In order to appropriately transition into the restaurant (and to get us out of the big kitchen so that other levels could do their exams), we moved over into the restaurant kitchen to prepare for our first night of service under the close watch of our Level 4 chef. I was stationed in Poissonnier with four other classmates, although one of my group members has dropped out, effective immediately, to work full-time in a restaurant. Since it was his last night, and he's obviously experienced in the workings of a restaurant during a busy dinner service, he practically held my hand to help me navigate this new, stressful environment.
In the restaurant, we're split up into five groups: Entremetier (specials), Garde Manger (appetizers), Poissonnier (fish), Saucier (meat) and Patissier (pastry), which each have their own stations in the kitchen. Since we share the kitchen with the Level 6 students, who are also split into five groups, each station has two main dishes that they focus on per night – meaning that there are four appetizers, four fish dishes, four meat dishes, etc. on the menu. The two Level 5 fish dishes for the summer are: 1. Seared Shrimp with Smoked Potato Cream, Pickled Grapes and Sautéed Radishes and 2. Sautéed Fillet of Cod with Brandade Cake, Sauce Tomate and a Salad of Frisee, Mache and Cherry Tomatoes. We're lucky in Poissonnier, because most fish dishes are cooked very quickly, and there's not a ton of prep (unlike if you were making a beef stew, for example, where you have to have it all cooked and ready before orders start coming in). On our final day in the Level 4 kitchen, my classmates had completed some necessary prep work for us (that we would have normally done for ourselves), making the smoked potato cream, sauce tomate and pickling the grapes. All we had to do was warm everything up, make sure our fish were appropriately portioned and keep everything hot for service.
We got a quick demo from chef of each plate, which was basically five minutes of "Season everything, sear this, pour this here and plate it like this." Sure, it sounds pretty easy, but when the clock struck 8:00pm and the first orders came in, I was panicking. "Did he say put the grapes on the right or the left? Do we serve five shrimp with each order? What about the romaine??" The Expediter, who I've mentioned before for her steel eyes and killer gaze, makes sure the kitchen runs smoothly and approves all dishes before they go out to the public, so I knew that if it wasn't perfect she would personally walk it back to me to shove it in my face, then make me re-do the whole thing. I chose to do the shrimp with a partner, and the others handled the cod.
The menu is set up as a five-course prix fixe, so when you first sit down you make all of your choices for each course. When that order comes in, The Expediter will call each dish out to the cooks, saying, for example, "Order in, one shrimp!" and then you are expected to repeat what she says in an attempt to acknowledge the fact that you must have one shrimp dish ready for service. You get everything together, make sure everything is hot and that you've got a hot pan ready to go, and only when she says, "Fire, one shrimp" do you start to cook the protein. It gets a little more complicated, though: if one person at the table in question has ordered shrimp, yet another has ordered the salmon and another the tuna, all Poissonniers must communicate and plan so that each dish is ready at the same time. If the salmon takes five minutes, but the shrimp takes only three, I have to pay attention to how far into cooking the salmon group is in order to ensure that my shrimp are served hot and fresh off the fire. If it happened exactly as I've described, life would be easy. However, during the height of the night, I could get an "Order in, three shrimp" and then immediately a "Fire, two shrimp" and then an "Order in, two shrimp" all at the same time. I'm learning that it's essential to stay quiet and just listen, and to make sure you're incredibly organized and clean. It got a little hairy at times, but I had my group member to help me through this first night. He said that at his restaurant, sometimes he'll be the only one on the grill, for example, and will have to juggle up to ten orders at once. Yikes!
Since we have so much that we need to keep warm, yet must keep as many burners free as possible, we had to create a warm bain marie, or water bath, over the grill top at our station. We were luckily able to stick a bunch of things in there, including the smoked potato cream and the sauce tomate, yet keep all of our burners free for the shrimp, the cod and frying the brandade cake (a salted fish/potato patty that is breaded and deep fried). Each container had its own spoon, so when the time came for me to spread a little potato cream over the warm plate, with The Expediter yelling "Come on shrimp, what's taking so long?? Move it!" I failed to remember that the bain marie rests on top of an open fire grill. I grabbed the top of the spoon, sitting directly above the fire, and was suddenly transported to the ACME kitchen in a Roadrunner cartoon. My eyes bulged and my skin seared and smoked on the hot handle. A distant horn blared, "AOOOOOGA!!" I pulled myself away from the spoon, cursing my ignorance, and grabbed it again with a side towel. I spent the rest of the night with a swollen thumb, but luckily the pads of your fingers are used to some abuse and bounce back pretty quickly.
As the last order came in and I seared the final five shrimp, I couldn't believe how frantic the night had been. I've heard people make fun of the L'Ecole kitchens because it's so full of students and chefs that there's just not enough work to go around. The cockier ones, who work at NYC's most famous and busiest kitchens, like to act like it's a vacation to come to school and cook at L'Ecole, but for my first experience in a real restaurant kitchen it was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. I definitely had no idea what to expect, and no show on The Food Network can convey the heat, creativity and stress to deliver swelling at every stove and burner. I'm honestly kind of nervous to go back, but I know I can handle it. It'll be a challenge, but I can make it.
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