A saying that should transcend the culinary industry. How deep in the weeds can you get? Can you get out of the weeds? A feeling like no other is when you’re cooking a beautiful duck and then all of a sudden a flame literally burns your skin, the duck slips, the skin burns, there’s no extra ducks, what do you do with Michelin stars on the line?
This is the pressure faced with being a cook, chef, server, hospitality personality. The pressure of having something so great with the ability to lose it all in a matter of seconds. What happens if that duck was meant for a Michelin reviewer ? If that person gets a burnt duck, you get zero stars, if you get zero stars, you get minimal customers (depending on the scenario). It’s almost like those directv commercials (If you know, you know) .
I wanted to write about this today because I think it directly relates to people’s stress levels, and sometimes you don’t even think about the food, you just think about what’s going to happen if you screw this up, not even how to we make this fantastic for the person eating it.
There’s something about the feeling of being absolutely exhausted and then the first guest walks in for dinner and some kind of ignition boosters are turned on. Table after table walking in stacking up the pressure builds and builds. You go from doing one thing at a time to 20. A burn awakens you, a sizzle coming from the wrong directions throws you off. Second by second everything is “on the line”. Get it ;)
We get this feeling because we’re in the weeds. To run an outsider through a night of a tasting menu, here you go. As someone is getting there soup, someone is plating a bite, as that bite is being prepared that triggers something to happen 2 hours from that bite, during the next little nibble, a triggering effect is put in for a course 3 courses from now. There’s anywhere from 4-12 touches or components per plate during a 12-15 course tasting menu for lets say 80 people a night. That’s on average 9,600 things that could go wrong a night if you are a dedicated fine dining restaurant.
9600. Every move is a move that could ruin the night. That’s an enormous amount of pressure everyday to make someone have a life changing meal. Now, does everyone take this pressure as seriously as the owners and management? Not always. But the people who care are the ones who make it.
Every night is an amazing accomplishment when you think about the amount of things that could go wrong. So, for everyone in fine dining right now I want to say nice job and keep on trucking. There’s absolutely more to a restaurant that meets the eye.
