Chop Chop (6 page)

F
ucking soufflé!
”

But these family troubles are ancient history, all behind me. Or a hundred miles away, at least. (At my back now, Racist Dave is telling me to press on. If it is not Ramilov raising editorial quibbles, it is Dave.) On a heaving Saturday evening at the beginning of December—three days after Ramilov, in search of a loving touch, ended up fridge-bound in the company of lobsters—the ogre is demanding a soufflé. Dibden's section is once more sprayed with bits of fruit and crumb and peel. Spilled sauces and dark reductions are clotting like blood. The mint leaves tremble in his hands. His mouth is slack and open, his movements awry. His head folds one way, then the other. There is no use left in him. He is a punch-drunk boxer, a spavined horse, a former umbrella. We watch in silence.

“
I want it now, spastic! Get it on the plate!
”

Originally this account of Dibden's collapse was going to give him the benefit of the doubt: wrong-footed by one horrific service, an unfortunate soul who flew too close to the sun. He has suffered enough, I feel, without having to be tarred and feathered again in these pages. My editors think otherwise, however, and they have offered various unflattering insights, counterclaims, to the effect that our companion's demise was inevitable. Ramilov, in a frenzied missive, suggests Dibden is “less use than a velvet prick.” Dave claims that Dibden was the longest-serving commis The Swan had ever had. It was a year, he says, before Bob let him reheat soup. And only when I arrived, when there was absolutely no excuse, did Dibden
finally receive promotion to the larder section. By then, Dibden had been at The Swan for almost two years, and still inspired such little confidence that the day Ramilov started he was essentially demoted again, exiled to pastry.

“
A raspberry soufflé, you dopey fuck!”

The truth is that the pastry section is seen as an easy gig. A kingdom of one, where scorned but aloof chefs twiddle their thumbs while sauce and larder get shafted. Desserts are an afterthought in most restaurants. As Dave likes to observe, everyone needs a main—only fat bastards
need
a pudding. It is an extravagance. Some nights The Swan did not sell one dessert. So it seemed reasonable, in one sense, for a man of Dibden's capabilities to fill the post. Nor did he require any practice acting scorned but aloof.

“
Soufflé, cunt?
”

Bob would like a raspberry soufflé that has been on for half an hour. He leans on his palms at the pass, poking his jowly, sweating head beneath the hot lamps to shout at Dibden. Big Bob, in all his petty, weaselly majesty. Cocktail sausage fingers, huffing like a spoiled child. The tyrant. The buffoon. The prick. Where are you now, Bob? Who are you terrorizing? I ask, but I do not want to know.

“
Soufflé!”

—

People say we never should have taken all this from Bob, that we should have walked out the minute he raised his voice to us or treated us in an unprofessional manner. But those people don't understand. In the kitchen, shouting and bullying
is
the professional manner. I know most places don't take it as far as Bob did, but I've also heard tales of worse from Ramilov and Racist Dave, of chefs they have heard about, or other places they have worked. Chefs are
very partial to this game, I have found. It gives them a warm and cozy feeling about their job while it confirms the horror of it.

Did you hear about so-and-so?

I heard . . .

Total fucking psycho . . .

Apparently at _____ he doesn't let them use the loo during service. Blocks the door with a chair. If they piss themselves they just got to carry on. Two stars, plating foie gras and truffles with piss running down their legs.

At _____ _____, the chef put specials on that we didn't know about. I got an order for pig's head ravioli with pickled apple and he said, “That's you, chef.” I had to make the whole thing from scratch. Get out the pasta machine and roll ravioli. All for one order. It fucked up the whole service.

He put a commis in the bin and poured fryer oil over him.

Eighteen hours every day. He makes them all take coke to stay on top of it.

His sous went mad and topped himself, I heard . . .

At _____ the chefs aren't allowed to speak.

I heard he stabbed a guy and had him finish his shift.

I heard he had him clean up his own blood.

The chefs at The Swan told these tales with relish, claiming they were lucky by comparison. This, they'd say, this was nothing. They held Bob up against the scare stories and tried to tell themselves he was a decent sort after all. But they knew also that there were other chefs in other kitchens not so far away playing the same game, having the same conversation, with Bob's name included.

Or if you left, what then? You traded one hell for another, a different kitchen with another head chef who might or might not be a cokehead or a drunk or just a good old-fashioned arsehole like Bob. There were a few good places, of course, where service was all
precise movements and clean surfaces and classical music and the chef never shouted because the shame of being asked why you had done something a certain way or why it was not ready was humiliation enough. These places chefs liked to talk dreamily about.

At Hospital Road every section has their own induction stove under the worktop, with spotlighting like on film sets.

They pass all their sauces four times, till they're superfine.

Everything is made to order, à la minute . . .

He lent one of his chefs de partie the money to start his own place . . .

Everyone sits down to eat together, before service, like a family. It's the rule.

Yet such places were hard to find, according to Ramilov and Dave. There are no universal rules about kitchens and the sadism, or lack of it, therein. It is impossible to know the atmosphere of a kitchen from reading reviews or even eating in the dining room. At this very moment there are hapless, tortured chefs in some of the best restaurants in the city trying not to get their tears in the sorbet. And there are hapless, tortured chefs in some of the worst too.

Dibden, now flailing desperately on pastry, was one of those chefs. Six feet five inches of gangly misery, in his late twenties but with the hard-won sorrow of a much older man. He wanted to wow the world with his cooking, to be a great artist on the plate in the style of Pierre Gagnaire or Juan Mari Arzak. Unfortunately, he was inept.

“
Soufflé, cockbreath!”

Dibden was from a rich family, a fact he was desperate to hide though there were too many other things to mock him about for anyone to care. Dave reminds me that in the end this revelation came out of its own accord when Dibden was sincerely, emphatically high on cheap soapy pills and bad chalky coke the night we all went to Mr. Michael's for the first time. His family even had
their own legend, Dibden confessed with unblinking, moon-eyed urgency. It was emblazoned in gothic capitals on the back of every chair around the dining table: “
SUFFER
.” Not the “suffer the little children” type of suffer. The “suffer” type of suffer. He had spent his whole life trying to escape that motto. This Saturday in particular, as Bob pummeled his fists in fury, it was fair to say he had failed spectacularly.

“
Soufflé!”

The evening had begun so pleasantly too. An expectation bubbling over from the afternoon, laughter tinkling off the dining room glass, a curl of cinnamon and clove in the air, the warmth and camaraderie of Saturdays all around. In the kitchen, Ramilov was telling Dibden how shit he was.

“You are so shit, Dibden,” he said. “I'm going to get you a Jamie Oliver cookbook for Christmas.”

“But I don't like Jamie Oliver,” said Dibden.

“That's the point,” said Ramilov. “No one does.”

“I'll have you know,” said Dibden defensively, drawing himself up to his full spindly height, “that I was taught by the best. Chef Ducasse at The Dorchester, no less.”

Dibden returned to the tart cases he was attempting, in vain, not to break. The pastry was too crumbly. What was a mild annoyance at five o'clock could be a disaster by nine, but on this occasion Dibden in his great foolishness had chosen to overlook it. Perhaps that family motto hung too heavily about his neck; it seemed he could not resist it. Lurking in his service fridges, ready for the night ahead, a whole catalog of bodged mise awaited him: soufflé mix made with overbeaten egg whites that would explode when baked, a chocolate ganache at least three weeks old, overripe raspberries, underripe pears, quince jam that would not set, fondants that would not rise, and a crème anglaise that tasted faintly but unmistakably of garlic.
His mise en place was a ticking bomb; yet after a quiet lunch, before the madness of Saturday dinner, it looked just fine. I remember learning at university about the Russian formalists, who said, in a nod to Chekhov's gun, that if a man hammers a nail into the wall in the first act he must be hanged from it by the third. Well, Dibden was that man and he had been busy with the hammer.

“I'm going to take your mum on a package holiday to Tenerife,” said Ramilov.

“That's not even a nice place,” Dibden protested.

“
Exactly!
” shouted Ramilov. “
Exactly!
”

The problem with pastry was that whoever worked it was unregulated. All the other sections straddled starters and mains; they had to work together on every check, which kept them in time with one another. Ramilov couldn't drag his feet over a ravioli order if it was coming up with one of Dave's steaks. Each cog kept the other cogs turning. But pastry was alone in the wilderness.

At five thirty Bob walked purposefully into the kitchen doing up his apron.

“Right, gentlemen, we are entering the power hour. You all know what that means. Chop chop.”

He pointed to the clock on the wall above Dibden. One hour before service began.

“You ready, shithead?” he asked.

Dibden did not have a nickname, but there was no shortage of suggestions. Ramilov thought he should be called “Bumble Stumblefuck” but it was too hard to shout quickly. In retrospect I think Ramilov was actually very fond of Dibden.

“
Yes, chef!”
Dibden replied. He paused and examined Bob's countenance to see if he might be amenable to further discussion this evening. Bob liked to say that he was always there if anyone
needed to talk about anything, that he welcomed questions and suggestions on all aspects of the operation. Dibden decided to try his luck.

“I'm thinking of doing some apple crisps, chef,” he said. “I thought they'd go well with the soufflé.”

“Shut up, you prick,” Bob said. Wolfishly he turned his attention to a gastro of braised pork cheeks. But he had hardly begun chewing when a sound in the plonge made him freeze. Hopping, terrified Shahram, obliged on Saturdays to work more than his customary nine hours, had turned to song.

“
Mhut va fuck iffat?
” he bellowed at the little man. “
Are you praying?
”

Through the doorway, Shahram gave Bob an edgy smile that made it clear he understood nothing that had been said to him.

“
You're not doing that in here
,” shouted Bob, swallowing painfully. “
I'll have no praying in this kitchen. No pray. Get it?
”

“Chef.” Shahram pulled at his crotch nervously and showed his small gappy teeth.

“And stop looking so fucking nervous,” said Bob.

“Probably wants to blow us up,” said Racist Dave.

An olive flew across the kitchen, striking Dave in the eye, causing him to cry out. Ramilov, the thrower, chuckled to himself. “Racist Dave” was another nickname he refused to endorse.
What's Dave about him?
he used to say.

“Right,” Bob said, ignoring them. “Power hour. Let's have ‘The Cage of Pure Emotion.'”

Dave, groaning quietly, wiped the oil from his eye and reached for a broken CD case next to the hi-fi. The CD was scratched to pieces, and when the hi-fi finally recognized it, it seemed to groan too. Mercilessly, it played the song all the same.

Trapped in a cage,

A cage of pure emotion.

Bob clapped his hands and bellowed the words loudly.

“Come on, chefs!” he cried. There was Bob for you—Mr. Good Times.

With some reluctance the other chefs joined in. Ramilov added a low hoarse baritone, Dave droned loudly and tunelessly, Dibden mumbled like a posh person making an excuse. The quiet dark-eyed girl watched in silent disgust.

—

This was the power hour. The last chance to make everything right. Had you done enough to keep your head above it? Were you set? At every section chefs were topping up their service fridges, cadging chopping boards, filling the squeezy bottles with olive oil and wine vinegar, dicing butter, refreshing the water in their spoon washes, sprinkling salt on the ice cubes in the deep steel trays to slow their melting, laying damp paper towels on top of the herbs to stop them from wilting. Ramilov was demanding kisses from the waitresses in return for the complimentary bread. This was the hour to eat, if you had time, or it was the hour to get your head down and blitz through any mise outstanding. This was the hour when the slow chefs worked fastest and the fast chefs smoked. This was the hour when every chef took a gamble. Would they have enough of this or that to last them the night? How busy would their section be? Would the great collective unconsciousness that governed all their fates be in the mood for the steak or the fish pie?

On other nights of the week this in-between hour might pass unnoticed, with service dawning slowly while life, and mise, continued around it. Saturday night was different. There were no quiet
sections, no empty tables. Everyone front and back of house got short shrift. At six thirty the squabbling, shit-talking kitchen fell quiet in anticipation. The radio was switched off. This was the moment when those head chefs with a taste for the grandiose might choose to give a short rallying speech to the brigade. One for all, all for one, that sort of thing. Bob rarely did, though occasionally he would remind the chefs that if he said anything personal about them during service it was not a heat-of-the-moment thing, he really did mean it.