Chapter 1
Denver, Colorado
Get it together, Sorensen.
I’ve been in enough job interviews that this should be old hat, but even fifteen years into the chase, I’ve never been to one where my hands didn’t shake.
From my first gig in New Orleans, fresh out of the Culinary Institute of America at twenty-two, to my last job as general manager of Maison Ortense in Paris, each one sent me into something just short of a panic.
Despite this, I land the jobs I want more often than not.
Sometimes competence matters more than confidence.
And at this stage of my career, I’m able to fake the latter better than most.
I have been working toward becoming a Michelin Guide inspector this whole time, each job another rung climbed on that oh-so-competitive ladder.
I’ve chosen each position with an eye toward making my application to Michelin irresistible .
. . when I do finally work up the courage to send in my application.
I also keep an anonymous food blog—The Anonymous Epicure—on Substack to serve as a running portfolio of my food-writing skills that I’ll use as part of my application.
It has gained quite the following and has been a nice little side hustle that gives me practice reviewing on the sly.
It’s also a financial lifeline in this hopefully brief period of unemployment.
I am actively trying to convince myself that this job as GM of 540 Blake in Denver is the next step up on the ladder and not the setback it feels like. There is no way I am going to blow my chances and apply to Michelin after a failure. I have to wait until my career is on an upswing.
Fun fact: No one but those in the most secret of Michelin’s bat caves (okay, they’re probably normal offices, but I enjoy picturing them as bat caves .
. . don’t take that from me) knows the exact number, but it’s widely understood they receive thousands of applicants for every opening they post. Sure, a huge number of those aren’t even close to qualified, but if even 5 percent of applicants are qualified, it’s one of the most competitive jobs in the world.
It’s the job I’ve wanted since I was thirteen, and I’ve never considered doing anything else long term.
I’ve made it a point to move on as soon as I feel too comfortable.
And I’ve had jobs I’ve loved. Absolutely loved.
But when that happens, I pack up for a new city and a new job before I decide to settle there forever.
Though in the case of Maison Ortense in Paris, the decision was made for me.
I’d been hired as GM to help debut head chef Joelle Durand earn back the third star that was stripped from the restaurant when legendary chef éugenie Rosier retired.
It’s Michelin’s custom to remove a star when the baton of a master is passed on to a protégé.
The idea is that the chef needs, and deserves, the chance to prove themselves.
Our investors gave us two years to reclaim the honor, and when we failed to do so, both of us were unburdened of our employment and replaced with new blood.
Seeing Girard Bodin, Joelle’s cocky sous-chef, take over her place had been a blow.
They wanted to throw him in right at the holidays, perhaps to prove he was up to the challenge.
Or perhaps to deny Joelle the chance to demonstrate—again—that she is a world-class chef worthy of following in éugenie’s footsteps.
It’s not that I wish Girard and the new GM ill . . . I just don’t put a lot of energy into wishing them well.
It didn’t matter to the investors that we’d worked our asses off and had done some damn fine work.
It didn’t matter that a third star is never ever guaranteed.
It didn’t matter that the Parisian restaurant scene is one of the most insidious old boys’ clubs in existence and all manner of decks were stacked against Joelle.
The dirty little secret is that once a woman like éugenie shatters the glass ceiling, it re-forms again right beneath her feet, this time reinforced and bulletproof, like the windshield of an armored car, so other upstart women can’t reach the same heights.
But as unjust as it is, there is nothing to be done. We’d been given a timeline to make it happen, and we failed to meet the benchmark. Fairness never entered the equation.
Since leaving Paris a few days ago, I have succeeded in being philosophical about this career setback.
Most of the time. Perhaps we could have done things better.
Perhaps not. It’s not out of the question that Michelin was set on making Joelle pay her dues for more than a couple of years before restoring the third star.
It’s possible there would have been no way to change their minds, and we were never going to succeed in the time frame we’d been given.
But we’ll never know, and no good will come of speculating how it could have turned out differently. Though, I confess, in darker moments the temptation to Monday-morning quarterback the situation is too great to resist.
I force my head back in the game. This is a job interview, and I desperately need a win. I need this job, even if it’s not in a key city like Paris, New York, or Hong Kong.
I should be grateful to have any sort of interview, especially during the busy holiday season.
I’d been surprised at the invitation—and on just two days’ notice—but decided it would be worth the detour on my trip back to my hometown of Solvang, California.
540 Blake wants someone to start early in the new year, so the new GM would have the January lull to formulate a plan for a profitable Valentine’s Day and Denver Restaurant Week, and they were willing to carve time for interviews during one of the most hectic weeks of their year.
The investors must be worried and want someone in place to right the ship’s course.
I’ve never spent much time in Denver, apart from layovers in their infernal airport, but the city is fast becoming a player in the industry and is worth paying attention to.
Each city has its own quirks, and I’ll need to learn them in order to succeed.
I’ve arrived early enough to eat a meal here before the designated interview time.
Incognito—Michelin-inspector style. It will give me more to talk about in the interview, and I might decide to write the place up in my blog for the sake of content, but only if I don’t land the job.
Conflict of interest is never a good look.
To work at Michelin, one has to be a chameleon.
Not easy for me, who at six foot two stands out no matter how hard I try to camouflage myself.
In other cities I would dress for a business meeting.
I generally stick to well-tailored clothes in good fabrics, usually in dark colors.
Boring but convenient. It’s easy to hide in a sea of pin-striped suits.
Unfortunately, Denver, as I gathered from quick research, is too casual for the smart suits and dresses I wear in other cities.
I’ve opted for my usual preferred travel garb—dark knit wide-leg pants and top with a duster jacket.
Comfortable for hours crammed in a plane seat but still put together enough for a job interview in one of the most casual cities in the US.
I step out of the car and stride into the building, moving as though I belong there.
The feeling that I am somehow an impostor is ridiculous; I am just a diner like any other.
The interview is an hour and a half away, and this is my chance to see what I’d be working with if this job comes to fruition.
It’s time to chase the nerves away and assess the place with my Michelin hat on.
I scan the dining room from the other side of the currently vacant host stand.
Patrons are wearing enough denim and performance fleece to prove the cursory research right—pinstripes here would have stood out like a red dress at a funeral.
I was raised in the California casual aesthetic, sure, but could all these people possibly be coming in from or headed out for hiking or skiing?
Do Denverites really go to work dressed like this?
I shake my head and wait several more minutes for the host.
I take advantage of the host’s absence to begin my appraisal.
At first glance 540 Blake is your typical trendy hot spot for upscale food.
Understated all-lowercase signage on the outside.
Minimalist décor on the inside. Starched white tablecloths, substantial flatware without embellishment, sleek glassware, stark white floral arrangements with spindly branches.
Lord spare me, strands of bare Edison bulbs hang from the ceiling.
It’s like the proprietor has taken a checklist of all the must-haves for a high-end modern eatery and followed them meticulously.
Ruthlessly, even. The result is that there isn’t a bit of personality in the place.
I feel like I am in a desert of black and white, thirsting for any splash of color. Unfortunate but fixable.
It’s eight full minutes before a scowling woman comes to the host stand.
“We’re full up for lunch service.” She grumbles rather than speaks. She is tired and harried. And a disheveled front of house never bodes well for calm and order in the back of house. That will take some work to fix.
I summon a smile for the beleaguered woman.
“I have a reservation. Meredith Turner?” A fake name I used when making the reservation—I always use one when I’m blogging, just like Michelin inspectors do, to make it harder to trace the blog back to me.
I like to imagine that, in those secret bat caves, Michelin has random name generators to produce forgettable pseudonyms. The trick is that inspectors have to remember them—and can’t reuse them—so I try to keep to the same standard with my blog.