Chapter 21
What in the hell do I do with all the damned tuna?” Joelle moans almost to herself.
“Whatever you want, so long as you can pull it off in a hurry.” I gesture to the plate I’d sampled from before scraping it into the bin. “Something better than that, at least.”
“Low bar,” she mutters and gets to work.
Her brow is furrowed in concentration as she contemplates the fate of the massive cut of fish she needs to make palatable in a hurry. Because of Girard’s blunder, we’ll take a bath on the cost of it no matter what. Her job is to minimize how long and soapy it will be.
And she has approximately fifteen minutes to figure out how to do it.
Right now, I need to alleviate some pressure from the room. “Listen, don’t worry about the price point. If we sell at a loss, so be it. Just do the best you can, and we’ll recoup the money elsewhere. It’s not an insurmountable problem.”
Her shoulders lower by a couple of inches, and her breathing deepens. I hope it’s enough reassurance to get her through service.
She barks out orders, wincing every time she opens her mouth, to Thérèse, the chef de tournant, or swing chef, who is now her acting second-in-command along with me.
Thérèse is capable enough, a sort of Jane-of-all-trades who suited the role of swing cook to a tee, but she’s overwhelmed by the magnitude of the sous job.
She can handle it for today, but she needs more time at every single station before she’s ready to move up.
As I dice and prep, I mull over the talent at our disposal.
Our saucier, Yann, is just coming into his own, and I sense he would be loath to switch before he really finds his footing, even for a promotion.
And given the promise of his talent, I don’t want to risk disrupting his progress there.
But as the senior chef de partie, he would naturally be next in line for sous.
I’ll have to finesse that one. Finesse, it seems, is always key to the role of manager.
I can see now that we’ve been so careful to respect éugenie’s legacy, we have been afraid to change anything in the year and a half Joelle has been in charge.
It’s as if we’re afraid to insult éugenie by making the most minor staffing changes, when major ones are clearly called for. And this all has to end now.
Yes, éugenie left tremendous shoes to fill.
I amuse myself by imagining those shoes as size 13 Louboutin stilettos, encrusted with crystals and sporting the famous red soles.
Hard to fill and even harder to walk in.
She made a mark for herself on the Paris restaurant scene, possibly the world’s oldest old boys’ club.
And hard as it is for me to give him any credit, Girard was right that éugenie had wanted to pass on her legacy to another female chef.
But she hadn’t singled Joelle out just because of her gender.
She is brilliant in her own right and ten times the chef Girard is.
He just can’t accept that he was legitimately passed over for a more talented chef who happens to be female.
Reinstating the third star would be a coup not only for Joelle but also for éugenie.
It would prove that she’d chosen her successor well and had left her legacy in capable hands.
I don’t think Joelle’s kitchen is in dire straits the way Edward’s in Denver must be, but there is a lot more to do than I allowed myself to believe even a few weeks ago.
And Girard clearly wasn’t the asset I’d thought he was, but we know this now and can regroup.
A mantra repeats in my head: I cannot screw this up. I cannot screw this up. I cannot screw this up.
So I will chop, dice, fry, and sauté everything in sight until I drop. Whatever Joelle needs to have a stellar service.
“Okay, Chef. Try this.” Joelle speaks softly, I assume because it’s less painful for her.
She places a plate before me, and I examine her handiwork.
Rather than the pesto Girard had paired with the fish, which didn’t really make a lot of sense to me from a flavor perspective, Joelle seared the bluefin in a toasted sesame crust that adds interesting texture and a nutty flavor that enhances, rather than competes with, the tuna.
I revise my assessment of the quality of the fish.
It’s not worth what the vendor charged us, but it’s decent bluefin.
The fishmonger might not be fired after all.
The dish is way above par, especially given the constraints Joelle has been put under.
She’s done marvelously, just as éugenie knew she would.
I wolf-whistle to get everyone’s attention, not caring that it makes me look like an oafish American.
“All right, we have a sesame-crusted bluefin tuna as the special. Probably for the next three nights.” I turn to the waitstaff who are gathered for the preservice orientation.
“It’s going for two-twenty-five, and I need you to peddle it like your lives depend on it. ”
Aveline, our Franco-American sommelier, is at my side, peering over Joelle’s shoulder.
Joelle offers her a small portion so she can get a feel.
She’s lost in thought just a moment, then her eyes come back into focus.
“Top-dollar food, top-shelf wine. Pair it with the Sella & Mosca Vermentino or maybe the Domaine du Cassis rosé if they want something creative.”
She’s very much an all-business American, but with the French elegance that comes imprinted on the DNA.
And she has a nose for wine unlike any other I’ve seen.
She’s a gem, but we can’t afford to pay her for full-time work at the rate she deserves.
The chances that we’ll lose her to a better opportunity are basically 100 percent, so we need to make the most of her expertise while we have her.
I pat her shoulder. “Spot-on. Urge them away from anything less. I don’t want people pairing this with thirty-euro bottles of house Chablis.”
Aveline gives me a curt nod, and I know she understands the assignment. We’re going to lose money on the fish, but the profit from the wine will help offset it.
Joelle is instructing the poissonnier on how to portion the fish and store what we can’t use for service in vacuum-sealed bags in the coldest part of the fridge.
He’s working at such a rapid clip to keep the quality of the fish from degrading that I worry for the safety of his fingers so near his fish knife.
His movements are a blur, but with the poise and control of a dancer.
Like Aveline, he’s an absolute keeper. Joelle sets me to work trimming green beans to be served in a brown butter and toasted almond sauce that will play off the flavors of the toasted sesame.
“Patronne, I need to tell you something.” Our expo, Nadia, speaks in hushed tones.
The tones a manager ignores at her peril.
There is a situation in the front of house, and it is her job to communicate it with the back if it isn’t something she can resolve on her own.
I shoot Joelle a look and she nods, ordering one of the other prep cooks to fill my station.
I guide Nadia to my office, where I close the door and look at her expectantly.
“It seems that before his departure . . . Girard”—she speaks the name like an expletive—“called one of his friends from The Guardian and got him a table. He was sure his tuna would be a sensation and wanted to get coverage.”
“Of course he did.” I rub my eyes and, once again, stifle a curse.
Nadia is fantastic at her job and can spot a critic from a hundred paces, so it must be true.
Girard must have phoned The Guardian before the fishmonger even took his leave.
He was so certain his dish was going to be a sensation, he couldn’t bear not having the press on hand to commit his greatness to the historical record. What a conceited, pompous arse.
“I thought you’d want to know, but I didn’t want to throw things off in there, vous savez?” She gestures back to the kitchen with her thumb.
I can only imagine Joelle’s state if she finds out a critic is in-house on the day she’s had to prepare a new dish on the fly.
Of course she’s a professional and will do everything to keep her cool, but even the calmest, most collected chef has a limit to the chaos she can swallow in one service and still keep performing at peak.
I do not want to test where that level is.
Our eyes are on that all-important third star, and while Michelin may boast about being independent and not at all influenced by other reviews, the inspectors are human.
The company may be impartial, but if a restaurant as high profile as Maison Ortense gets panned in a major paper, no inspector alive will not have their opinion colored by it.
And a glowing review would hurt nothing.
“You’re absolutely right. Great call.” I massage my temples for a moment, formulating a plan.
“Okay, Joelle’s tuna is damn good, so make sure he orders it.
You take that table personally, not anyone else.
Whatever he wants, put him at the front of the line back here.
Just don’t comp or discount the ticket, or he’ll know we’re wise to him.
And above all, make sure he knows Joelle is at the helm and Girard went home unexpectedly.
The last thing we want is her accomplishments being attributed to him. ”
“Got it.” Nadia actually clicks her heels together before she spins to leave. She is the finest expo I know, and the first among the keepers.
The more I consider it, the more I think most of them are keepers, save perhaps a couple of the newer prep cooks who don’t seem to have the motivation I’d like to see.
The place really is an embarrassment of riches, talent-wise.
For the most part it’s just a matter of moving the square pegs back into the square holes where they belong and hoping there is a comfortable slot for each of them that will allow their talents to flourish.
I have visions of creating a massive bulletin board, the kitchen hierarchy laid out on masking tape, a pushpin at each space, and the name of each staff member on index cards ready to shift and move into place.
Joelle and I are at the bottom, the rest shuffling into their correct places in the rows above.
Most would put the head chef and GM at the top, but I prefer to think of us as the foundation of the place.
If we aren’t solid, the proverbial building will collapse.
Blank cards for the spaces we need to fill.
This will be a project for Joelle and me on Monday, when the house is closed for rest and cleaning. For now, we have roughly one hundred pounds of very expensive tuna that needs our attention so we can seduce our patrons—and one persnickety Parisian food critic.