His arrival has brought up another old discussion in the kitchen. The new place is set to open in less then 2 weeks and they are seriously lacking in the BOH. Good line cooks especially are hard to find right now. If I was a line cook I would not want to open a new place. All the extra headaches of finding places for things and putting systems in place is extra work which you will not be compensated for. So, either the Chef or myself will need to go up there for at least a month. I can't decide what I want to do. Surrounding myself with people smarter and more talented then me will make me better. What scares me is the work involved in opening a new restaurant. Actually it is not the work, but the amount of covers. I hear numbers like three-four hundred and that makes me nauseous. Those types of number are a months worth of covers at my place. Is working the line like riding a bike? Opening a new place is a pain too, it is like being the new guy along with a bunch of other new guys who can't find anything either. Everyone walks around like idiots backtracking and rechecking places looking for that one missing ingredient only to find it in the station next to you.
Another part of me wants to leave so the EC will be stuck with his boy Slingblade, 6 days a week. Fucking someone should never be a reason to do anything, but it is a nice little bonus to me leaving for a bit. Would it be weird for a EC to leave his restaurant for that long? he does live five minutes from the new place and he could easily go there. I could care less if he was there or not, more would get done in less time without him taking up space. I am overly confident in my ability to run our kitchen in his absence. But would I be shorting myself in the long run by not going to learn at the new place? The Chef there is a Jedi and is willing to share his knowledge with anyone who will listen.
4 comments:
I'm too tired at present to comment on this post the way it deserves, but I have to say something before I double check my TC DVR and pass out (sober, like an asshole). Props to Mikey for being a badass line cook and being so deservedly proud of it. Some professional chefs start on the line (obviously), never really get the hang of it and suffer through from station to station just long enough to move into a management position where their inability to be one of the guys is somehow ameliorated by their other skill sets. I have worked with a lot of chefs in my time who have no business on the line on anything other than the slowest Monday lunch. I don't know if they ever had the speed, the bust-it-out attitude or the ability, but they lost it somewhere along the way. In short, it is exactly like riding a bike, but it depends on what kind of rider you were in the first place.
i dunno how i managed to get brought into this discussion, but i appreciate the mention. i understand i work in an entirely different sect of the business than most of you...i've only worked with one chef ever, and he was a lying douchehammer, and i was always frustrated that he was fiddlefarting around with dishes instead of just getting them in the goddamned window. but what i do know is that i can knock out a 300 cover brunch without blinking
working the line is a constant source of pain and fascination for so many reasons. In lieu of writing my own post and all that entails, I can just comment on this one. In a restaurant kitchen, there might be two guys on the "hot" line and it might be the Chef and his Sous. In others, there might be four or five guys and the chef (and maybe even sous) don't go near the line during service. The latter is the goal for many of us (certainly this guy), even with all the release of control, trust and miraculous staffing that it involves. I recently interviewed for a position at a very established, high-quality, high-volume restaurant. The CdC is a local legend, but just joined this company very recently. The interview was very informal (aside from the moron wearing a suit with a rag-tag Wusthof roll on his shoulder) with a surprising amount of F-bombs. Now, this guy came from a very large operation before, but it leaned a little more towards the refined and the volume (though large) was broken up in different ways. At the new place, it is all get-your-ass-kicked-every-night covers with huge and multiple banquets every weekend. Either way, he seemed very overwhelmed to be back on the line, even repeatedly describing (in f'ing detail) how he himself brought the show to a stop by either forgetting or losing a single pan-seared lobster dish. Long story short, the position he was offering was not ES or Sous, but line cook and he gave me the impression that not just anyone could handle it. I'm of the opinion that no fully staffed line can get too busy for strong cooks to pull off so long as mise is truly en place. Obviously, there are always unforeseen bumps and bruises along the way, but it seemed like the level of organization was lacking and my days of getting my ass kicked for no good reason are over. I lose sleep wondering why certain nights on the line went less than perfect and it bugs me so much that I burn my brain finding ways to keep it from happening again. Simply said, setting up the line and rocking service is what we do. There will ultimately be other issues (staffing shortages, equipment failure, delivery issues, et cetera ad nauseum) to throw kinks into a chef's day and working the line should indeed be like riding a bike.
A Chef needs to be able to do circles around his line cooks any service of the week. I feel certain the line cooks work harder because of this. Also, you have to keep up on your chops.
Starchy Balls, I would go open the new place. Put yourself in a position where you know all the ins and outs of both places. Go learn. We only get a few windows of opportunity like this in our careers. Own that shit.
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