To the Bone by Liebrandt Paul & Friedman Andrew & Blumenthal Heston

Author:Liebrandt, Paul & Friedman, Andrew & Blumenthal, Heston [Liebrandt, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780770434175
Publisher: Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony
Published: 2013-12-03T05:00:00+00:00

SHADES OF GREEN

Afriend tipped me off that a relatively new Midtown restaurant named Atlas, not yet a year old, had lost its chef. Freshly in the hunt for a new position after the coup of Le Gans, I phoned them up and inquired about an interview.

Atlas was way up on Central Park South, the three-block stretch of 59th Street that frames the southern edge of the park. I knew next to nothing about this region of Midtown. My life had been downtown, living in SoHo, working for Bouley and then at Le Gans. But I liked the location. It didn’t have the grittiness of downtown or the elegance of the Upper East Side, but I appreciated the international vibe on the street—lined with posh hotels that drew a moneyed, global clientele—and the majesty of one of the world’s great urban parks across the way.

Truth be told, despite my short-lived stint at Le Gans, I wasn’t truly ready to make the quantum leap to chef at a restaurant like Atlas, a proper establishment in a prominent location and staffed with a full complement of cooks. Nobody is. Until you actually do it, there are simply too many responsibilities you haven’t had, too many decisions you haven’t made, too much pressure you haven’t had the privilege of bearing. I was only twenty-four. Relatively young to be handed the keys to the kitchen of a place like Atlas. But something told me that I could handle it.

Still, I didn’t have any illusions. I didn’t think that one minute I’d become a chef and the next minute my name would be written on the plates or lit up in four-star glory. I had more to learn than I already knew. But I knew that until I took the chance of becoming a chef, of devising my own menu and managing my own crew, I would never grow into that position. And I felt that I had amassed enough knowledge and technique, and had enough ideas scribbled and sketched in those notebooks I’d been keeping, that I was ready to take the first steps down that path—and that any owner or owners who took me on would be in good and capable hands. My entire adult life had been about becoming a chef, and I knew that the transformation would continue for years to come. But I had to actually be enlisted as a chef in order to take those precious next steps.

The general manager, an affable but somewhat disheveled man named Jimmy, greeted me when I arrived for my interview. I’m not one of those cooks who shows up in a T-shirt and denim. Jean-Georges Vongerichten taught me that, not directly, but by example. You show up in a suit. It makes a difference. People see all of that and they figure you for a man, not a boy. I was dismayed to learn that Jimmy wasn’t just the GM; he was also acting as the chef. What was that about? True, he had

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