Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line (14 page)

We call anything that returns to the kitchen a refire, because usually it returns to the stove or the oven. It’s not the right doneness, it needs more time. It needs to go back into the fire. What really happens to it, though, is it goes into a sort of purgatory. Its mates have already reached the table, they’re already being eaten. The cook who originally prepared it is on to the next pickup, he’s stabbed the ticket, he can’t remember what the order even was. Yet here it is, this rogue plate of food. And now the cook has to stop what he’s doing to figure it out—quickly. If it’s a piece of meat (which is unlikely, given Julio’s aptitude with temperatures), perhaps it can be salvaged by a turn or two on the grill or in the oven. But suppose it’s been
over
cooked. Or suppose the customer’s cut it to bits and it’s unplateable now. Or suppose it’s a piece of fish (forget it—fish can never be salvaged). In this case, he has no choice but to start the mental process of the dish all over: find the ticket, decrypt it, fire a new piece of the appropriate protein, throw down new pans for the appropriate vegetables, heat a new portion of sauce. He’s welcome to hasten the process by using another of the same cut that he’s already got working for a different table, but doing that will in turn slow down that pickup. Not to mention the unfavorable effect this process will have on the current pickup. Because he’s already begun working on something else, which he’s stopped to address the refire. He’s now got two minutes left to pick up the current table, yet he finds himself somehow working on a table from the past, and in so doing, complicating the tables of the future. The present moment is gone. Re-fires
get gnarly in a flash. Which is why you, the sous chef, must make sure everything is perfectly cooked before you pass it on to Chef for plating.

But your job is more involved than simply tasting food.

When a server punches a table’s order into the restaurant’s Point of Sale system—the POS—all food purchases get routed by the computer to the kitchen in the form of a ticket, or “dupe,” which prints out in full on the central printer located at the pass. Chef plucks these tickets from the printer, decrypts their various built-in codes (table number, food order, order number, time stamp, seating assignments, guest count, course lines, special instructions, server’s name), and arranges them, based on what they call for, in chronological order on the “board.” The board is a metal ticket rack located at the pass, which not only holds the tickets in place so they don’t blow away, but also acts as an organizing post. Meanwhile, at the very same time, abridged versions of each ticket print out on each of the sections. The cooks similarly decrypt them and hang them on their own ticket racks.

A given order may call for several dishes, but the POS is programmed in such a way that the dupe that each respective station receives lists only those items required of that station. This enables the cooks to isolate their responsibilities without having to sift through a half dozen other items. But since Julio can’t see what Raffy has on board, and vice versa, it’s important that upon receipt of the order, Chef read out to everybody what has come in. This way, Raffy won’t start a piece of fish that takes five minutes if he knows it’s going with a steak that takes ten, and neither of them will start anything if the table has ordered loads of appetizers for Catalina.

Chef will start by saying “Ordering …” which gathers everyone’s attention. To flag the announcement with the word “ordering” is important because it allows the busy cook to distinguish unrelated or unimportant line chatter from new responsibilities—actual ordering. People need to communicate, and often that communication between linesmen involves the rereading of tickets to each other. But a seasoned cook knows not to begin making anything new until he hears
Chef
call the order.

“First course,” he will say, reading out the appetizers, “followed by” midcourses and entrées, and occasionally desserts. When he’s done calling the ticket we all say “
Oui
, Chef.” We do so in unison. The call back itself is a confirmation that the order has been heard; that we perform the call back in unison is a confirmation that we are all working at the same tempo, dancing to the same rhythm. In the best kitchens, the “
Oui
, Chefs,” loud and clear, seem to issue from one single, machinelike creature.

These “followed by” items Chef mentions are considered to be “on board,” meaning “to be made later.” Items that require a long time to cook might be started right when the ticket comes in. For quicker preparations, a cook may not start the work until the server punches in a “fire” ticket. When something is fired, we begin the final stages, the last couple of minutes of work. For a goose that has been roasted in advance, to fire it may be to cut the meat off the bone and crisp its skin under the salamander. For a skate wing that cooks very rapidly, to fire it is to put it in the pan.

If a table hasn’t ordered appetizers for some reason, Chef will start by saying “Order fire …” meaning “make
this immediately.” If they’re in a hurry, we’ll make it “on the fly.” If they
have
ordered appetizers, but they’re eating slowly—suppose they are a couple on a date, and they’re spending more time looking deep into each other’s eyes than they are digging deep into their food—they get “pushed back,” literally to the back of the line of tickets on the board, and we “hold fire” until the server notifies us that the table is ready.

Ideally, tables with multiple courses should be punched in as a single unit, with each course separated from the next by a course line. The alternative is to have the server hold on to the entrée orders and punch them in when he or she sees fit, based on how quickly the guests are eating their appetizers and based on how long the server thinks it will take to prepare the food. But in reality, there are too many variables for even the most talented server to be able to forecast accurately how long a lamb will take, how many monkfish we can pick up at once. Only we know precisely what is going on in the kitchen at any given moment, and thus only we know precisely how long certain things will take to prepare in that moment. So it’s essential that we have all the information for all the tables as soon as it becomes available, and in the most consolidated form possible—one ticket.

Even when multiple-course tickets are punched in appropriately as one unit, they are not necessarily without difficulties. Special instructions can be a nightmare. There is only so much that can be entered in the POS system’s ticket template. For meats that require a choice of doneness, there are buttons built in that say
rare, medium rare
, etcetera. For pastas that are available in vegetarian format, there are buttons that say
no meat
. These basic instructions
are called “modifications.” But outside the basic modifications exists a whole world of consumer possibilities, which, quite simply, would be impossible to accommodate with buttons on the computer. And so the server must type in these special requests by hand:
light on the garlic
, or
no salt or pepper, add extra olive oil on the side
. But since servers are often in a rush, and space is always limited, and there’s seldom a rigid formatting standard, what you end up seeing is something more like this:

The permutations of interpretation are almost limitless; the ticket becomes a Choose Your Own Adventure story. Sometimes you need clarification from the front of the house.

Back waiters like Hussein can often help. They overhear the servers’ conversations with guests; they see orders being punched in. Plus, because they usually resent the servers—for being short with them, perhaps, or for making more money than they do—back waiters are always eager to jump at any opportunity to sort out the dimwitted mistakes of the waitstaff. But since they’re not having those conversations with the guests, and since they’re not punching in those tickets, they can’t interpret everything. Which is why the server’s name is always on the ticket as well.

Chef snaps in the direction of the back waiters. Hussein appears in an instant.

“What on earth does this mean?” Chef says.

“I don’t know, Chef,” Hussein says. “Fucking Candi, so stupid.”

“Get her in here,” Chef says.

And Candice will rush in, nervous, flustered, to explain the ticket.

The only logical system, especially once service begins to accelerate, is to send out tables in groups. These groups are called “pickups.” As expediter, Chef choreographs the pickups. He does so by maintaining a steady line of communication with the front of the house and by keeping track of what food has gone out. As Catalina and the entremets chug out appetizers, Chef rearranges the corresponding tickets in their new order, the order in which second courses will be served, depending on what appetizers go out first. This is the way the flow is developed. Four or five tables get their first courses, and then the cooks start
on the second courses for those tables, while Catalina proceeds with the first courses for the next batch.

Chef must also keep track of the productivity of all the stations, their comparative levels of busyness. If VinDog on meat entremet is bogged down by pastas, Chef will rearrange the next pickup so that it’s meat-light. If Warren can’t get to the pass on time with the fish garnish, Chef will rejigger the pickup to accommodate him. If Catalina is inundated with salads and desserts, we’ll slow down all hot food until she catches up.

Once a pickup is set, there’s no turning back from it. Chef calls out the tables by number, and the cooks say “
Oui
, Chef” and sequester the four or five dupes in the pickup section of their boards. Since meat and fish are most sensitive to time, Julio and Raffy have a brief conference when the pickup is called. They decide, based on their respective levels of readiness, how long it should take.

“How long?” Julio belts out.

“Four,” yells Raffy.

“Four,” confirm the rest of the cooks.

Every station has a digital timer. When the time is decided, each cook sets his or hers, and away they go, stirring, sautéing, searing. Only cooking sounds can be heard at this point, pops and fizzles, bubbles and squeaks. This is when the din is so rhythmic it can be mistaken for silence. Everyone knows what he has to accomplish and how long it must take him to do so, so there is no need to talk about it. All withdraw into a place of internal focus, saying next to nothing until the timers chime.

“To the pass!” everybody says when they ring out. The
pans come soaring in and the food gets plated. “Service!” Chef says when the plates are ready. The back waiters pick up the plates and take them out into the dining room.

This is where your work on the pass becomes more involved. In addition to tasting all the food, you also need to organize it. What seems like a simple four-table pickup might comprise a dozen pans on either side when it arrives at the pass. This is a lot. Chef can’t be sorting through each pot and pan in search of the right food. You need to huddle them up by plate for him and even further segregate plates by table—these turnips are for table 7, while these are for table 25. This work is important because each pan of food has an identity and a destiny. It was marshaled onto the stove purposefully by its cook. Perhaps the John Dory that Raffy put down for table 19 is a bit big, and, seeing this, Warren adapted a particular pan of garnish to fit the fish properly. Perhaps VinDog sees Chef plating table 22 first and knows that of the two mafalde he’s got ready, one was started earlier than the other and should thus go out first, with 22, since they’ve ordered one. Perhaps there’s a PPX table—
personnes particulièrement extraordinaires
, the VIPs—and Julio knows that one rib-eye was marbled more handsomely than the others, a choicer cut. He’ll tell you this as he passes it over to you and it’s your responsibility to take note, make sure it gets where it needs to go.

You are the kitchen’s middleman, the crucial catalyst in the chain reaction of service. There’s an oral transaction that happens between you and the cook when he delivers items to pass. It’s cooks’ argot, which you must interpret and communicate to Chef as necessary.

“This cassoulet is the veg-head on 9,” Warren says.
“Sin tocino.”

What he means is that, of all the pans he’s giving you, this particular portion of beans has no bacon in it, satisfying the special request of a vegetarian guest seated at table 9. Overlooking such information could be devastating for the guest and for the restaurant, especially in cases when the special request derives from allergy. But Chef is not always available to have these sorts of conversations—he’s busy plating and expediting, or fielding questions from the front of house managers, or arranging special canapés for preferred clientele. So you have the conversations, at close range and in quiet voices, to avoid interfering with the work of others.

These transactions are not limited to special requests and ticket modifications. There is a host of other information that you’re there to provide the cooks with as well.

“Gimme an all-day on venison,” Julio says. He wants to ensure that the tickets he has on his board mirror the tickets on board at the pass, and that he has enough meat working to cover everything that’s on order. You inspect the tickets and count up the deer.