by Jim Hearn
Then, one day, Doug offered me the deal of a lifetime.
Doug was a businessman, he wasn’t a cook, and he only really acted at being a host. This is not to say he didn’t enjoy it. Shit, I think he was having the time of his life. He’d bought the restaurant as a very going concern and was able to hang about the place doing deals with suppliers, hiring and firing staff, and generally keeping on top of the paperwork while he sucked back the vino rosso and called for more cheese. And he did it well. But he was always looking to expand and even franchise the restaurant concept—which is never a good idea. Outside of fast food, I don’t think franchising works. I know some place, somewhere, will prove me wrong, but I probably wouldn’t rate the joint anyway.
So Doug did what every ambitious restaurateur does and took on some partners. The Italians, as they became known, were a couple of entrepreneurs who had imported all the necessary machinery from Italy to make commercial quantities of fresh pasta. And they were good, hard-working Italian boys rather than dreamers or mafioso. They already had some successful fresh pasta ‘huts’ in shopping centres and the plan was to bring a trattoria dining experience—like Sorrentino’s—into the fresh pasta ‘huts’ and generally take it all to the next level. So they opened in some pretty exposed public places, and soon the Balmain version of things got rubbed with the Circular Quay version of things, which brought the whole experience of dining at ‘a’ Sorrentino’s down to the lowest level. It wasn’t like you could have one flagship restaurant that was somehow superior to the others; people ate at or saw the other version of things and that’s what they started to equate with Sorrentino’s.
The thing about the pasta machine of the Italians was that it was capable of pumping out a lot more pasta than they were able to sell. They’d opened a place in King Street, Newtown, which in the mid-eighties was a particularly grungy part of what was predominantly a university suburb in the inner west of Sydney, and the shop went belly up. The fit-out was good—they had put in quality equipment and signed a long lease—but after about six months they were losing so much money they decided they were better off with the place closed. So they offered it to me.
Basically the deal was that I walk into the joint, open it up under whatever name I wanted, pay the rent, and they would give me a three-month supply of as much fresh pasta and sauces as I needed. The rent was next to nothing; it was a bargain. I could see right away that the problem with the place was that the branding was too conservative for its location. It was out of place in what was a lowbrow, drug-fuelled, rock-and-roll neighbourhood. It was a hundred metres up the road from the Sandringham Hotel, which at the time was one of the premier performing spaces for alternative music. It was a hip part of town before it got hip . . . but you could feel it coming. The problem was that not enough people were walking down the street at the right time of day—but if you were twenty-two and had your ear to the ground, you could hear the traffic coming. And I jumped at the chance.
10
It’s not unusual for chefs to use a whole lot of drugs, drink like alcoholics and smoke a pack a day. Commercial kitchens are the last bastions of I don’t give a fuck when it comes to the random, hedonistic consumption of legal and illegal intoxicants. And because chefs work so many hours over such a broad sweep of the week, particularly during times when others are letting their hair down, most chefs see it as their responsibility to roster on having a few beverages or joints or lines during work hours. And I’m fine with that; I don’t do it myself any more, but I’m hardly in a position to instruct others not to. Which is just as well because Choc, who Vinnie spoke to me about earlier in the day, has disappeared for longer than his requested two-minute piss-break.
There was the briefest of lulls in the kitchen ten minutes ago and Choc, sensing an opportunity, grabbed his balls and pointed to the bathrooms.
‘Two minutes,’ I yelled after him as he walked out of the kitchen, past the bar and down the tunnel towards the toilets. The problem is that beyond the toilets and the coolroom and the pool there is a gate that opens onto a small patch of bushland. And for Choc, there are mermaids singing out there. It’s a quiet and damp and silent place where a weary chef or a bush turkey might rest awhile before rejoining the madness that exists inside Rae’s rendered pink walls.
Jesse has moved his car and is talking in hushed tones to Soda about what the police told him. Byron Bay is a small town, so if you happen to meet the police at some point, you quickly become known to them. Both Soda and Jesse are on first-name terms with most of the officers.
‘Did they let you keep the keys, Jesse?’ I enquire.
‘Yes, Chef. Everything’s all right. They just wanted me to move the car.’
‘Where did you get a park?’
‘Got the glory park right out front, Chef.’ Jesse smiles.
‘Lucky,’ I reply. ‘Listen, I’m going to go drag Choc back inside. You two clear the dishes off the waiters’ station and make a little bench space. You’re about to get smashed with the rest of the dessert orders.’
‘Yes, Chef,’ they chorus, getting on with the job straight away.
Jesse and Soda are more animated than they have been for days and no doubt it’s because they can sense an impending drama that involves the law. Whatever they’re up to—and I really would prefer not to know—will require me to try to limit the fallout. And I must do this if I am going to physically survive the next few days because I simply cannot have one of them not turn up to work.
The irony of me being, in the boys’ eyes, the old straight dude down by the stove who couldn’t possibly understand the extent of their debauchery and evil ways . . . well, it’s bittersweet. I certainly never planned to be that guy. In fact my whole life can probably be described as a failure to plan, but time gets away from us all.
Walking from the kitchen out to the coolroom at Rae’s requires walking through the back of the restaurant. It’s something I haven’t had to do during lunch service today, and it’s refreshing to see all the guests having a good time. You can sometimes forget that people are relaxing and enjoying themselves just a few metres from where you’re stressing out and fending off chaos. Paris and Nicky and the rest of the girls at their table seem to be genuinely happy as they finish up their desserts. The two security guys, who are sitting at a table next to the girls, shoot me a wink and half raise their beer glasses. Scotty is hovering, picking off empty glasses and finished plates. The sun is arching back somewhere overhead, its fierceness giving way to afternoon shadows.
Out beyond the pool, through the back gate, Choc is sitting on a log staring foggy-eyed at a water dragon.
‘Hey, mate,’ I call, breaking his spell.
‘Oh, hey, Chef.’ Choc quickly stubs out his joint.
‘Listen, I just thought you should know that Vinnie is pissed off about you coming out here and sparking up. He’s talking about putting a lock on the door so no one can use it.’
‘Oh, no way!’ replies Choc, who sounds eager to be neither the guy who screws up everyone else’s good time, or inappropriate with me, his head chef—the tension of which forces a stoner’s giggle out of him.
‘Mate, I need you to keep your shit together until Thursday. You’ve got two days off then and you can have a blow-out, okay?’
‘Yes, Chef. Sorry, Chef.’ Choc sounds overly serious as he gets up off his log and walks back past me into the pool area.
‘Don’t be sorry, Choc. Just pace yourself and we’ll be through the worst of the high season in no time, all right?’
‘Yes, Chef.’ He strides back into the kitchen.
And it is nice out here in the damp undergrowth, where I wait a moment and breathe in the moist air that still has traces of Choc’s dope floating around. It’s a little plot of nature that has survived the crush of sports cars and sunscreen, the longboards and the hot open beach. And the smell of the joint has me sucking in a few extra deep breaths. But while I’d truly love a joint right now, or a couple of beers or a bottle of
something red, I know that getting pissed or stoned at this point in the game is going to send me to a place I won’t readily be able to escape from.
I take out my phone and flick back through the photos Alice sent me earlier in the day. There are two new pictures, which are of plants throwing off new shoots from previously pruned branches. Alice has taken up gardening in the last year or so with something of a born-again fervour. The plants are slowly learning who’s boss. I snap a picture of myself, careful to get as much of my blood-, sauce- and fat-splattered tunic in the frame as I can, and send if off with a Day off tomorrow! message.
Back in the kitchen Jesse and Soda are semi-organised, which is novel. They have smashed through about twenty loads of dishes and cleared off the larder bench in order to set up the pastry section mise en place. The dessert orders are racking up on their docket clip and they are communicating: this is progress; this is good. Watching these guys take some responsibility, call the pass and clap the food out, is motivating. It means I can now fill a bucket of soapy water and start scrubbing down my section. I begin by piling all the dirty pots and pans onto the floor in the galley. I can’t afford to slow down yet or stop moving for fear that my knees will seize. It’s not a joke, I’m afraid. And I’m not that old. I’m a good four to eight years younger than Vinnie, depending on how old Vinnie is this week, and I should be fitter. My muscles and joints should be more agile and supple. But like I said, the life of a chef is physically demanding and the longer it goes on the more I realise I will have to start implementing strategies to cope with future high seasons.
During the quieter times I’m fine, no problem, king of the world. Come schoolies week, though—that faintly ridiculous tradition where the kids who’ve completed high school all pour out from the cities and hit the party towns up and down the east coast—I know it’s time to get the yoga mat out of the cupboard and start making a fool of myself in the sanctity of my bedroom. It’s a lonely experience, my yoga practice, which, as a ritual, has all the visual appeal of an angry, overweight, mid-life contortionist rather than the elegant flow of Salutations to the Sun and Legs up the Wall in Bhujangasana.
‘Jesse, what petits fours have you got?’ Scotty barks into the kitchen.
‘Chocolates,’ Jesse answers.
‘That’s it?’ Scotty demands.
‘Fifteen years . . .’ I start mimicking Vinnie.
‘It’s been an unbroken chain for fifteen years until you got here, Jesse,’ Scotty finishes.
‘Unbroken, strong!’ I add.
‘Yeah, yeah, whatever,’ Jesse says wearily, like he doesn’t give a fuck.
‘You turn up at Rae’s and the fucking petit four chain breaks,’ Scotty continues in perfect Vinnie-speak as he scrapes off dirty plates and stacks them, ever higher, in the waiters’ station.
‘We haven’t run out—there’s chocolates,’ Soda chimes in.
‘Well, get the fucking things,’ Scotty tells them. ‘The girls are having a coffee and then they’re going. They want to be out in fifteen minutes.’
And as Scotty disappears from the kitchen, you can sense his frustration at not having raised Vinnie on the phone. And it is unusual that Vinnie hasn’t answered his mobile all day. His timing is usually impeccable, turning up at the exact moment someone starts mimicking him or just as a chef sits down to eat something after fifteen hours on their feet. And when he does arrive, right at the moment Scotty raises a beer to his lips, just after the restaurant has cleared out, he’ll immediately start pointing out everything that’s wrong with the restaurant by ringing out a list of all the things that need to happen—now! Vinnie knows the danger of tired bodies slowing down. It’s like all he ever sees is the lack of value in someone moving at anything less than his or her most efficient speed. For Vinnie, anything other than intense focus and complete application is a cop out and it shouldn’t matter that you’ve just worked a triple shift non-stop. That level of commitment can be very inspiring. And it’s in demanding nothing less than the very best from his staff that Vinnie is able to maintain the lifestyle he has become accustomed to.
Soda passes the handmade chocolates through to the bar, where Sammy the barman ferrets them away into the back of the wine fridge. The petits fours are the equivalent of gold in the bar, particularly during the high season when the time it takes chefs to set the chocolate moulds, make the fillings and pour the casings is time that could be spent on a whole lot more pressing things.
11
I was excited at the start of the Pasta Man. The idea of being my own boss, working my own hours and reaping whatever rewards I could from my efforts was something I was eager to set in train.
Initially I spent hours just hanging around inside the shop with the lights out, working out what I was going to do with the space. There were limitations; I had to work with the existing equipment but that was all top quality anyhow. I began to see what colours might work and how a blackboard menu could function. This wasn’t a restaurant; it was a cafe with a coffee machine and fresh pasta for sale as well as cooked pasta meals in a separate heated bain-marie.
It was the time of Interview magazine and I had a subscription because I thought it was about the coolest thing on Planet Earth. I got to cutting out pictures and pasting them up on the walls, drawing inspiration from its photographs and from the busy street outside. There was a seat out front which I painted the same colours as the shop to bring something from the outside in. I employed an Italian girl who was going to university and lived down the road. She was an artist and good with colours and ideas and people and . . . like me, not so good with drugs. But in the early days, I didn’t care about that. This was the opportunity I had been waiting for and I was determined to make each step a winner by taking everything I knew about hospitality and pouring it into this space.
Opening night was a fucking killer. I haven’t opened anything more than a tub of yoghurt since because it would have to be the most nerve-racking thing imaginable. And another thing, because the place had a counter, I was always in contact with customers. If everyone’s got their strengths and weaknesses, talking to people about the same stuff over and over again was never one of my strong points. But it was all money, and from day one things were going pretty well. People were walking into the shop and spending cash; that was good, that was action. Almost immediately, the business was doing better than its previous incarnation, which made Doug and the Italians happy. They were dishing up free pasta, after all, so the place was still costing them money, but from week one there was enough turnover to pay the rent, the bills and me. I couldn’t really do the maths on what it was going to cost to actually buy the produce from the Italians when the three months was up, but no one else seemed to be worrying about that either.
I had a flat above Rockefeller Bar & Grill in Darlinghurst and used to scooter to work over in Newtown each day. It was about a five-kilometre trip through peak-hour traffic but I was happy to commute because I liked living near Kings Cross and the nightclubs. When I’d come home from work around nine o’clock, I’d go have a few beers and catch a band, or sometimes get a little more wasted, but I felt positive about the business and life in general—like I had some control over what was happening.
In week three of running the Pasta Man my scooter got stolen, and that was truly fucked because I didn’t have the money to buy a new one and I had to catch public transport, which added two hours to each day I worked.
After about four weeks, I realised I couldn’t continue doing seven days a week, fourteen hours a day. The old Greek couple down the road did it; hell, they’d probably done it their whole lives, but frankly the picture they cut wasn’t how I saw my future. So I did what any businessman does who wants to expand—in this instance into some more free time—and took on a partner. Who was also a friend. And it went well for a while. He wasn’t a chef but you didn’t have to be to do what we were doing, which was basically cooking off fresh pasta and heating up sauce, adding some vegetables and herbs, a
nd then serving it out of a bain-marie. Like I said, it wasn’t fine dining but we also brought some love to the food. It wasn’t just a squat and gobble; we used to light some candles and put on some nice music and turn the lights down low at dinner . . . really, things could only get worse.
Pretty soon I figured out how the local smack scene worked. These things are fluid and you need some time to tune into the street in the sense that, while you might see the same dealer on the same corner a few days in a row, only a fool would rush in, particularly a fool who was now a visible part of the local business scene. We had regular customers and suppliers, and people I waved to each morning. And if people noticed me getting on with Paddy at the train station, that would not be good for business.
Eventually I was able to work out a plan with Chris, the local dealer, who was mad, bad and entirely dangerous. Basically he would send someone by the shop at the same time each morning, someone different, mix the faces up, and I would pay them while they had a coffee on the house. You didn’t want someone running in and out, you wanted an invisible scene, something no one else would notice, because what had become apparent to me over the last couple of years was that being a junkie didn’t make anyone Mr Popular. People were actually quite down on my comrades in the smack world, and while that was depressing for those of us on the inside, it was never reason enough to stop chasing another rabbit down a hole.
There was a very busy hairdressing salon next door and one of the guys, Terry, used to drop by and fix up with me. He was about ten years older and was very down on himself about using.
