed for the gate. Then my cell phone rang. “Mr. Schenker, it's Dale McKay, the sous chef at Gordon Ramsay. I'd like to set up a stage with you.”

“Stage” is a French cooking term meaning “trial,” and it basically means that a cook goes to a restaurant and trails the chefs around the kitchen. I could hardly speak. “Dale, you know I have a job in Florida,” I told him. “But I can be back here in a week.”

“That's not a problem,” he told me.

I hung up the phone in shock and forced myself to breathe. Slowly I came back to reality. I heard voices. “Jesse, the flight's about to take off.” It was my father. “Let's go!”

The next day I barreled through the door at City Cellar. Jeff was alone in his office reviewing the day's specials. “I need some time off,” I said. “I had an offer to stage at Gordon Ramsay in New York.”

“Sure, Jesse. You have to do this,” Jeff said, offering me his complete support.

I quickly called Dale back and arranged a time to stage, and two days later I flew back to New York and crashed on Joee's couch. I had been told to show up at the restaurant at nine, but I was there at seven. I walked in the back entrance and met Seth, the sous chef at Maze, Ramsay's French-Asian place. He immediately handed me a striped apron and a towel. It was a good fucking thing I had gotten there early.

The chefs had already arrived, wearing their hats, pressed white checks, and Union Jack striped aprons. The men all had short hair and were clean-shaven, and the women wore their hair in neat buns. Each chef had his or her own knife set and tools, which were neatly arranged in a tray. I walked toward a group of chefs who were standing shoulder to shoulder breaking down a fish. They looked like medical students hovering over a cadaver. Surrounding the chefs were brilliant copper-rimmed stoves that glistened like diamonds in the early morning sun.

A French kitchen like Ramsay's runs on a hierarchy, or brigade. There was no line of cooks, and no open flames, like I was used to. Everyone has clear-cut responsibilities in the brigade system, which simplifies the process and eliminates the chaos that happens when everybody flies by the seat of their pants. The chef, or chef de cuisine, is in charge of all kitchen operations—ordering food, supervising each station, and developing menu items. Next up is the sous chef, who answers to the chef, handles scheduling, fills in for the chef, and assists the station cooks. There's the saucier (sauté chef), who deals with sautéed items and sauces. This is seen as a glam position, but it's also demanding as hell. There's a poissonier (fish chef), which sometimes gets combined with the saucier position, and an entremetier (vegetable chef), who handles the hot appetizers and often the soups, vegetables, and starches. In a traditional brigade system like Ramsay's, the garde manger, or larder as they called it, handles the salads and the crudo.

In Florida we had our own stations, but we also ran around like madmen, doing whatever was necessary to get everything done. The brigade system was all new to me, and I stood there taking it all in. I wasn't nervous, though. I had my armor of spirituality and acceptance around me, and I knew everything would work out fine if I did my best and was willing to accept any outcome.

Seth came over with a big, burly guy who looked more like a linebacker than a cook. “This is James,” he told me. “You'll be working the meat station together.” We shook hands. “Concasse these and then dice them,” James said, handing me a five-by-six container of perfectly ripened plum tomatoes. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my body and forced myself to breathe deep.

Grabbing a pot, I filled it with water and added a dash of salt. One by one, I scored out the back of the tomatoes and cut out the stems. Then I boiled the tomatoes for just a few seconds and spidered them into an ice bath so the skins would peel off easily. I arranged three trays in front of my cutting board—one for the peeled tomatoes, a second for the innards and garbage, and a final tray for the dice. I was hauling ass but trying to focus on working clean. I knew there were no messes allowed in Ramsay's kitchen. We really could have eaten off that floor.

I could feel Seth watching me the whole time, but I used the skills I'd learned in meetings to stay focused in the moment. Finally Seth came over. He was short and bald with massive forearms that made him look like a culinary Popeye. As we talked I was impressed by his passion for and knowledge about food.

My shoulders were already aching when James handed me a case of poussins, the butcher's term for baby chickens. “I want you to poach these in a quart of bouillon with thyme, garlic, bay leaves, and peppercorns,” he told me. “You're going to bring the water to two hundred and poach the poussins for eight minutes. Then you're going to shock them, remove the breasts and legs, braise the legs, and roast the breasts.” No fucking problem. I was always fast on my feet, but after a few minutes I could see that this exercise highlighted major flaws in my training. The Ramsay cooks were all Michelin-and International Culinary Center–trained. They had done externships at the world's best restaurants. I lacked their finesse and attention to detail, and this stood out like a sore thumb. Though I had prepared thousands of meals, this degree of precision wasn't part of the culinary DNA in Florida, at least not in the restaurants where I'd worked.

James walked over to me with his arms crossed. At first he didn't say a word, but I could tell he wasn't pleased. “What the fuck are you doing?” he asked me. “You're supposed to preserve the skins!” I looked down at my cutting board. I had cut so deep into the chicken leg that I'd exposed the meat and ruined the skin. “These aren't usable,” James said angrily. But how the fuck was I supposed to know? I had no idea that I was supposed to be preserving the skins.

I was golden one minute and shit the next. That's just how it was in Ramsay's kitchen. Gordon Ramsay or Josh would burn through the kitchen out of nowhere and knock a cook down a few pegs for not working clean enough. They took the food very seriously. “Donkey,” “dumb fuck,” and “fucking idiot” were the most commonly used expressions in that kitchen. The cooks who couldn't take the pressure just bolted, but I wasn't scared. On the streets I had certainly been called worse things than a donkey.

After the poussins, it was time to make tomato jam using the tomatoes I'd concassed earlier. I took the tomatoes, tossed on a little olive oil, and sweated them in a deep sauce pot. A lot of the dishes being made around me were amazing. The techniques were inspiring. But this fucking tomato jam was the dumbest thing I'd ever seen. Why take all the time to peel and perfectly dice a case of tomatoes just to cook them down into mush?

When it was time for service, I stood next to the pass—the place where we plated the food—and watched the food glistening as the chefs called out orders.

“Two frisée, followed by scallops, followed by bream, followed by short rib.”

“Oui, Chef,” the cooks cried out in unison.

“It's going on two and a half,” the meat cook called.

“It's going on one minute,” the fish cook responded.

The meat cook led the team. “Garnish up,” he called out. Suddenly, the garnish guy appeared with copper pots and handed them to the sous chef on the pass, who took the garnish out of the pot and arranged it on the plate. “Protein's up,” was the cue for the meat guy to lay his fish, chicken, veal, or other protein on a tray covered with perfectly manicured parchment paper. I watched the cooks carefully, memorizing how they switched the hot garnish onto a cool tray so they wouldn't burn the chef's hands.

Next up was crispy skin sea bream, which was passed to the chef to position it precisely on top of the garnish. The chef then finished it off with lemon oil and herbs that he kept in a cool drawer below his waist. “Service!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, and four guys in perfectly tailored suits rushed over, picked up the stainless steel trays that were piled with this exquisitely prepared food, and ran it out to the tables. It was like a military operation, and I loved watching it. I hadn't been prepared for this level of intensity or finesse, but I wanted to learn it all.

By 10:00
P.M.
I had logged a fifteen-hour shift. Seth told me to go home. “I'll call you tomorrow,” he said.

“No,” I told him. “I want to stay.” I knew I only had one chance to make a good impression, so I stayed there through the end of service, cleaning the pots and dirty trays until lights out. I picked up discarded towels, swept the floor, helped scrub down the stove, and then stood on top of the hood to clean every inch of it by hand. At 1:00
A.M.
I made my way to Joee's apartment and crashed, feeling satisfied and inspired by my day's work.

Seth called me first thing in the morning. “I need you to come in” was all he said. An hour later I was sitting in the same dining room where I had eaten that memorable meal with my family just a few weeks before. But this time I didn't know what I was doing there. A brown woven basket filled with every possible variety of bread was positioned next to my plate. A martini glass came out filled with a tomato consommé jelly, diced bacon brunoise, bacon cream, and a lettuce volute (perfectly puréed green lettuce). I closed my eyes and took a bite. It tasted like the world's best BLT. Wild mushroom risotto with big chunks of lobster and Mascarpone cheese followed on the heels of a rectangular-cut smoked trout with beet batons and crisped fennel chips. They just kept coming, one exhilarating dish after the next. As I was gorging myself I wondered if this was how they were thanking me for my work the day before or if I was being softened up for the kill.

After I finished the last bite of dessert, Dale asked me to come back to the kitchen. “You're hired,” he told me. “When can you start?”