The bizarre world of restaurant kitchens
September 16, 1998 - The San Francisco Chronicle
Wild, wild things happen in restaurant kitchens, especially when you’re trying out for a job. You’re surrounded by professionals—but you’re not quite one of them.
Even when you do have a job—which I did, in New England, for more than five years—things can be bizarre.
In one New Hampshire kitchen, I nearly chopped off my right index finger on my first day. In another, I had the morale-boosting “You’re not paid to think!’’ screamed at me for letting a chef know that he had a lot of chocolate cakes in the freezer.
And in an upscale Italian restaurant, I worked in a 15-man kitchen where I was one of only two non-felons. Nice guys, though.
Recently transplanted to San Francisco and looking for a job to pay for my writing habit, I was quickly brought up to speed on job hunting.
A line cook’s job search isn’t much different than anyone else’s: Comb web sites, talk to friends about places to look into, cold call like crazy, fax resumes, tweak resumes, fax resumes, beat pavement, then call, call and call again. Repeat as many times as possible, all day, every day.
After two or three weeks—longer than in other parts of the country—you wind up with lots of places you don’t want to work, and two or three that merit consideration.
For me, what was new about San Francisco was the tryout. At first, I felt ripped off. Why would anyone work somewhere for a day or more without being paid?
I soon learned.
Tryouts vary. Some kitchens want you to see as much as possible, but you may not even get your hands dirty. Others want you to dive right in. In the end, I think the idea is to scare you off by showing you a busy night.
My tryouts were at the Flying Saucer Cafe, Jardiniere and Betelnut.
FLYING SAUCER
After fighting through a sea of customers at the Flying Saucer Cafe, I reached the hostess and told her I was there to try out. Her face seemed to say “Why would they have you come now?’’ but she disappeared to find the chef.
Chef gave me the same “Why the hell?’’ look through thick-rimmed glasses, but shook my hand and said, “Let’s find a jacket for you—make it look like you work here.’’ I put on my outfit and found Chef (everyone calls him Chef) at his station, overseeing all from the epicenter of the tiny, twisting kitchen.
Chef brought me to the dessert station, adjusted a listing pastry ornament and left me in the care of the pastry specialist. Keith was very serious, but I could barely understand a word he said. “What’s that?’’ I’d ask. “Huh? A what?’’ Finally, I’d give up, nod, and say “Oh.’‘
He soon asked me to cut papaya using some type of dice unknown to me. I hid. “Huh? A what? Show me.’’ Later, Keith asked the one thing I understood on the first try: “Did you go to the CIA (the Culinary Institute of America)?’‘
Being an international relations major at Syracuse University and having taken one formal cooking course, I looked at him and firmly said “no,’’ offering nothing else.
At the head stations, the cooks were so busy, they could only say, “Don’t stand there.’’ They looked like greased eels slipping around each other, grilling, sauteing, ducking into refrigerators below order slips, calling to Chef in a bizarre food-timing code.
In what felt like a few minutes, two hours of watching and stepping in as occasional garde manger arranger (only to be immediately rearranged) passed, and I left, feeling somewhat overwhelmed.
JARDINIERE
Jardiniere was a very different beehive of activity, but my first reaction was amazement at how well the kitchen was organized.
Restaurant kitchens tend to be crowded labyrinthine furnaces, but Jardiniere’s seemed huge, well laid out and amazingly temperate. (At Saucer, the ceiling was so low in some spaces I was a foot too tall to be the appetizer cook.)
At Jardiniere, along with being a pea risotto madman, I worked on seeing the kitchen as a whole. That, and trying the food that went out the door. I watched what everyone was doing, took tastes of whatever I could, especially dishes I might end up preparing, or just food that looked particularly good.
By the end of the night, I could taste differences in the pea risottos made by the head chef, the sous chef and myself—“Great,’’ “great’’ and “let’s try again.’‘
Not only did my pea risotto skills increase exponentially at Jardiniere, but I also learned the feeling of working in a large, professional kitchen. Everyone and everything has a space and a place, and this creates a nearly calm efficiency.
BETELNUT
The day before my Betelnut tryout, I had the chance to talk with the sous chef and the head chef about culinary passion.
Chefs always find it quirky that I love cooking when it’s really busy. This seems to confuse them, because busy can quickly become just bad.
However, when busy is good it’s like skating. Rows of orders end in stacks that don’t fit in the rows, people move everywhere with incredible synchronization, woks and pots clang together, and flames shoot up from pans, illuminating the whole kitchen.
Betelnut is kind of like watching stock traders communicating, shouting and flashing hand signals. Two people operate as linchpins, calling orders as they take care of their own stations. These two ensure the kitchen’s two lines deliver an order all at once.
“I need five on 41!’’ the first cook might shout, meaning the order for table 41 will take five minutes to cook. “I’ll give you five’’ means the second cook’s order for that table will take longer than five minutes to cook and they will call back when their food is five minutes away.
My Betelnut tryout was short but sweet. I was there long enough to look around, ask a few questions, taste the short ribs and leave. My advantage was that, having seen the other restaurants, I knew what I was after.
I learned a lot during these free tryout stints in San Francisco.
Flying Saucer taught me to be up front about my abilities. This made saying, “I don’t know what that means’’ or “How do you do that?’’ at Jardiniere much easier. By the time I made it to Betelnut, I had a pretty clear idea of the position I wanted.
I found the right job, and I’m giving five on 41.
Joe Ray, a Bay Area free-lance writer and line cook at Betelnut, leaves this week on a whale-research expedition to Dominica.
