beer. You could see unease in the mournful crinkles around Gianni’s eyes. Borgo Capanne, the little village on the hill, was now dead, his daughter Mila said, giving me a tour of it the next day.
Più bestie che persone.
There were more pets than people.
Mario left before the decline, with the help of his best friend from Rutgers, Arturo Sighinolfi. Arturo had visited Mario in Porretta. The two shared an understanding about Italian cooking. Arturo’s father was about to retire; for twenty-five years, he’d run Rocco, an Italian-American restaurant off Bleecker Street, in the “red sauce zone.” Arturo invited Mario to run the restaurant with him as a fifty-fifty partner—Arturo in the front, Mario in the kitchen. There was an apartment upstairs where Mario could live. The new Rocco, inspired by La Volta, would have a powerful Italian menu.
5
T HE B ABBO KITCHEN was actually several kitchens. In the morning, this small space—the work area is about twenty-five feet by ten—was the prep kitchen and run by Elisa. In the evenings, the same space became the service kitchen and was run by Andy. But between the hours of one and four-thirty, the different kitchens (more metaphors than places) overlapped.
Andy was the first to show up, calculatedly a minute or two after noon, respectfully not wanting to disturb the a.m. authority structure. Memo, the senior sous-chef, arrived an hour later. Frankie, the junior sous-chef, was next. And then the others, one after another, late risers all, buzzing with their first coffee, smelling of soap, their hair still wet. The last was Nick Anderer, the “pasta guy.” Nick was tall, lean, a tennis player’s build, a blue bandanna always tied round his forehead, with the dark-haired, brown-eyed features of a Eurasian. Nick’s father was of German ancestry, and his mother was Japanese-American, and so he was called “Chino” (even though, in a better world, he would have been neither a Chino nor a Jappo, but just plain Nick). His station was the easiest to set up but the most demanding to run. Just about everyone orders pasta. By the time Nick arrived, between two and three, the kitchen got very busy.
By now, there were eighteen to twenty people in the kitchen. During this time, the prep people were frantically completing their tasks, while the line cooks were getting their stations ready, terrified that they wouldn’t finish before the first orders. In many ways, these afternoons were exaggerated expressions of something that was characteristic of both New York (where, with so many people concentrated onto a little island, space is precious and its value inflated) and the restaurant business (in which the size of the kitchen and the dining room are financial calculations, and a small kitchen meant more tables). The space concern was extreme. There was no lunch service because the metaphoric prep kitchen was still working at lunchtime. There was also no lunch service because so much of the restaurant’s equipment—tablecloths, cutlery, plates, glasses—was stored underneath the banquettes where a lunch crowd would sit: every morning, the restaurant was taken apart; every afternoon, it was put back together. The so-called Babbo office was two chairs and a computer in whatever basement cranny presented itself at the time. It seemed like an extension of the plumbing, jerry-built. When a hot-water tank exploded—for several days, the water for the dishes was boiled—the “office” was removed to get to the tank. The desk of Mario’s assistant was underneath a slop sink, gurgling with the foodstuffs swirling into it. The smell was pervasive.
In the afternoon, there was a hierarchy about space. Mario had warned me of this after I mentioned that I must have been sticking my butt out because I kept getting bumped. “They bump you because they can—they’re putting you in your place.” The next day, I counted: I was bumped forty times. Space was Andy’s first
Più bestie che persone.
There were more pets than people.
Mario left before the decline, with the help of his best friend from Rutgers, Arturo Sighinolfi. Arturo had visited Mario in Porretta. The two shared an understanding about Italian cooking. Arturo’s father was about to retire; for twenty-five years, he’d run Rocco, an Italian-American restaurant off Bleecker Street, in the “red sauce zone.” Arturo invited Mario to run the restaurant with him as a fifty-fifty partner—Arturo in the front, Mario in the kitchen. There was an apartment upstairs where Mario could live. The new Rocco, inspired by La Volta, would have a powerful Italian menu.
5
T HE B ABBO KITCHEN was actually several kitchens. In the morning, this small space—the work area is about twenty-five feet by ten—was the prep kitchen and run by Elisa. In the evenings, the same space became the service kitchen and was run by Andy. But between the hours of one and four-thirty, the different kitchens (more metaphors than places) overlapped.
Andy was the first to show up, calculatedly a minute or two after noon, respectfully not wanting to disturb the a.m. authority structure. Memo, the senior sous-chef, arrived an hour later. Frankie, the junior sous-chef, was next. And then the others, one after another, late risers all, buzzing with their first coffee, smelling of soap, their hair still wet. The last was Nick Anderer, the “pasta guy.” Nick was tall, lean, a tennis player’s build, a blue bandanna always tied round his forehead, with the dark-haired, brown-eyed features of a Eurasian. Nick’s father was of German ancestry, and his mother was Japanese-American, and so he was called “Chino” (even though, in a better world, he would have been neither a Chino nor a Jappo, but just plain Nick). His station was the easiest to set up but the most demanding to run. Just about everyone orders pasta. By the time Nick arrived, between two and three, the kitchen got very busy.
By now, there were eighteen to twenty people in the kitchen. During this time, the prep people were frantically completing their tasks, while the line cooks were getting their stations ready, terrified that they wouldn’t finish before the first orders. In many ways, these afternoons were exaggerated expressions of something that was characteristic of both New York (where, with so many people concentrated onto a little island, space is precious and its value inflated) and the restaurant business (in which the size of the kitchen and the dining room are financial calculations, and a small kitchen meant more tables). The space concern was extreme. There was no lunch service because the metaphoric prep kitchen was still working at lunchtime. There was also no lunch service because so much of the restaurant’s equipment—tablecloths, cutlery, plates, glasses—was stored underneath the banquettes where a lunch crowd would sit: every morning, the restaurant was taken apart; every afternoon, it was put back together. The so-called Babbo office was two chairs and a computer in whatever basement cranny presented itself at the time. It seemed like an extension of the plumbing, jerry-built. When a hot-water tank exploded—for several days, the water for the dishes was boiled—the “office” was removed to get to the tank. The desk of Mario’s assistant was underneath a slop sink, gurgling with the foodstuffs swirling into it. The smell was pervasive.
In the afternoon, there was a hierarchy about space. Mario had warned me of this after I mentioned that I must have been sticking my butt out because I kept getting bumped. “They bump you because they can—they’re putting you in your place.” The next day, I counted: I was bumped forty times. Space was Andy’s first
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