Making the cut

WE ARE obsessed.

I am recalling long nights out with normally gregarious friends instead glued to phones for updates on Masterchef, the most popular of the endless foodie-fare on the box. I am thinking of many male acquaintances who have morphed into Saturday Stovetop Warriors. I am thinking of younger friends, teens and pre-teens, who now ‘plate up’ and ‘stack’ their bangers and mash.

Great barricades of hefty, culinary tomes dominate bookshops while, despite pinched wallets, wild-eyed gourmands still roam farmers’ markets, grilling stall-holders on the provenance of parsnips and the terroir of turnips. We may be lying in an economic gutter but we remain fixated on the stars. Michelin stars, to be precise.

Even so, I am utterly unprepared for the fevered reaction from all and sundry at news of my impending day in a Michelin-starred kitchen. It seems I have to return home with nothing less than the Third Secret of Fatima.

Cork chef Ross Lewis and Martin Corbett, who oversees front of house, opened Chapter One in 1992, in the basement of the Dublin Writers Museum on Dublin’s Northside. Quite a bit off the fashionable beaten track, it took a long, hard slog to build Chapter One into one of the country’s top restaurants, ultimately rewarded with a Michelin star in 2007. They haven’t relinquished it since.

It is early morning, yet front of house is already humming with activity. Ross sweeps in followed by interior architect Maria McVeigh. Fifteen minutes later, I am ensconced in the kitchen following my full tour of the restaurant which Ross conducts in tandem with his meeting with Maria, the pair of us dazed, as if we’d strayed into the backdraft of a jet engine.

The kitchen is stunning, even to a non-cook. Redesigned in 2007 to Ross’s exact requirements following years of research and eight months of planning, it combines aesthetic appeal with ergonomic functionality in separate, temperature-controlled rooms. The central room has a logical flow tracing the passage of food to its ultimate destination and, unlike traditional kitchens, the bulk of the ‘mise en place’ (i.e. the ingredients, utensils and components each chef requires) are kept in waist-level drawers below the counters, keeping clutter to a minimum. “Half a million it cost — and then the crash came,” says Ross wryly.

Surprisingly, I’m nervous. Less surprisingly, I am extremely embarrassed, a sham in chef’s whites amongst all these professionals. Moreover, I know they can sniff out a charlatan in their midst like a bad smell. I know because I was once one of their number.

Let’s be perfectly clear, I’ve never, ever cooked at this level but in an earlier life, cooking was my default occupation, my ‘get-out-of-jail-card’ when I absolutely had to get a job, any job. Beginning in a homegrown precursor to McDonald’s, I parlayed each experience upwards. I worked in a West End seafood restaurant, owned by a flamboyant American restaurateur, Bob Payton, in pre-crash ’80s London, while a few streets away, unknown to me, Ross was in the early stages of his career in the infinitely more upmarket Odin’s. Odin’s was owned by another, even more flamboyant restaurateur, Peter Langan, and played an integral part in the rise of British restaurants.

A few years later, back in Ireland, unemployed and post-breakup, I disappeared from the straight world for nearly two years, eventually winding up as a ‘head chef’ but my status had little to do with personal ability; I was simply the last man standing. Eventually, having sufficiently repaired my wounded psyche and decided it was time to learn to actually cook, I quit, vowing to never again work in catering.

So, they may be beavering away, heads down, but they are aware of me. When the kitchen is your universe, anything different stands out, and is seized on as some break in routine. A useless lump dickied up in whites, fooling around for a photographer, pretending to be a Michelin-starred chef is quite a break in routine. I need a task, any task. Only when I’m doing something will I feel I can blend in.

Ross deposits me with sous chef Karl, a 17-year veteran at 33, including stints in a couple of two-star joints in Paris. “Can you find something for Joe to do?” commands Ross. “Sure,” says Karl amiably. At last — the big time! “Now,” says Karl, “can you sort this tray of watercress. Leaves this size to be put aside for garnish, all the rest go for purée.” He even plucks out a sample leaf to be sure I remember the right size. After I finish the watercress, I sort some salad leaves.

Well, come on, people! What did you expect? Undiscovered genius wanders in from street and garners them a second star? Sure, it is mundane work but that is often the chef’s lot and it is also when you get to know your co-workers. Find a rhythm, settle in, commence yapping. But in a Michelin star world, even the mundane is invested with greater rigour. Only the most perfect leaves make the grade, a hint of a bruise or a paucity of stalk and they’re purée. They are placed in layers in trays, covered in damp paper towel, sealed in cling film, stored in drawers. “Away from light,” says Karl, “light kills chlorophyll once they have been picked, turns ’em yellow.” When I was a ‘head chef’ my profoundly alcoholic sous chef would gladly have sliced greens with a lump hammer.

Alongside, David silently cleans and portions fish for today’s lunch. “Legend,” says Karl indicating David, “from Lisbon, learned English in two weeks.” Fluent menu, that is.

Lunch service begins. Today, Karl is on cold starters covering for an absent commis chef. Next in line is chef de partie Keelan on hot starters, laconically punctuating Karl’s conversation with cheeky asides. On the other side of the room, by the ovens and gas burners are Chef Cathal, cooking meat, Richard and Kieran, on garnishes, David, now alongside them, on fish. Darren’s on desserts, three more lads are prepping meat and fowl out back and two kitchen porters clean up.

Ross does the ‘pass’ — calling the orders, casting the final critical eye over each exquisite-looking plate before the waiters ferry them out. All the while, he describes dishes, details techniques, offers me samples. “Oui, Chef!” they all bellow in unison, acknowledging each order. Kieran is garnishing a plate when a carrot goes skidding across the counter. He curses softly under his breath, an anxious flicker crosses his face. Ross picks it up from the floor, bins it without interrupting his conversation but peers closely as Kieran finishes the plate. Kieran’s hands shake.

The photographer shows up. Ross mugs gamely alongside me for the camera. “Can we get Joe a knife?” he booms. Ross knows nothing of my kitchen experience. “Now, Joe,” he says, “can you do this?” as he halves and quarters a leek lengthways, then chops it rapidly into even little pieces, left-hand fingers crimped tightly together, the side of the blade moving up and down against them. To the novice, it appears a finger will soon fly but it is pretty straightforward once you master the technique. “No need to chop,” says the photographer, but bullish pride sees me smoothly half and quarter my leek lengthways. Ross perks up slightly. I crimp my fingers. “No need to chop,” shouts the snapping photographer. I chop. Ross, amused, peers more closely. My hand starts shaking, I remember Kieran, a slight slip. No, I roar inside my head. “He’s cut his finger,” yelps the photographer with delight. Please, God, no, I say to myself. I could never, ever, ever live it down. But, incredibly, I have removed just a smidgeon of nail and a single layer of skin from my thumb. No blood. “No, I haven’t,” I say, feigning nonchalance but as I resume chopping, my hand is quivering. I make a pig’s ear of the rest of the leek. Ross casts a disdainful eye over my work. I wish I had cut myself.

Lunch is relatively quiet, 37 covers, no one has broken a sweat. Neither are there any Ramsay-like tantrums.

“The level we’re at,” says Ross, “the element of freedom and artistry is practised at the stage of conceiving dishes, when we can play around with them. After that, it is a military-style operation. It depends on how busy service is but I was never a tyrant. I would have been more volatile before, young and in a hurry, but you mature. The more organised a kitchen is, the better it works and you don’t need to shout. Anyway, I like to create an environment young chefs can feel comfortable in because I’ve been that young chef, you’re shitting yourself, it’s hell on earth.

“The star has been the highlight of my professional career but it is not the be-all and end-all. If I didn’t have it, I would have a lot more freedom. If I was to go for another, it would mean turning my back on the customers, no longer doing what was pleasing them, democratic food that appeals to a broad range.

“On the other hand,” he grins, “if I won the lottery in the morning would I open a 20-seater overlooking the water in Kinsale, shoot for two stars and open a few nights of the week or just six months of the year? Yes I would. Am I going to do it in Chapter One? Absolutely not so, therefore, am I ever going to do it? Probably not.”

I am now nurturing a tiny seed of doubt, that I may not do so either.