‘Oh my God!’ says Adam, crashing in next to Caz. ‘Was that the most filthy sex evah! I don’t think I’ve seen worse. Never. Never. Honestly. Don’t you think, mate?’
I shake my head. ‘No, I’ve seen worse.’
‘You can’t have!’
‘I have!’
3–4 a.m.
In fact our staff parties are worse than that. Quite a lot worse. I remember one particularly debauched affair a while ago now, when I was younger and significantly more badly behaved. I was working in a restaurant which had a very cool bar attached, and it was one of those cold, dull nights in January when those of us who actually work in hospitality have our Christmas parties. Santa comes late for us. We’re always too busy providing the festivities for everyone else to have any fun ourselves. Weirdly, a whole load of canny firms are now joining us. Companies who are tired of paying Christmas mark-ups or who can’t be bothered to elbow themselves into their favourite spots are choosing to celebrate in January as well. It’s cheaper, easier, and they know they can bargain us down for a better deal.
Anyway, it was something like the sixteenth and everyone was tucking into the vodka cocktails when someone, I think it was Stew behind the bar, poured a whole load of cocaine into the punch. And everyone went mad. There is always quite a lot of sexual tension within our industry. You have young, usually quite attractive people all frotting around each other for long hours at a time with plenty of alcohol. Quite apart from the erotic rush for a session on the warm napery, I have seen staff having sex in the lavs, in the cupboard, and, most extra ordinarily of all, in the middle of service. I was working next to two chefs who simply couldn’t contain themselves any more and went for a quick one in the disabled toilets. They were done and dusted even before I’d managed to cook my duck.
I have a mate who used to work in both the restaurant and the music business, and he once said to me that in rock and roll they talk about sex all the time but don’t do it; in restaurants we just get on with it. You can get fired for it, obviously. I had a female colleague who was really rather naughty and quite up for it. She was fired for having sex with a sous chef in the staff showers where we worked and she then moved on to a rather cool gastro pub, only to be fired from there for doing coke during service. I remember her calling me up and asking me to collect her, only to find her marching out of the front of the restaurant with a fish as large as a small child under her arm, which she’d pinched in a fit of high dudgeon.
But this night was something else. The sensible ones had managed to get home early enough to avoid the coke-punch (why am I never one of those?) but the rest of us stayed till five. And what happened was a little Roman to say the least. Everyone got to it. Anyone who had ever flirted with anyone during the last six months decided that tonight was the night to follow it up. There were people having sex on the floor, there were waitresses doling out blow jobs under the table and the maître d’ was running around totally naked. In fact, not many us kept our clothes on. However, there was one girl who kind of surpassed herself and knelt on all fours on a table in the middle of the room; I am not sure how she ever looked anyone in the eye ever again. But then, I don’t suppose any of us particularly showered ourselves in glory that night.
‘Oh my God, d’you remember that terrible night with that poor woman who became totally hysterical?’ asks Adam, plonking down a selection of the alcoholic samples Martina had left him this afternoon. I can’t help noticing they are all half bottles, instead of the usual 75cl. Austerity appears to have hit the drinks business at last. ‘D’you remember her?’ He looks at me.
How could I ever forget? One of the downsides of this business is that sometimes you see quite how destructive the influence of alcohol can be. Over the years I have seen some awful fights, arguments between friends, between best friends, best girlfriends, husband and wives – it can be incredibly depressing.
But this was terrible. It was very late, about two thirty in the morning, and Adam and I were trying to clear Le Bar. We’d had a bit of a bash and had a DJ in, something I try not to do very often. We’d done our usual trick of pumping up the aircon, making the place properly chilling, ruining the atmosphere, to try and get them out, when we heard a woman scream. There was something in the scream that made your heart stop and understand that it was serious. When we finally found her outside the loos, she was hysterical. I had noticed her earlier in the evening, as she was part of a foursome who looked well-heeled and well glam. Adam and I took her back into the main room and sat her down on a banquette; we couldn’t understand what she was saying, she was jabbering away that mad and sad. What was obvious, though, despite the booze and the rambling, she was pretty and clever and quite a catch. After a few minutes I managed to calm her down enough to ascertain she’d gone into the lavs and found her husband having sex. Her world had fallen apart and she was so upset it was terrible to watch. After some more digging I found out the rest of the four were her ex-boyfriend and his girlfriend, and her husband of five years. So I attempted to calm the situation even more. I said something along the lines that her friend had probably drunk a bit too much wine, I was sure that she regretted it and that if she had a chat with her in the morning it would be OK. She then turned and looked at me, like I was completely half-witted.
‘My husband was not fucking my girlfriend,’ she said very slowly. ‘He was fucking my ex-boyfriend. He turned round and told me he was gay and he had been gay ever since I married him and he no longer wants to be married to me. He wants a divorce.’
The things is, we had all been enjoying the story up until that point, it had been little bit amusing, a domestic in the lavs, but the tone changed and everyone suddenly felt very sorry for her. Adam even offered to pay for her taxi, which is unheard of for him.
‘What drinks have you got here?’ ask Andrew, turning the selection of bottles around to face him, his eyes narrowing slightly as he tries to read the labels.
‘They are mainly rums,’ replies Adam. ‘It’s all about rum at the moment.’
‘Yeah,’ nods Jason. ‘There’s that place, the Rum Kitchen in Notting Hill.’
‘Have you reviewed that?’ asks Andrew.
‘Not yet,’ says Jason. ‘I haven’t been in the job very long.’
‘Jason’s going to be very nice about Le Restaurant, aren’t you, Jason?’ states Caz, her large turquoise eyes staring at him from across the table. It’s more than his bollocks are worth to disagree.
‘Of course,’ he nods.
‘Because we all know it is so much easier to be nasty, that it’s more fun to be a little bit wicked and make hilarious jokes at everyone’s expense,’ she says.
‘Expense being the operative word,’ I say.
‘But it was a first-class lunch, wasn’t it?’ She smiles, like she’s admonishing a small child.
‘Yes,’ he agrees.
‘What do you actually know about food?’ Andrew suddenly chips in. ‘I mean, really?’
‘What was it A. A. Gill said about Giles Coren?’ Oscar suddenly speaks, like Lazarus risen from the dead. ‘“A mouth like a fisherman’s glove but great on a waitress”?’
‘But none of them know anything,’ continues Andrew. ‘Could they actually cook anything?’
‘That’s not really the point though, is it?’ says Caz. ‘The critics have changed along with the food. The lifestyle hack who can sew a fine sentence has taken over from the bore who could wang on for hours about the ingredients. We want writers who can be funny about the décor and the waitresses and the experience, about the craic rather than the crackling.’
‘Probably,’ says Andrew.
‘People’s attitudes have changed; it’s only the twats at San Pellegrino and their World’s Best Fifty Restaurants who want to eat twenty-one courses at El Celler. I mean, I couldn’t think of anything more dull – morels with milk skin and curried walnuts? I’d rather starve,’ says Caz, spoken like a true drunkorexic, like her ability to survive on fresh air and atm
osphere is news to anyone. Given the choice between any morsel of food and starvation, Caz would always choose the later. ‘People are much less scared of going into restaurants; it used to be a terrible social faux pas not to know what something was, and now no one cares. They don’t care about mispronouncing stuff. Mainly because no one knows what half the stuff is anyway.’
‘I suppose so,’ acknowledges Andrew. ‘Fuck it all, what I want to do is open a bar. That way I can serve nice cocktails and be done with it.’
Adam starts to laugh. ‘A bar! You! You can’t open a bar, it would kill you.’ Andrew looks at him, his expression that of ‘mildly-insulted-with-booze’. ‘You can’t be the frontline man for very long, otherwise it kills you off. You’re the last person out and you have to balance the books. I remember a bloke I used to work for before, who was a complete basket case. He’d always be pissed doing the bought ledger and he’d stand and stare at it and then decide to have another beer and a fag before trying to deal with it. It made even less sense to him the next morning.’
Over Adam’s shoulder I can see Damon and the remainder of the bar staff doing the final wipe down behind the bar. The glasses have been cleared, the dishwasher stacked and all the used straws and sliced lemons and limes cleared from behind the bar. Damon is chatting away to another couple of staff, punching fists and slapping them on the shoulder. As I watch Adam go over to thank them for a job well done, I still think that Damon is up to something – although he is clearly rather good at it, otherwise I’d have been to able catch him red-handed by now. I make a mental note to have a proper conversation with Adam about it in the morning. In a situation like this, you have to be sure. As I am pretty certain Damon’s gleaned a few bits of choice information on both Adam and me during the eights months he’s been working here. An amicable split is always preferable to anything resembling a dismissal.
The place is now entirely empty but for Andrew, Caz, Jason, Oscar and Adam who keeps bringing out lots of different flavoured vodkas for everyone for try. I can’t help wishing that Jason would disappear, sod off, in fact. I am quite fond of a few critics and happy to go out on the piss with them, but I don’t know Jason and I’d really rather just unwind with a few familiar faces than have to add his ego into the already ego-heavy mix. I should also perhaps put Oscar in a cab. His wife/girlfriend is probably wandering where the hell he is, although I am pretty sure she’s used to being a Hospitality Widow.
I think it must be quite tricky being married to a chef. They only really like hanging out with other people in the industry. They’re like politicians, who only really enjoy each other’s company. There’s nothing they like more than obsessively talking shop. Where have you been? Who’s good? Who’s doing well? Where’s the next hot place? What’s the next hot thing? It’s very hard for civilians to join in, as there really is a limit to a normal person’s interest in the texture of the beef suet ‘candle’ at Story. Or whether the Gramercy Tavern’s Danny Mayer is actually going to take over from Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s now that his services are no longer required.
But it is also a massive excuse for sublimely selfish behaviour, or at least that’s what both of my ex-wives accused me of. There is that male ego thing about work. ‘I have to work till one at night and I have to go back again at seven in the morning. Don’t give me a hard time! This is what I do! My work, my business, I am doing it for us!’ Which is obviously bollocks. It is just that they/we prefer the company of customers and other chefs to our wives or children.
In the end it’s Adam who persuades Oscar to get into a cab. The poor bloke is not really capable of speech. In fact, it is quite hard for Adam to ascertain his address. Fortunately he is used to the slurred ramblings of drunks and so he pieces together some address near Mile End. As we both escort him out into the waiting minicab, my phone goes. It’s the boys from Rentokil, saying they are almost finished cleaning up Le Restaurant. The fat has been removed, the drains are now clear and would I like to come down and inspect the place.
Obviously there is nothing I’d dislike more, but if I am to open up tomorrow, needs absolutely must.
4–5 a.m.
Rentokil are just finishing up when I arrive. The kitchen looks immaculate. The floor’s been scrubbed and the steel worktops are cleaner than when the commis normally sluice down at the end of service. The ovens, the least popular job at the end of the night, look more than passable, as do all the white wall tiles; even the grouting doesn’t appear too stained. The smell of bleach and cleaning products hangs heavy in the air, but it is in welcome contrast to the previous stench. Although, if you breathe in deep enough (and I try very hard not to), you can still detect a back note of sewage. But all in all they have done an impressive job. I don’t know how many bodies they’ve thrown at the problem but it is hard to imagine that less than a few hours ago the whole place was swimming, ankle deep, in the finest contents of the capital’s drainage system.
It takes another ten minutes for me to go through all the paperwork, signing off on drain blasting and deep cleaning. A rotund grey-haired bloke in charge tells me, with the relish of a proper obsessive, the actual size of the fatberg they’d managed to retrieve from under the main drain.
‘The size of two dinner plates,’ he enthuses, demonstrating the actual size with his huge thick fingers. How he can type his report into the computer encased in a thick grey plastic suitcase is anyone’s guess. ‘It’s enough to cause a major obstruction,’ he sniffs. I feel like saying ‘no shit’ but that would be the martinis talking and perhaps not the sort of joke he’d enjoy. So instead I thank him and his team profusely for turning out at such an unearthly hour to deal with such an unpleasant problem. ‘It’s part of the service,’ he shrugs, picking up his computer. ‘Could you sign here, here and here and rate the service here.’
A few minutes later and I am entirely alone in Le Restaurant. I lock the back door and walk through the bleach-soaked kitchen, turning off the strip lights. Through the swing doors, it is dark. The tables have been cleared, only the linen cloths remain, and the orange street lamps cast the room in an eerie glow. The silver bar reflects the outside light; it also catches off the rows of spirit bottles lined up on the glass shelves behind. Empty restaurants are weird places; there is something rather haunting about somewhere that is normally so full of life and energy rendered so totally still. To be honest, I have always found them a little scary. And it is usually just as you are closing up that you come across the unexpected.
I remember when I worked in a small restaurant in Kensington, walking around checking all the doors when I heard this terrible moaning sound coming from the courtyard out the back. It was enough to make your blood run cold. I remember my heart beating in my chest and my palms growing clammy. It was a pitiful noise, a low and painful mewing. I slowly opened the back door to find some poor bloke wandering around the enclosed courtyard. He’d gone to the loo only to have gone out through the wrong door and fallen asleep. He’d woken up several hours later, after service had long gone, and had not been able to find the exit. He was wandering around like a caged animal making this weeping noise that didn’t sound human at all.
But then again, coming across one of my chefs passed out, stark naked in the office once, surrounded by the dregs of a cocaine binge, was worse. For a start, I thought he was dead. It looked like the ultimate rock ’n’ roll suicide. His flesh was so white, luminous in the moonlight, the hair on his body was so dark, so saturnine, and he was motionless. He looked like some sort of giant pupating slug, a sheen of sweat all over him. It took me a while to get into the office as his comatose legs were blocking the door. By the time I had managed to force my way in I was ready to call 999 and it was only when I heard him belch that I realized he was simply out for the count on the floor.
I sit down at one of the bar stools and yawn. I catch a glimpse of my dishevelled reflection in the mirror behind; it is not a good look. My hair needs a cut, I have stubble that’s just reaching the George Mich
ael stage and I have bags big enough for the Kardashians to take on holiday. What a day! I am vaguely thinking about helping myself to a vodka and tonic. I have been up for nearly twenty-three hours and I could really do with going to bed. I am absolutely exhausted. Only I am loath to leave Adam and the others with a free rein at Le Bar. I have been in Caz’s company enough times to know that come this time of day/morning she is impossible to stop. She’s one of those girls who says: ‘Oh, just one more. Just one more for the road. One more can’t hurt. How about another tiny one?’ For someone who looks like a cocktail stick she has the stamina of Oliver Reed. There’s no telling how much stock they’ll get through before six, Adam’s cut-off point. He is always out before the cleaning staff. That’s his rule. No matter how many battalions of Bolivia’s finest he’s had up his nose, he’s out of there, for a shower, a shave and a laundered Paul Smith shirt before coming back in at eight, fresh as a proverbial daisy.
I lock up and head back towards Le Bar. The streets are deserted now but for a homeless person curled up in a doorway. Lying horizontal, covered in a cardboard box, I recognize his shoes. He is one of the local old boys who occasionally turns up to go through the bins around eleven at night. I know Barney is always leaving out a few choice things within easy reach, plus the occasional tot of whisky of a cold night. He’s nice like that.
It is still pitch black outside. The sky is a deep, dark granite and a couple of confused birds are belting out some tunes. It really is time to go to bed. Sadly, as I arrive at Le Bar, the level of laughter and banter makes me realize that I’m the only one who thinks that.
‘So I am standing there,’ says Adam, out of his chair, acting. ‘And this thirteen-year-old girl stood up and barfed all down my trousers. I was holding a tray of food, so I couldn’t do anything. All I could think was “I have been here since six this morning and I really don’t need this,” so I walked up to another waiter and said: “You’d better take this,” and I walked very slowly out of the room.’
Restaurant Babylon Page 23
