High Season Read online

  23

  It’s three thirty in the afternoon and lunch service has just finished at Rae’s. The restaurant is half full of guests lingering over unfinished bottles of wine, petits fours and coffee. At this stage of the afternoon most people have very little else to do if they’re dining in Byron Bay. And that’s because they’re all on holidays. Guests don’t usually have to run off to work or a pressing business engagement or very much else. So they sit and stare out at the view which, at this point in the day, is all sunburnt tourists, sand-covered children dragging boogie boards back to cars and the spectacle of breasts, butts and bikinis.

  Vinnie and Jackie look to be settling in for a cracking afternoon session. Some of the other guests have pulled chairs over to their table, and Vinnie is holding court with stories about Watego’s, Paris Hilton and, quite possibly, how hard it is to make a buck these days.

  In the kitchen it’s all soap suds and steel wool, hot-water hoses and Firedog. Firedog is the brand name of a chemical concoction that a lot of contemporary kitchens store beneath their sink. To suggest it’s a grease-cutter would not adequately prepare a person for the skin-peeling, eye-burning, tear-inducing vapour that leaps out of the keg whenever the lid is twisted off. We have songs about Firedog in our kitchen; they are generally sung in a high-pitched voice to indicate the ball-shrinking, fear-inducing quality of the compound. Basically, everyone is scared of the effect it has on the human body, but in awe of what it does to a greasy kitchen. Just the sound of its name is an ominous threat: the coiled spring of kitchen cleaners.

  And despite Jesse not being in a joke-cracking mood today, he still thinks he might have a bit of fun with the Firedog. He flicks a few drops at Soda, who immediately drops what he’s doing and rushes Jesse, taking hold of his throat.

  ‘You’re a fucking idiot,’ Soda spits.

  ‘Hey!’ I yell at them, not bothering to get too worked up. ‘Don’t be a fuckhead all your life, Jesse.’

  Soda lets go of Jesse’s throat with a push that throws Jesse back into the white-tiled wall.

  Jesse is laughing like it’s all a great joke. ‘You cunts need to loosen the fuck up,’ he says, but it’s obvious that Jesse is the one among us who’s most uptight.

  Soda looks hurt, like it kills him to have to discipline the guy he looks up to most in life. His easy grin has set into a what the fuck are you doing? expression.

  ‘Jesse, I don’t know what you’re problem is, mate . . . I hope it’s just this moving house thing, but you’d better sort yourself out. In fact, fuck off now and do whatever you’ve got to do so you can get back in time to box your section. You’re on larder again tonight. Soda, you’re doing woks like we said and Choc, you’re doing everything else, all right?’

  ‘Yes, Chef,’ they shout.

  ‘So I can go now?’ Jesse asks.

  ‘Yeah. Fuck off. We’ll finish cleaning the place up, but Jesse—get your head screwed on for tonight. Really, you guys, we’re fucking close, all right? Everyone’s got a day off coming up. Just keep your shit together and your section boxed and we’re going to make it out of this high season and fucking heatwave and into surfing paradise. Okay?’ I half threaten, half implore them.

  ‘Yes, Chef,’ they all respond.

  ‘Cop ya,’ Jesse says as he rips off his apron and walks out of the kitchen.

  ‘Four o’clock, Jesse!’ I call after him.

  But Jesse just winks at me as he passes the bar and waves back like, I’m free!

  Soda looks cut. He has never spoken ill of Jesse behind his back before and it’s not my place to start running him down to make Soda feel any better about things.

  ‘You guys . . .’ I say, shaking my head. And I want to yell at Soda to get out: leave Jesse and us behind and jump a train and see where it leads or hang a thumb out by the road. Soda’s too spirited for the grease and grime of the kitchen galley, too good-looking and easy-going for the sweat and stress and heartaches of kitchen life. And I’m scared that if he doesn’t get out soon, get out into the sunshine, which is where a kid like Soda belongs, then he’s going to be stuck inside the fluorescent and stainless-steel world of restaurant kitchens until it’s too late and he’s just like one of us.

  And then Soda stops what he’s doing and kicks out at some empty boxes. ‘Jesse’s a fuckwit.’

  ‘A giant, herpes-ridden, cockhead fuckwit,’ I say, going on with it.

  ‘Yeah! Take that, Jesse!’ Scotty chimes in as he dumps a pile of dirty plates onto the waiters’ station.

  ‘How’s Vinnie?’ I ask.

  ‘He says you still can’t cook a steak, Chef, but the salad’s finally how he likes it,’ Scotty says.

  ‘Tell him I said get fucked and Paris Hilton loves everything I do.’

  ‘He hates Paris Hilton. Reckons she can’t act and should have continued with her online career,’ Scotty says.

  ‘Oh, that actually hurts. I’ve got half a chubby that says Paris had a thing for me . . . Really, she was vibing me through the walls. Vinnie’s just upset. He’s always had a thing for Paris—he was talking about her a few days ago when she was in the Sydney papers,’ I tell Scotty.

  ‘He’s changed, Chef,’ Scotty informs me as he walks back out to the restaurant.

  ‘It’s you that’s changed, Scotty. And I liked you better before,’ I call after him.

  Soda rips up the empty boxes and flattens them out, stamping them into a neat pile beneath the sink.

  ‘You want me to get the wok section set up for tonight, Chef?’ he asks.

  ‘Yeah, mate,’ I say, relieved that he has come through, that for the sake of service tonight he hasn’t run away. ‘Pull everything out of your reach-in fridge; clean it, polish it, re-box everything and do a prep list, okay? I also want you to go out to the coolroom and tidy up your section there and do me an order for tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, Chef,’ Soda replies, and begins pulling everything out of the reach-in service fridge.

  ‘And Choc, you can do the same on pastry section. Get everything ready down there because we’re going to be slammed again tonight. I’m going to try to organise a kitchen hand, fuck what Vinnie says, because there’s no way we can get this place clean by the end of service for the crew tomorrow,’ I say to the boys. ‘I want the kitchen spotless for our fearless sous-chef tomorrow, or it’s your balls he’s going to nibble on,’ I remind Soda. ‘And don’t tell me you like it when he does that.’

  Joseph is the sous-chef at Rae’s and he’s running the show tomorrow while Jesse and I take a day off. Joseph is from Trinidad and while he’s as cool as everyone else from Trini, he’s also a clean freak and demands nothing less than I would expect from a sous-chef. Which is to say, at the end of our run in the kitchen, we leave it how we want to find it when we start back on. And even if Jesse and I are only getting one day off, it is still our responsibility to leave the place clean and boxed, meaning there’s a sufficient quantity of mise en place to get underway in the morning, as well as an accurate list of jobs that need to be done, all set out in order of importance. It is also our responsibility to make sure that the ordering is accurate so that the produce that turns up tomorrow is exactly what the boys need. You don’t leave the next crew in the shit. And they’re no longer crew if they leave me there. It’s a reciprocal thing and when everyone is looking after everyone else, as much as it is possible to do so during such a busy time, the crew has a decent chance of sticking together for more than a few weeks.

  Getting a crew together in any kitchen is always the most difficult aspect of being a head chef. There’s a particular chemistry that has to unfold between people in order for the line to run smoothly. And there seems to be no sure way of getting that to happen; it just does through natural attrition and time. When a position comes up that you can’t fill through word of mouth, you advertise and try chefs out until you find one that sticks. So many things have to gel in order for a person to both fit in with the existing crew and for the crew to accept that new pe
rson that to try and second-guess the process or work out some formula is impossible.

  The particular problem with finding chefs in Byron Bay is that, because it’s a tourist destination, many chefs only stay in town for short periods of time. In Sydney or Melbourne or any other city where there’s a critical mass, a head chef can get a crew together that might stay as a team for several years. And that crew might hold tough through several restaurants, in different suburbs, with various menus. They all come to an end at some point, though, and when they do—usually because the sous-chef wants to be a head chef or the chef de partie wants to be the sous-chef—the only way to fill the void is with a new team player.

  Our current crew at Rae’s has been going strong for two and a half years but the strain is beginning to show. Jesse has already run away to Sydney with his girlfriend to hit the high notes of fine dining in the big city, only to return to Byron minus his girlfriend and beg for his job back. He was fortunate because, during the time he was gone, we’d tried out half a dozen chefs for his job and none of them had worked out. Every kitchen has a particular culture, a set of quirks that make each of them a little different. One new chef might not like the roster, another one the pay, another one his apprentice.

  Jesse, Choc, Soda, Joseph and myself came together through word of mouth and good luck. Jesse and Soda came as a package, both being local boys who had worked together in a number of other restaurants around town. Jesse had decided he wanted to cook modern Thai and since we were the best shop in town doing that cuisine, he started at the top. Jesse’s résumé indicated two things: that he was someone who moved around a lot, and that he had very few computer skills. Most chefs these days fill out their résumé with so much clutter that it takes ten minutes to work out what’s bullshit and what’s real. Jesse’s CV didn’t suffer from such wasted effort. As such, he got a trial and after about an hour I offered him the job. A few days later, after he’d settled in and I’d established just how good he was, Soda started coming in to work with him. Initially Soda would just turn up late in the shift and help out on dishes in order to get Jesse out of the place. Then someone else left and Soda joined the crew and I haven’t been able to get rid of them since.

  Joseph and Choc came with the job. Joseph was the sous-chef for the last head chef and was happy enough to stay on when I started. Choc was indentured as an apprentice to Vinnie and he was solid from the start. Always polite and undemanding, my biggest concern was that he didn’t really appreciate that Rae’s was actually quite a weird place to work rather than the standard. Don’t get me wrong, everywhere is weird in some way, it’s just that it was obvious Choc was going to benefit enormously from gaining experience in a variety of commercial kitchens.

  When the team that’s been together for a long time starts to crumble it can be quite distressing. Timing is critical in terms of collapse. One of the biggest upsides to working in hospitality, though, is that there’s always another job out there. I’ve become accustomed to moving on and running a different kitchen with a whole new crew when things turn to shit. Maybe I’ll take one player from the old kitchen, someone who hasn’t burnt out yet and is keen to be promoted into a better job in the new kitchen, or maybe I’ll just wipe the slate clean and start fresh. What’s happening at Rae’s now is that the strain is beginning to show during what is the peak of our high season.

  The two-week period from Christmas Day through to about the tenth of January is the busiest time in the hospitality industry throughout the Western world. The way our calendar is set makes these two weeks a virtual blackout zone in the high-rise buildings of most large English-speaking cities of the world. It is a time where people escape back to family and friends, beachside villas and country retreats. It’s a time to relax, unwind and enjoy the spoils of hospitality. Unless you’re a chef.

  If you’re a chef, you’ll be working in one of those seaside villas or country retreats. And chances are you’ll be so busy that the possibility of your crew falling apart is high. Minor personality clashes become all-out war under so much stress; petty resentments boil over into screaming matches and knife throwing. And if your crew is starting to fray around the edges, like ours is, the whole thing can go to shit during one bad service. Which is why I’m trying to nurse the younger boys through this war zone. It’s not that they’re unaware that everyone’s nerves are frayed and tensions are high, it’s simply that they have done less high seasons than the older crew and are more likely to snap under the pressure.

  After a person has been a chef for a period of time—and I think that period of time is different for different people—they come to accept that the busy, intense times of kitchen life are simply part of the game rather than something to try and avoid or get worked up about. But there’s no other way to arrive at that understanding other than to go through the jungle enough times to realise you’re going to come out the other side. Eventually, what becomes important is not just getting out the other side, but travelling through with a little style and grace.

  For Jesse, that’s not going to happen this year. He’s on a very slippery slope, and even if he wants to stop or slow down he can’t. The brakes are failing and the steepness of the descent is too much for him to handle with anything that remotely resembles self-respect. And, really, that’s okay, I’ve been there. It’s his capacity to spring back from a fucked-up landing that I’m worried about, particularly since he’s already failed one attempt to leave. The reality is, even if we can manage to get through the next few weeks, the team is going to fall apart not long after that. No one wants it to, but everyone can see it coming. And it’s that inevitability that seems to be haunting everything we do. No one quite knows how it’s going to end, what event will act as the catalyst that splinters our little group.

  The thing that will stay the same at Rae’s is Vinnie. It’s his name that hangs over the door. He’s the common factor among all the kitchen crews that have passed through the joint over the last fifteen years and it’s his energy and enthusiasm that maintains a sense of continuity about the place. And I haven’t dismissed the idea of sacking Jesse and getting a new chef de partie—that’s what I’d normally do—but this year I’m physically feeling things a little more than I’d like to, and I’m struggling to ramp up the energy and enthusiasm that running a five-star restaurant requires.

  I know Alice is getting tired of the high seasons at Rae’s. And there are other options. As I flicked through the positions vacant in the local paper last week, I became fixated on an ad placed by a small restaurant in town that’s seeking a new head chef. And what interested me most about that job is the fact that the restaurant is a dinner joint: they don’t open for lunch or breakfast or have room service to worry about. The idea of starting work around two in the afternoon, six days a week, has become like a sweet dream I can’t escape. Particularly at eight in the morning when the kids are jumping all over me, and instead of enjoying the experience I find it a struggle to maintain my equanimity. While I’m covered in glory by working at Rae’s, the cost is killing me. And though the money is good—at least thirty grand a year more than I’d be getting at the dinner joint in town—there comes a time when it’s never enough.

  The equation in terms of pay for a head chef works in such a way that the lower down the food chain a chef goes the more control they have over their hours, but the less pay they take home. And it works that way because to work in an environment that puts a premium on everything you do, from the quality of the produce to the type of crockery you use, to the tone of the service, is inspiring. The attention to detail and the customers’ expectations in a fine-dining scene ensures a certain level of both adrenaline and sophistication that becomes intoxicating. The problem is that unless you own the restaurant and can occasionally step back from the madness, the obsessive attention to every little detail and the need for single-minded perfection means that life becomes too narrow.

  ‘Vinnie wants some canapés for his table of friends, Chef,’ Scotty
calls into the kitchen. And Scotty knows the kitchen is closed. He understands we’ve packed the lunch service away and we’re in the process of scrubbing down and getting ready for dinner. And he knows because, like me, he’s seen it all before.

  ‘Just something simple,’ I suggest, mimicking Vinnie. ‘Some prawns, a few oysters and scallops, maybe a sweet pork and papaya salad?’

  ‘You’re all over it, Chef,’ Scotty replies. ‘Might be best to keep things extra-simple, though, and just do a nice, big, fresh seafood platter.’ He walks out.

  Soda and Choc have stopped what they’re doing and are looking at me, soapy scourers in hand, sections in chaos, like you can’t be fucking serious.

  ‘One seafood platter, boys,’ I call.

  ‘Yes, Chef,’ they reply, their enthusiasm for the task buried somewhere so deep it struggles for breath.

  ‘And no fucking short cuts,’ I add. ‘This is for the boss. I want every little thing perfect, okay?’

  ‘Yes, Chef,’ they repeat, still subdued.

  ‘Don’t fuck with me, men. Get cracking!’ I say, clapping my hands. And that’s all it takes to pick the boys up. Really, I’m surprised how well these two are responding. They actually give me some faith that if I do choose to stay on at Rae’s, all I really have to do is get rid of Jesse and find some fresh energy for his section. Why throw the whole thing away? I’ve worked hard to get the restaurant where it is, and other than Jesse the crew is strong.

  ‘Fuck this. I need a smoke.’ And just like that, Soda bombs my daydream.