It's the second day of my holidays and I'm lying late in bed. Early mornings and holidays are not supposed to be mixed. After this four days I'll be officially unemployed and I'll have finished one of the more stressing experiences in my cooking career. Later on there'll be errands to run and phone calls to make (I should get another job after all, a guy's gotta make a living) but for now I'll just lie in bed for a little longer, let the mind linger for a while. How the hell did I end up in that nuthouse? How comes the place's still even OPEN? How did I manage to last a month and a half there? The tale is instructive dear folks, so follow me if you have the time, we'll take the scenery route...
Our story begins at the end of last November, the premises we were thinking about renting for our new business venture turn out not to comply with council policies, so we can't use them. Venture has to be put, sadly, on hold. We try to look at the bright side of it: this will let us see how the year starts, how hard the smoking ban hits the industry, whether the crisis softens up or not. The not so bright side is that I should get a job for a while. All I want is a place where I can cook some good food, the pay is not so bad, the hours are not the ones they used to apply to slaves on the cotton fields and the owner is not a psycho. It should be an easy task, right? Wrong.
We start to move the voice around. The best way to get a job in my field here is word of mouth, for some strange reason newspaper's ads are almost useless, the “business” moves in closed circles and everything depends on “who you know” or “who sends you”. It's a bit silly, to be honest. Sometimes it makes you feel as if instead of looking for a job you're planning a hit for the Gambino family. After a few days the work yields fruit. A friend who works in the newspaper calls and lets me know about a possible job. This is the info I get in the first call:
The guy owns ten business in my city on his own. Wow. That's a lot. Apparently he's got money invested in about another eight. In a city as small as this we're talking big fish.
One of the business is one of the biggest restaurants in the city. A macro-cider house with capacity for about three hundred people. Please notice I've said “one of the biggest” not “one of the best”. More on that later.
He had for a while some quite well known chefs working for him.
Some of his restaurants are doing REALLY badly.
He has strong connections with the political party in office in my local council.
With this data the venture looks promising: The guy is well connected, used to work with professionals, has some good business, money shouldn't be a concern and there's plenty of room for improving. So I go for an interview.
I have my interview in the aforementioned macro-cider house. He explains to me what he's looking for: I would start working in the cider house, but he doesn't need a head chef, he already has one guy who is apparently quite good at traditional cooking and at running the kitchen, he needs someone to work the more “modern” side of the kitchen. He wants to get some specials, the desserts need to be updated (they are crap at the moment) and so do the salads. He tells me there are possibilities of working together in some of his other restaurants later on, and we even talk about the possibility of an opening in the future (he has some empty premises right in front of the cider house he wants to turn into a small beer – tapas place) the pay is OK for the job (even if the legal side of it is not, as my contract will be a part time one but I'll be working full time) and the hours are OK. So far, so good. The premises are huge and the equipment amazing (the oven alone is worth over twenty thousand euros) but very badly kept (the top range state is a disgrace, there are two ovens that don't work, a dish heater unused and filthy...)
I think the job has what I need: I'll be doing food that I enjoy, it'll keep me entertained for a few months, the pay is OK, the hours are OK. I sign up for the ride.
It was a mistake.
I start the day after and I get the first surprise: the other chef is not supposed to be the head chef either! So who's in charge of the kitchen? Apparently nobody. They've found this method, having two chefs instead of a head chef, works better. No, it doesn't. The place is utter chaos, nobody knows what to do, so everybody works doing just what they think they are expected to do, so some chores are done religiously (walk in fridge cleaned EVERY WEEK on Sunday evening) while others aren't done at all (who cleans the top shelves? What do you mean NO ONE? Yes, YES, they DO HAVE TO BE CLEAN!) and soon it's clear to me that everyone working in this kitchen hates the fucking place. And I mean HATE, with a passion. There's no drive in the kitchen, the food is crap and no one gives a fuck. This alone is a sad state of affairs.
Second surprise: the owner's wife. She seems to be in charge of everything. She isn't qualified at all. She is the walking embodiment of “toxic management”. Oh, and for some strange reason she hates my fucking guts. Joy.
She doesn't trust anyone in the kitchen. She doesn't even let us order the food or the kitchen supplies, instead we have to inventarize the kitchen every week and she does the ordering. She just looks at what we have in stock and decide how much we are gonna need of everything each week. Of course she doesn't have a clue, so most days we're missing between four and eight dishes in the menu. There was a time we had FIFTEEN items that were 86'd. On a Friday, none the less. Atta, girl...
If the day is busy she would walk into the kitchen and try to EXPEDITE for fuck sake, the amount of chaos she would create in ten minutes was unbelievable 'cos of course, not being a chef, she didn't know how to expedite either: she would order dishes that took ten minutes to cook to order (that's just when the table needs it), she would order things that took ten seconds to cook while the table was still eating appetizers (no, I didn't want you to cook it, I just wanted to know that you will have to cook it later), she would point at people and ask for particular dishes from them (so the guy who was on fryers, for example, would have to run out of his section to prepare a Cabracho Pudding because the gardemanger was busy at the moment. Of course, the gardemanger would have taken only one minute to finish that salad he was busy with and now we are late in TEN orders 'cos THERE'S NO ONE IN THE FUCKING FRYER!!) I swear each time she walks into the kitchen the entrophy goes up about ten percent.
Third surprise: There's money trouble. First week the owner comes to me and asks me if I need any money. I'm surprised, this is not standard procedure in a kitchen, normally you have to threaten owners at knife point to get money in advance, you don't usually get it offered out of the blue. I said no thanks (even when I could use it) not wanting to look like a deadbeat in my first week, only to have him AGAIN offer to lend me “a couple of hundred” if I need it. Now, this is starting to weird me out. I said no again, assure him I'm all set for the month, he can pay me my salary at the end of the month. “And wouldn't you rather be paid weekly?” Ohhh, so THAT'S it. That little gem I disliked deeply. You want to pay me weekly instead of monthly? Do say so. Trying to “lure me” into asking for it by myself so it's sort of “my idea”? Not cool in my book. Not even a bit. But I decide to let it slide. We're starting here, let's cut the guy some slack. I tell him that I don't mind either way, but I want to know WHEN and HOW MUCH I get paid. We get to an arrangement. He didn't stick to it. I got paid (well, I'm still owed one grand that I should pick up on Saturday) but only the first week I got paid the day I was supposed to and the amount I was supposed to. More annoying than this, even, was the fact that I would have to chase the guy for my money. This I find unprofessional and very upsetting.
It only takes me a couple of days to realize everyone is in this same situation. Who was “getting love” at the end of the shift is a running joke in the place. It isn't that bad with chefs, but kitchen porters are owed money from up to THREE months ago. The day I found that out I should have quit on the spot. This is not tolerable.
Why didn't I? It was too soon. I wanted to see the whole operation, I wanted to see if there was a reason for it, some kind of saving grace. Didn't want to judge a place so harsh so soon. Turns out I wasn't being harsh enough.
The whole thing is nothing short of an ordeal. I try, at the beginning, to put some order into the chaos. I battle, and battle on. I try to set up meetings with the owners, they wouldn't have time. I print a list of possible new menu items and pass it to them: three days later they haven't read it, five days later they've lost it. Everything I do, every effort, it's a waste. In the 15th of December the other chef quits. I'll have to start the new year as the only chef in the kitchen. The gardemanger and the grill man also inform they both will quit before February. The place is falling in pieces.
At this point I'm desolated, I feel exhausted and frustrated.
Roll in the first of January (we had to work in christmas eve, christmas day, new years eve and new years day. We are informed we won't be compensated for those days. No money, no extra holidays. Nothing) I have a hangover, I'm not in a good mood. They've sent a chef from another restaurant to take charge over the kitchen “while I settle”. I don't have to settle. I wasn't hired as a head chef and I don't want to be the head chef of this place. The guy offers me cocaine about four times in a single day. I can't believe I will have to work with this muppet who is also, for what I see, a liar. To top things up he can't cook to save his life and everyone in the kitchen HATES his guts. Luckily he'll only last six days before getting in an argument with the owner and quit in the spot.
The third of January I get called to the office and informed they are not so happy with my performance. I'm so fucking sick of the whole place is unbelievable, I ask what performance, I haven't performed. I've been unable to set a meeting in a month, there's no communication between them and me I haven't been able to do anything. The whole conversation is a disappointment. The day after is my day off, and it's a good thing 'cos I have some thinking to do.
After my day off I handle my notice.
When I walk out of the office into the kitchen one of the waiters (in fact, the floor manager) is, as they usually do, dipping a french fry in the garlic mayo (that's straight into the mayo, fat and all, to his mouth, to the mayo again. That's the mayo we serve to the costumers) one of many filthy habits I've been trying to get rid of in the place. He looks at me, smiling, and mutters something in the lines of “yes, yes, I know I shouldn't” and suddenly, as if a spell been cast, everything goes away. It's over. I smile, maybe my first smile in the workplace for the year 2011, I'm suddenly happy. “Do whatever the fuck you want, man” I answer. And with a swagger that wasn't there ten minutes ago I walk to the salad station, I feel like having some tuna. In the way I joke with the grill man. I'm free. I'll still have to be here for a couple of weeks, but I'm untouchable: I can't be fired and I'm responsible for nothing. A few days after the gardemanger quits as well (while he's on holidays, so he just isn't coming back) and the grill man tells me that he has a new job lined up already. He'll quit at the end of the month. The place is fucked, and I'm not sure if it'll survive it.
Was it all bad? Well, no. It was interesting to see a operation this big from inside. And of course I got a free crash course on “How you should NOT run a restaurant in ten easy steps” courtesy of the owners, there's always that. But the most important points:
I've learned quite a bit about crap food. This may sound useless, but is not. It's interesting to know where people cut corners. It helps to set your food apart. If everyone is using fresh calamari but frozen croquettes, there you have an opportunity.
I've gotten to play with some interesting, expensive, hard to come by equipment. Because if you got half a brain you'll invest one hundred euros in a vacuum machine, which will save you thousands of euros, but if you are a twat with no idea what you're doing you'll buy a twenty thousand euros oven in which you can boil eggs. No way I would do it, but playing with it was FUN.
I've met some very interesting, very useful people. Specially Victor, the poor soul who took my place after I left. I cry for him, I really do. He's gonna have a really hard time trying to fix everything. At least the owners, out of desperation, seem to listen to him. He might even last two months, if you ask me. I know he'll get a call if I need a sous chef in the near future.
And, of course, as you can expect in such a kitchen I saw some of the most disgusting and foul things being done to the food we later served. If you eat in restaurants often you might want to skip this part. On with the nasty bits:
The Cabrales sauce, to start with an easy one, has no Cabrales in it. What it does have, of course, is double cream. It wasn't kept in a fridge. EVER.
One of the best selling dishes was “Confitted mushrooms baked with La Peral cheese sauce” the sauce was the same that the Cabrales sauce. No, it didn't have La Peral cheese in either. The mushrooms were “confitted” in the deep fat fryer. They chopped black olives and canned peppers on top and that was it.
The “iberian pork fillet” was so bad the grill man would have to put monosodium glutamate in it so it would taste of something.
Once, to transform a rump steak into a T-bone steak the bone was pulled out of a stock pot... in which it had been boiling for two days.
The name of the fish in the label is not the same as the name of the fish in the menu. Well, that's fishy.
Plastic sauces. I haven't seen chemical roux in years. And chemical demiglace. And chemical everything.
A dinner for six hundred (for the political party he has connections with, non the less) with the menu: Grilled king prawns, Seafood cream and Roasted lamb. The king prawns were boiled TWO DAYS before the event. The cream was made with cheap nasty green crabs (what here we call “sapas” and normally only use for bait, and it's not even good bait) and “Chambo instant seafood cream”. The lamb is so old that the grill man jokes that “they are horses, not lambs”.
There are a few things in the whole experience that I strongly regret. And since we are in “list mode” why not keep it that way:
To me, this was a year without christmas. I don't ask much for christmas but I like to have christmas day and new years day off. I think is the least one could ask for. As I didn't have any of them off this year, in a way I feel like christmas happened, but I wasn't there.
“Cafe Caracol” closed down after nineteen years. The last night it was open I was invited to the party, but I was so upset that night after a specially annoying day that I forgot. When a few days after I went into the place while it was being dismantled the owner asked “makes one a little sad, doesn't it?”. And it did, it really did and it made it really worse that I wasn't there that last night.
And last but not least, I deeply regret to have left this affect me that much. I've been in a foul mood a lot of days, to the suffering of those around me who didn't deserve having to deal with me in such a mood.
And that was it. We live and we learn, as they say. This have been a hell of a time, only a month and a half but a month and a half that I will surely remember in the years to come. I took a little memento from the place, just to make sure. One day, while cleaning with Victor the areas of the restaurant that no one ever cleaned we found a broken knife, a long chef knife with the blade cleanly broken in two pieces. The perfect reminder of my trip through the madhouse. I'm gonna frame it and engrave it with a quote from “El cantar del mio Cid”. Not only for me, but for every poor soul who went through those kitchen doors and tried to make the bloody thing work properly.
They sure deserve it.
Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe.
