Read Online The Devil in the Kitchen by Marco Pierre White - Free Book Online
Authors: Marco Pierre White
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scouring pad to apply the paste, and once it had dried, it was washed off and the pan was buffed up to make it gleaming. Everyone at the Box Tree had to be multitasked. You didn’t just go in and do your job; you did whatever you had to do.
Ken Lamb, for instance, was the baker during the day. He’d make the bread, puff pastry and the petits fours. Come evening, Ken would put on his dickie bow tie and—presto!—he was now the head waiter.
From the outset I was enchanted by the extraordinary system that operated within the restaurant. It had only fifty covers (or seats), but there were two sittings, one at seven thirty P.M . and one at nine thirty P.M ., so we did a hundred covers but only needed a staff large enough to serve fifty. One coffee waitress could look after all of them.
Then there was the price of the meal. A three-course dinner might have been twenty quid, making it possibly England’s most expensive restaurant in the late seventies. It was packed, too. Crammed with rich Yorkshire mill owners, the guys who had made money out of textiles in the fifties and sixties. In the evenings I would hear the cars pulling up outside, the car doors slamming. And not just any old cars— Bentleys lined the streets outside. As I beavered away, I would always try to keep an eye on the swing doors that led from the kitchen to the restaurant. When they swung open, I’d get a glimpse of the happy customers, impeccably dressed and looking rich, glamorous and sophisticated. The sounds of the kitchen would be momentarily muffled by laughter from the dining room, the sound of people really enjoying themselves. From the brightly lit kitchen I could see the candlelight in the restaurant.
Michael had his sous chef, Steve, and there were two Frenchmen, Michel on Meat and Pascale on Hors D’Oeuvres. There were bollockings, sure, but not with the ferocity of those I’d received at the George. In fact, one of my memories is of Steve getting a monstering after he burned me with an egg slice, something the size of a toast grill. He had put the implement onto the gas, and then when it was very hot, he put it onto my arm. I screamed in agony and Steve looked astonished—I don’t think he realized how hot it would be and I am sure it was never his intention to burn me. He was just mucking around but he got a severe bollocking.
Aside from that though, the Box Tree generally had a friendly environment and Michael Lawson was a gifted mentor. I watched as he prepared, for instance, his game pie. He got a big breast of new-season grouse, a piece of fillet steak, put them into a pie dish, topped it with short-crust pastry and cooked it so the meat was pink. This was not the stuff of Répertoire .
----
Gastronomy begins with technique. If you haven’t got technique, you will never master gastronomy. You should buy the best ingredients and cook them perfectly, but to do this you have to question what you are doing and why you are doing it. If you don’t understand what makes a good, say, roast partridge—the hanging, the plucking, the trussing—before you’ve even started, then don’t bother roasting it. You’ve got to hang the bird correctly, pluck it correctly (without piercing the skin) and truss it beautifully (bring in the legs and plump out the breast so that it cooks evenly), retaining the heart and the livers for sauce. Seal it on all sides and then cook it on the back. What’s the timing of it? About ten minutes in my oven, but your oven is different from mine. A male partridge is bigger than a female partridge. A partridge shot in December is bigger than one shot in September.
----
Along the way there were also philosophies to be picked up. Words of wisdom that would stay with me forever. I remember Malcolm striking up a conversation by saying, “You know what I think?”
“No, Mr. Reid,” I replied. “What do you think?”
“It doesn’t matter what you spend as long as you get the desired effect.”
That’s
Ken Lamb, for instance, was the baker during the day. He’d make the bread, puff pastry and the petits fours. Come evening, Ken would put on his dickie bow tie and—presto!—he was now the head waiter.
From the outset I was enchanted by the extraordinary system that operated within the restaurant. It had only fifty covers (or seats), but there were two sittings, one at seven thirty P.M . and one at nine thirty P.M ., so we did a hundred covers but only needed a staff large enough to serve fifty. One coffee waitress could look after all of them.
Then there was the price of the meal. A three-course dinner might have been twenty quid, making it possibly England’s most expensive restaurant in the late seventies. It was packed, too. Crammed with rich Yorkshire mill owners, the guys who had made money out of textiles in the fifties and sixties. In the evenings I would hear the cars pulling up outside, the car doors slamming. And not just any old cars— Bentleys lined the streets outside. As I beavered away, I would always try to keep an eye on the swing doors that led from the kitchen to the restaurant. When they swung open, I’d get a glimpse of the happy customers, impeccably dressed and looking rich, glamorous and sophisticated. The sounds of the kitchen would be momentarily muffled by laughter from the dining room, the sound of people really enjoying themselves. From the brightly lit kitchen I could see the candlelight in the restaurant.
Michael had his sous chef, Steve, and there were two Frenchmen, Michel on Meat and Pascale on Hors D’Oeuvres. There were bollockings, sure, but not with the ferocity of those I’d received at the George. In fact, one of my memories is of Steve getting a monstering after he burned me with an egg slice, something the size of a toast grill. He had put the implement onto the gas, and then when it was very hot, he put it onto my arm. I screamed in agony and Steve looked astonished—I don’t think he realized how hot it would be and I am sure it was never his intention to burn me. He was just mucking around but he got a severe bollocking.
Aside from that though, the Box Tree generally had a friendly environment and Michael Lawson was a gifted mentor. I watched as he prepared, for instance, his game pie. He got a big breast of new-season grouse, a piece of fillet steak, put them into a pie dish, topped it with short-crust pastry and cooked it so the meat was pink. This was not the stuff of Répertoire .
----
Gastronomy begins with technique. If you haven’t got technique, you will never master gastronomy. You should buy the best ingredients and cook them perfectly, but to do this you have to question what you are doing and why you are doing it. If you don’t understand what makes a good, say, roast partridge—the hanging, the plucking, the trussing—before you’ve even started, then don’t bother roasting it. You’ve got to hang the bird correctly, pluck it correctly (without piercing the skin) and truss it beautifully (bring in the legs and plump out the breast so that it cooks evenly), retaining the heart and the livers for sauce. Seal it on all sides and then cook it on the back. What’s the timing of it? About ten minutes in my oven, but your oven is different from mine. A male partridge is bigger than a female partridge. A partridge shot in December is bigger than one shot in September.
----
Along the way there were also philosophies to be picked up. Words of wisdom that would stay with me forever. I remember Malcolm striking up a conversation by saying, “You know what I think?”
“No, Mr. Reid,” I replied. “What do you think?”
“It doesn’t matter what you spend as long as you get the desired effect.”
That’s
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