Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Olivia
I take the service corridor instead of the main elevators because the restaurant entrance is still taped off for finishing work, and I don’t want to step through wet clear coat in heels.
The corridor smells like paint and roasted garlic—an interesting, yet somehow appealing combination. Someone’s testing the hoods because there’s a constant low white noise overhead. I guess I'd better get used to that sound.
The restaurant cocooned behind the papered glass is supposed to be dark today—contractors only, no staff.
Caterina blocked out a week for the final punch list before the culinary team starts living in the space.
I’m here to check the sight line from the host stand to the lounge and make sure the sight of the ocean isn’t blocked by the wine display.
I also want to measure the distance for cocktail pass so the servers don’t get caught in pinch points when the room fills.
It’s the kind of nerdy detail that thrills me.
I push the service door with my shoulder, step into the back hall, and stop.
The kitchen glows. It’s not the harsh construction light I expect. Someone has turned on proper work lights over the line.
Stainless runs long and bright, already wearing the first faint fingerprints that mean a kitchen is being well-used.
On the pass, neat stacks of tasting spoons sit like soldiers beside a hotel pan of ice.
A pot simmers on a burner at the far end, giving off the kind of fragrance that stops you mid-thought: lemon and herbs and something rich that has nothing to do with fresh paint.
A woman stands with her back to me at the sauté station.
She’s in white, sleeves rolled up, dark hair braided and coiled at the nape of her neck.
She moves with an efficiency I recognize from every serious kitchen I’ve ever stepped into, the kind with no wasted movement: pan off, tilt, taste, a small adjustment, a nod to herself.
She’s not supposed to be here, and also, she is absolutely supposed to be here because everything about her screams it.
I don’t have to see her face to know who it is.
“Excuse me,” I say, because I feel like a guest in her kitchen. “I can come back if you need quiet.”
She turns, tasting spoon still between her fingers. Green eyes, dark lashes, pursed lips. She isn’t wearing a scrap of makeup and doesn’t need it.
“Hi,” she says, voice warm and a little amused, like she knows she’s breaking a rule and dares me to scold her. “You must be Olivia.”
I laugh, caught. “Is it that obvious?”
“It’s the posture,” she says, setting the spoon in the ice pan, already reaching for a towel to wipe her station. “Like you’re measuring the room in your head. Caterina did that here the first time she walked in. Exact same look.” She offers her hand, palm strong, callused. “Bianca.”
I shake, a little starstruck because somehow meeting the chef is different than hearing about her. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” I say. “All of it terrifyingly good.”
“That’s a relief.” She leans a hip against the stainless and studies me for a beat.
“I wasn’t supposed to be in for another week,” she adds, self-aware.
“But I got an update on the kitchen this morning from Caterina, and she asked me something about basil, and it broke the seal. I just couldn’t stay away. So here I am.”
I grin before I can stop myself. “I couldn’t imagine sitting home while someone else takes care of everything for me.”
“You understand,” Bianca says, grinning right back. She gestures at the line. “I’ll behave. Mostly. Paperwork gets signed next week. Today I’m checking the heat distribution on the flattop and whether the ventilation scatters everything under it.
“You were the one with the locals-first idea, right?”
“Guilty.”
“Good,” she says easily. “That’s the right call.” She tips her chin at the pass. “Come taste. If you hate it, I’ll pretend you didn’t say anything, but it’ll keep me up at night.”
“I’m honored,” I deadpan, but my heart kicks because this is the kind of welcome that means trust. I step to the pass, take the spoon she offers. Steam touches my face as I lean in.
“What is it?”
“Test broth for the lemon saffron risotto we’re running in the lounge with the branzino crudo on top,” she says. “I’m checking whether the brightness holds after a low simmer.”
I taste. The first hit is silk and salt, then the lemon threads in beautifully, not sour but bright. There’s a zing that makes my shoulders drop and something floral that must be the saffron coming in at the end.
I close my eyes for one second. “I would marry this broth.”
Bianca laughs, delighted. “That’s the right answer. It’s also the test batch, and I can already tell I want five percent more acid if the crudo sits longer than two minutes.” She’s already reaching for the lemon, her body making the decision at the same time her brain does.
“Caterina told me you trained at the CIA and did time in Italy,” I say, setting the spoon back down. “Also, that your family’s restaurant, Regalia, is an institution.”
“Those are mostly the right facts,” she says, easily.
“CIA, yes. Italy, yes—modest terror under a chef who threw a pan on my first day and then spent an hour teaching me why he was wrong for doing it. Didn’t stop him from doing it again the next week.
” She laughs. “Regalia is my grandmother’s house more than a restaurant.
We keep her photo by the kitchen door. It keeps us honest and proud. ”
“That’s lovely,” I say softly. “I’m sure she’d be proud of you.”
Bianca’s eyes warm, the way people’s do when thinking of someone who’s no longer here. “Nonna Sabina wouldn’t settle for anything less. Sweet woman. Hard ass.” She laughs.
It brings a grin to my face, imagining her sweet little grandma being the boss.
“When we open here, we are not cloning Regalia. That would be a crime and a bore. We’re lifting its bones with a little more elegance and restraint. Fancifying it but not boringly so.”
I can picture exactly what she means, and it sounds lovely. “Family structure, new skin.”
“Exactly,” Bianca says, satisfied. “Do you want to indulge me and let me show you the dining room, even though you probably know exactly how many tables are in there and where?”
I feign ignorance. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’d love it if you showed me the dining room.”
“Great! Come on,” she says, wiping her hands and coming around the line to the swing door that leads to the dining room.
She presses through the swing door with her hip, and I follow, the low hum of the hoods giving way to the softer acoustics of the dining room.
Even under painter’s paper and taped-off aisles, I can see the potential of the room. Pale plaster, linen-draped banquettes that still wear their muslin covers, a long run of windows catching a slate-blue strip of ocean.
The host stand waits like a small stage, ready for opening night. The wine wall gleams without being obnoxiously loud.
Bianca pauses just inside and breathes it in, then points. “That banquette curve was a fight,” she says. “I wanted it gentler so servers can hug the turn with a tray. We shaved two inches on Tuesday.” She tilts her head at me. “You were going to check the cocktail pass distance?”
“From here to the lounge threshold,” I say, walking the line and counting steps. “If we stage a tray jack between table twelve and fourteen, we keep the servers out of the pinch by the column.”
“Good,” she says, already picturing it. “No ballroom twirls with martinis.”
We drift to center. She lifts a corner of paper from a two-top and smooths it back down, protective even of the temporary. “I told myself I’d wait a week,” she adds, wryly. “But I got an update on the kitchen this morning and, well… I couldn’t stay away.”
“I heard you were planning to be back next week.” I keep the tone light, a little teasing. “How’s the little one?”
Her whole face softens. “He’s great. Loud. Perfect.” She pulls her phone from her jacket, taps, and turns the screen.
A newborn stares back—dark hair in soft whorls, dark eyes wide like he’s already seeing and taking in everything.
“Oh,” I breathe. “He’s beautiful. Those eyes, so dark for a newborn.”
“Gio says they’re trouble eyes,” she says, amused. “I say they’re Conti eyes.” She swipes to a photo of a tiny fist around an adult knuckle. “Stephano is three months tomorrow,” she says, pride threading through the word.
I laugh. “Congratulations. Three months is… brave to be back on a line.”
“It’s also sanity,” she says, unashamed. “I love him like my own heart—because he is—but I also love this. Gio gets it. We tag in and out.”
She puts the phone away and clicks back to the dining room mentally. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to see any other notes you have for the floor.”
“Of course,” I say. “I’ll send those over tonight.”
She tips her head toward the kitchen. “I’m going to steal five more minutes with the flattop and then go home before I decide to reorganize the walk-in. You good on your side?”
“I’m perfect,” I say, and for once the word doesn’t feel like pressure. “Thanks for letting me crash your practice run.”
“Crash anytime,” Bianca says. “If anyone gives you grief, tell them the chef invited you.”
She squeezes my forearm quick and friendly, and slips back through the swing door.
I stand for a breath longer in the quiet dining room, the ocean quiet beyond the glass, and picture a Thursday night where the first guests step in and know that they belong.
Then I pull my tape measure, mark my cocktail-pass notes, and get back to work.