by Scott Haas
“Angst!” he said triumphantly. “That’s what he gets the cooks to feel.”
“Isn’t that the same as fear?”
“No, it’s different,” Danny said. “Look, we’re like dogs.” He put out his arms and looked around the kitchen. “See?”
I saw what he meant. Somebody had to direct the crew. The cooks were laughing, fooling around, and engaging in horseplay. Without a chef, the crew would do as they wished or follow the example set by one of the cooks.
“I have to address any fuckup right away. Otherwise they’ll think it’s okay some of the time,” Danny said. He revealed that the last time he ran Craigie, he did a bad job as a leader and everyone got too relaxed. As he took out a long, wet, gray stone and began to sharpen magnificent Japanese knives, he admitted that he let it go on purpose.
“Everyone needs a break from Tony now and then,” he said.
Not with resentment, jealousy, or anger, but as a simple fact.
“Opening up the doors!” shouted Meredith, who was one of the general managers—statuesque, charming, and as polite as a suburban Girl Scout awkwardly selling cookies at her grandfather’s country club, knowing that allowing the old men to flirt with her meant more money for the troop. “Opening up!”
With the doors open and the restaurant gradually filling up, Tony’s mother, Marjorie Maws, had found a spot at the bar to dine alone: oil-poached halibut, a glass of wine, and The New Yorker, folded in half, to a piece about Nabokov’s letters.
“It’s a little bit more mellow here without Tony,” Marjorie said in response to my question about life at Craigie without him. “And we keep the numbers down when he’s not here. It’s what the cooks and Danny can handle without him…We stagger the reservations, and we have fifteen to twenty percent fewer customers.”
Excitement in the rooms, but Marjorie was the epitome of calm. Eating Tony’s food without him being there enabled her to create an ideal picture of her son.
As the evening progressed, Danny was aided by Matt. Matt was the sort of person I would want by my side if cast away on a deserted island. He did not move in subtle ways, but what he lacked in finesse he made up for with a powerful sense of humor and the culinary equivalent of not just the willingness, but the desire to climb the tallest trees to get the best coconuts. After Lydia had left, Matt had been promoted to the line and then swiftly to sous chef.
Both men had grown up in New England—Matt in Hyde Park, Massachusetts. Both had attended prestigious culinary schools: Danny at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and Matt at Johnson & Wales.
“A big part of why most Boston restaurants are so terrible,” Tony had told me weeks before, “is that most talented cooks gravitate to much better food cities. Finding cooks from this area means that maybe they’ll want to stick around to be close to their families and friends. For sure that’s why I came back after working on the West Coast.”
Unlike Danny, who is a cook’s cook, someone for whom cooking has its own enchantments, Matt talked about chefs and restaurants like a so-called foodie. It is what differentiated him from the other cooks in Tony’s kitchen and what distracted him periodically from the work. He was philosophical.
Both Matt and Danny were directing teams in the kitchen rather than working with their hands, which gave them ample opportunity to talk about why they did what they did. The first customers had been seated. Besides ordering the cooks around, Danny and Matt were tasting food.
It was cold out, and people came in grumpy, but as the first plates arrived at their tables, the behavior changed, at first almost imperceptibly through posture, and then through raised voices, rapid speech, and happy topics of conversation. It was that first-date method of operation: Even couples who had been together a long time, or business associates, were eager to please because the food they were eating had elevated their moods.
“Look at that,” said Danny, beaming at the expediting table, looking over tickets as they clicked in electronically. “Instant gratification! We don’t have to wait to find out if someone likes something. We see it right away!”
Matt, who was at garde manger, managing three cooks, chimed in.
“I love belonging to the restaurant community,” Matt said. “That’s what makes me happy…Working in a restaurant I feel like I’m part of this family, here at Craigie, but part of a bigger family, too. Like when I was eating at Corton, in Tribeca? The waiter took me into the kitchen when I told him I worked in a restaurant.”
“Did you feel at home?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Matt said. He paused. “To be honest? Yes and no. I mean the chef there, Paul Liebrandt, he’s probably a good person, but he got real adamant when I tried to buy the cooks a round of beers. ‘No way,’ he said. I mean, I was just trying to be friendly.”
The kitchen was heating up. Plenty of six-course tasting menus, eight-course tasting menus, a few à la carte dishes, and nearly a dozen burgers at the bar. Butter and shallots, vinegar being reduced, clouds of cumin-scented vapor rising, cream, and savory olive oil. Kyle and Bobby, the two young cooks at the grill station under Danny, were working at the same speed as they had when they first came in, but now it appeared that they were in slow motion. In contrast, Danny and the rest of the team looked as if they were being paid to move by the second. It was purposeful, and beautiful to watch. Outside the kitchen, life might not make sense, but here everything had meaning. That Kyle and Bobby did not quite share that feeling infuriated Danny.
“Put your cap on, Bobby,” said Danny.
Bobby came over to him. He put his cap on.
“Get the fuck back to your station,” Danny said.
Bobby turned around silently.
“Get back here,” said Danny. He glanced up from the tickets he was writing on. “What the fuck?”
Bobby’s apron was on backward.
“What the fuck, Bobby,” Danny said.
“The other side got stained,” Bobby said. He spoke blandly, as if not quite sure why what did not bother him was upsetting to someone else. He could not see outside himself. He was that young.
“Go the fuck downstairs and get another apron, for fuck’s sake, Bobby.”
Danny shook his head and called Matt over.
“Taste the hiramasa,” Danny said to Matt. Danny can handle fish, but if he eats it, he has a severe allergic reaction.
“Tastes good,” said Matt. He grinned.
“Good to go,” said Danny.
He instructed Kyle to plate the fish, which then was brought over to the expediting table, where a server and then Meredith rearranged it and mopped the edges of the plate with a napkin. Three people stood over the plate, turning it, examining its contents, looking at it, thinking things over.
“I need a runner,” the manager said.
“Got it,” said Bunny, who was being cross-trained to be waitstaff as well as work the door. She had tiny freckles, an innocent smile, and little eyes. She looked like a quiet person who was actually no Miss Goody Two Shoes. Bunny was majoring in library science and along with an amazing head for numbers, the ability to arrange diagrams of tables where people were seated, and an extraordinary memory, her instincts included goofing off. Her laugh got others going. I had the sense that she was the one in high school whom all the parents trusted, but also the person who got her brother to buy the keg for the party. Instantly likable.
“Thirty-seven,” said Meredith, referring to the table awaiting the fish, before returning to the hostess lectern by the door.
Two Southern men arrived and swaggered over to her.
“The concierge at The Sheraton Commander reserved a table for us,” said the tall, thin, gray-haired man of the pair. He seemed to think his hotel had cachet when, truth be told, its glory days took place during Prohibition. “Name’s Griffin.”
“Why, yes,” said Meredith, catching his vibe effortlessly, “we’ll show you right to your table.”
The table was by the window, raised up, and the men were asked
to sit on stools.
Then Meredith returned quickly to the door, where I stood, to take care of three customers who had just walked in looking like they were at a wake. I could see she had to attend to them immediately, but I also saw that the two Southerners were unhappy about where they had been seated. They began to fidget and look around the room.
“Hi, good evening, welcome to Craigie on Main,” said Meredith to The Unhappy Trio at the door.
Meredith was twenty-four, inexperienced, but as comfortable with authority as an officer. Her bearing was serious and unyielding. Her posture was correct. She seemed at first to be an odd choice for hostess, but then I realized that the favors she granted customers felt to them even more special because when Meredith paid attention to customers, it was like having a star take time out from her day. Acting special rubbed off on them.
As Meredith granted their wishes, she also made it clear that this was something she wanted to do rather than something she had to do. Hospitality was not a job for Meredith; it was a vocation, something she had been born to do better than most people. It was, ultimately, a way to show who was in charge.
She was in charge.
The trio she was greeting were an older couple and a man, in his forties, who looked like he was their son. The younger man looked exhausted: bent over, poor eye contact, restlessly touching his face, hair sticking out, button-up shirt, and tee visible at his neck.
“So happy to see you,” Meredith continued. She was from North Carolina, she had told me, and had been taught proper manners. “I’ll show you right to your table!”
They followed her, shoulders slumped, into the dark dining room. When she returned, I asked, “Did you know them?”
“Nope,” Meredith said, “they’ve never been here before, but I could tell they needed cheering up right away.”
Meredith did not tolerate unhappiness in customers. Unacceptable! Simply unacceptable! She saw their discomfort, but it was as if she had decided that if she tried hard enough she could cheer anyone up. Meredith was not particularly empathic, and because of that she made certain that people coming in to dine would not be subjected to scrutiny. She was not interested in what made them unhappy, only concerned with what could cheer them up. When she said, “Welcome!” you had better show the love back. Now. She meant it.
She walked over to the expediting table.
“Sixes on eights,” Meredith said to Danny.
Six orders had been placed, and as there were eight customers in the restaurant, two people had not yet decided what to eat.
Looking confident, pleased with herself, Meredith returned to the door to look through the list of VIPs coming in that night. It was not an impressive list: no celebrities, no high rollers, nobody from the restaurant industry. Instead, regulars with preferred tables, birthdays, anniversaries, and businesspeople with clients from out of town.
Certainly one of the key elements of a successful, expensive, and relatively exclusive restaurant is its VIP list. I have seen the most famous chefs, men who no longer cook, study the roster of VIPs with devotion, as they know that making these people happy is the essence of what they do.
It is a difficult balance to strike: how to get the VIP steak to the table without the customer at the next table noticing that his steak, well, honestly, it’s just not as juicy, not as big, and not covered with as many morels.
Meredith, at the door, started this process of welcoming the VIPs, greeting them at the door with the right level of effusion and respect without other customers feeling slighted.
One particular challenge, which was about to take place, was the customer who is not a VIP but wants to be treated like one.
“Excuse me? Miss?”
Meredith looked up.
The tall, Southern gentleman she had seated was back.
“I don’t like the table,” Mr. Griffin said. “It’s high off the ground, the stools are uncomfortable, and my feet dangle. We would like to be moved to another table.”
“Ah, yes,” Meredith said, sounding combative for fleeting seconds but then excited by the challenge. She went to the computer screen showing the layout of tables. It looked like the game Battleship. She stayed chipper. “Let’s see what I can do!”
If she could solve the problem, she could make a complete stranger happy! Immediately! Most people do not have jobs like that. The great thing about hospitality is the immediacy of the experience and the goal being so focused: Make someone happy! Make them forget about their tough day at work, the arguments in their relationships, the memories that kept popping up—at the oddest times—of unhappiness they had experienced long ago.
“I don’t have any tables available right at this moment,” said Meredith, “but I do see something here that might interest you. Would you like to sit at the chef’s counter?”
“And what is that?” asked the man, who was by now suspicious. “I mean, either you have a table or you don’t.”
“I really don’t, I’m sorry,” said Meredith. “I told the concierge that when she made your booking…this morning.”
Edge had crept into her voice, but then was gone as quickly as it had appeared. What upset Meredith was the nerve of a customer who was far from a VIP asking her to devote time to a problem that should not have been one and who was not interested in her proposal.
“The concierge didn’t say anything about a high table and stools,” he said.
“The chef’s counter offers a wonderful pair of seats,” Meredith said. “You’ll have the chance to watch the kitchen in action. People love it. Want to give it a try?”
Meredith widened her eyes and gave him her biggest smile. She had small, beautiful, very white teeth. He would be crazy to say no to her. She was the kind of person who inspired trust and got others to do what she wanted.
The best restaurants establish trust with their customers on the phone, at the door, and throughout the meal. The ways that great restaurants make their customers feel welcome based on that trust are so different from the homes most people grew up in, where trust was inconsistent. The struggle to trust the restaurant and the chef is why customers will often squabble over tables, food, wine, and prices, and why they will spend large sums of money to eat out.
“I’ll try it,” said Mr. Griffin.
Meredith walked him back to the table to collect his friend and then led the two men to the chef’s counter: four tall stools and a marble top facing garde manger and within a few feet of the grill, the stovetop, two prep areas, and the expediting table. The height was the same as the table they had left, and the counter was more narrow.
“I did tell the concierge about the stools,” she said to me when she returned.
“I believe you,” I said.
I walked into the kitchen to watch Danny, at the pass, looking over tickets and trying to get the cooks to focus.
“What the fuck, Bobby,” said Danny. He looked like a bantamweight boxer between rounds: red-faced, exasperated, eager to deliver the knockout punch. “C’mon, Bobby!”
“What?”
“Cook! Cook, Bobby! Stop hanging the fuck around!”
“But, Danny,” said Bobby.
Danny glared at him.
“Believe me, Bobby, if I wanted to hear you talk, I’d ask you.”
Bobby stepped closer to him to apologize for not working fast enough.
“Bobby!” said Danny. “What the fuck, Bobby! Stop standing so close to me!”
“But, Danny…”
“Stop looking at me!”
“But, Danny…”
“Welcome to the big time, Bobby! Now shut up and cook!”
Bobby smiled, turned his back, and returned to his station.
“And, listen, Bobby,” said Danny over his shoulder, “if you’re gonna fuck with me, it’s downstairs with Santos for you!”
“Okay, Danny!” Bobby said with a grin. “Got it!”
“I swear to God,” Danny muttered.
Bobby, whose complexion was now p
ink from blushing after being chastised, had been at Craigie only a couple of months and, despite the harsh reprimands, didn’t appear to be sad or rattled by Danny’s tirade.
Just the opposite.
Bobby thought that if Danny did not believe in him and was not convinced that he had the potential to cook faster and with greater focus, he would have ignored him.
Bobby thought he was the star in the kitchen. He thought that he was being groomed for a promotion.
Danny yelled out: “I have couth and none of you do! You’re a bunch of uncouth bastards!”
Danny turned to the counter behind the pass to take out a small metal tray.
“Look at these,” he said to me, lifting up a paper towel.
He took out three glistening, nearly translucent scallops, and as he sliced them paper thin, small bubbles rose from each.
“For a chef’s tasting,” Danny said, handing them to Jill in garde manger who would plate them to look like art: microgreens, squirts of sauce, pickled mango, salt.
Tony had told me about Jill: “Maybe another future rock star! She totally gets it!”
Jill had joined Craigie only a few weeks before. Robust, powerful, and the polar opposite of dainty, she had grown up in Brooklyn, worked in restaurants from age fourteen, and completed Johnson & Wales only weeks ago. Jill had the perfect combination of attributes needed to work in a restaurant kitchen: early passion (that word again!), solid experience, and an apparent willingness to sacrifice everything to succeed in the business. Plus, she was very young, just having turned twenty-two, with the physical and mental energy to work as many as ninety hours a week.
I loved being with Jill most of all because she was what she did: not just defined by her social class, education, skin color, or gender, but by her work. She could prioritize what was going on around her and in doing so brought profound focus to the kitchen.
Danny shouted orders to the cooks. To see the kitchen move now, at high speed, made the rest of the world appear dull by comparison. Here was alacrity, concentration, and…but what was that? Why was Dakota dancing?
Dakota, his long hair bundled up, long tattooed arms fluttering, was jumping in place as he worked hard to keep up with orders.
