From the Trenches      01/05/2009  

When Times Get Tough, Chefs Have to Cook and Expedite

jason-hall21

In our ongoing series From the Trenches, some of the top men in the business give us a glimpse of what they have to deal with day in and day out to compete. Today’s correspondent is Jason Hall, Executive Chef at Mia Dona, and Michael Psilakis’s underboss at Anthos and Kefi.

We’re carefully watching the payroll. Everybody concerned what these winter months are going to be like. Nobody really knows if business is going to be there or not. It’s hard. So as a result, I’ve been working a station and expediting at the same time. I turned the printer around on the pass so that it’s facing me as I work the grill station.  If the guys here in the kitchen weren’t trained so well there’s no way I could pull it off. What’s hard though is to also watch the transition of the food from the pass to the runners, making sure they to to the right tables, that they look right, and so on. But the hardest part is keep what you have working in your head, while also keeping track of what three other cooks are doing: garde manger, hot apps, and pasta. It’s one thing to be standing looking at tickets and watching cooks cook; now you have an oven full of fish roasting, a plancha filled with scallops, and a grill with meat!

If you were cooking, you could just cook. You don’t think if garde manger is puting the appetizers out in ten minutes. You could never do this at Anthos; the menu is too intricate. You wouldn’t be able to maintain the quality. That’s why Anthos is more expensive.  The cost includes the extra labor to get those dishes done.  Thank God, I’ve hired another cook, and it’s back to normal. It was ok last week because it was slow. But our numbers keep getting busier. if we had 20 more covers it would have been a little bit crazy. when it’s slow you can bite the bullet, but you can’t sacrifice the integrity of the food coming out of the kitchen. But on the other hand it’s your responsibility to the business to run it as tight as you can. Especially now.

Comments

2 Responses to “When Times Get Tough, Chefs Have to Cook and Expedite”

  1. all the pretty horses on January 5th, 2009 4:08 pm

    hope the dude wears a hairnet in the kitchen or something

  2. Dave on January 5th, 2009 7:54 pm

    Interesting, especially the pragmatic details such as how Jason Hall “turned the printer around on the pass so that it’s facing me as I work the grill station.” (I think of Jason Bourne, reading a roadmap while driving a stick at top speed while stanching a wound.) More like this, please.

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