1001 Nights in a Two Hat Restaurant

---

‘Hi. My name’s Natasha. I’m here for the trial.’

The palm of a hand appears four inches from my face. I recoil abruptly. The owner of the hand turns her attention from me to one of her nearby colleagues, and begins barking orders. I’ve been waiting forty minutes for her, for this introduction.

I’m led down to a store-room on a wharf to get a vest by a short man who resembles a penguin; comedic to me yet dignified to its own kind. He doesn’t feel compelled to make chit-chat of any sort as he leads me around.

I will encounter him again seven years hence.

The following day I receive a call from the woman. I really thought that I’d wanted to work for them; the number one restaurant in Sydney. Instead, it was with great pleasure that I told the hand:

‘I’ve taken the other job’.

The other job was over the water; Sydney’s busiest fine-dining restaurant. To say that I’d done my research would be a lie, more accurately it seemed I was driven by a masochistic urge to make life as difficult as possible for myself. Yet destructive urges are never wholly destructive, and they often co-exist alongside serendipity.

I remember the night I applied for the advertised position, emailing my CV and cover letter. In less than five minutes the restaurant manager had phoned me back and was asking me in for an interview. The timing was entirely coincidental - its not that my CV glowed or that I was hot property (quite the opposite) - but it struck me as a little spooky.

It was early October 2010, and I had no idea about the phenomenon known as Lets Do Lunch: Good Food Month was not on my radar. I’d just landed back in this city after many years living in Melbourne, and then more recently in country Victoria. The drive was on in Sydney’s major restaurants to hire anything that could carry three plates out of a kitchen and successfully put them down on a table without spilling or dropping them. I guess you could say I was in the right place at the right time.

I was led through the heaviest door I’ve ever pushed through into the brightest room I’d ever been in. It was a cross between an operating-theatre and the Pearly Gates. There I met the shortest Vietnamese woman in the world and an English-Bulldog of a chef, only his bark and his bite were both fearsome. Everything was the most intense version of a thing that you could imagine. A long, stainless-steel pass demarcated the world of front-of-house from back, and at this point my field-of-vision flattened, so overwhelmed was I by the alternate universe I’d entered.

‘You have to get this job. We don’t have enough females working here. Brett will be watching you’.

No pressure.

I’d been carrying plates for a few years now. Although I’d never admit that it was my calling, I was confident that I was OK at it. Food knowledge was my speciality. I thought I’d be a shoe-in.

I wasn’t.

The atmosphere, the kitchen, the pace, the intensity, the immensity, the Bulldog, Brett watching, carrying plates with cloths, ‘Watch your plates! Your sauce is running!’, the floor plan, the cover numbers, the Vietnamese cheer-squad. There was so much going on, I didn’t even register who Brett was.

‘Brett likes you. He says you’re a dark-horse’. 

They must have been desperate. I got the job. 

Lets Do Lunch is a promotion run throughout October for Good Food Month, where the dining public can experience ‘a hatted restaurant on a budget’. 

For me, this meant running hundreds of plates of barramundi a day from kitchen to table. Sounds easy, yeah? Be hard to fuck that up, wouldn’t it?

I managed.

Restaurants are all about systems, and one of the main systems that front-of-house must adhere to is the Sequence of Service. My previous experience in a small 110-seater, two-hat restaurant in country Victoria had given me an inkling of this, but it could never prepare me for this mighty machine in who’s guts I now found myself.

When you’re dropped into something like this with no idea, you quickly get swept up in what appears to be complete mayhem. I’m not particularly fast on the uptake at the best of times so I was too busy keeping my head above water to learn the important lessons that kept me out of trouble.

Nervous and anxious, so utterly overwhelmed by scale and scope, I clung to the group of girls in the kitchen and nervously chattered away like a lunatic, distracting them from their tasks and not listening to chef. What was I talking about? Probably trying to rationalise the last mistake I’d made, explaining away my culpability.

The Vietnamese firecracker was my lifeline. She decided that she wanted me there and she used all her considerable influence to keep me there.

My main adversary (not counting myself) was Chef.

From the get-go, he sensed my fear, and like some stupid baby gazelle drinking at the waterhole, I made all the right moves to get to see the teeth-show. I took the wrong food to the wrong table (But who cares, they’re getting barramundi too) I put the wrong food down in front of the wrong people, I came back into the kitchen and WOULDN’T. STOP. TALKING.

I got shouted at. A lot. Then the doors would swing open into the front dining room and I would sail out, carrying food to expectant diners. My brain would be exploding, I was a bundle of nerves. And then I’d make another mistake and it would start all over again.

Chef’s capacity to yell was really impressive. The people who sat directly on the other side of the swing-doors to the kitchen often got a special treat, front row seats to the shouting-spectacle. I remember once being at a large round table in the front room near the wine-wall as Chef was verbally destroying someone (else, for a change) in the kitchen.

‘Can I get you anything? Anything at all? Please don’t make me go back in the kitchen’.

I thought about diving under the table and hiding, using the nice family as cover.

That Chef didn’t like me was plain, but the Vietnamese spring-roll didn’t let me forget it.

‘Chef wants you gone. He says so at every management meeting. But Bretts got your back’.

I got it. But I also didn’t. Maybe if he stopped shouting at me I’d get better at my job.

No chance. Sometimes he’d be struck by an attack of the mumbles.

‘Mozzarella salad to share, Table 1’

It was actually Table 61. Sixty wasn’t annunciated. Deliberately, I’d say.

But there was something that I did notice: respect. Every single one of his brigade showed him unconditional amounts of the stuff, bordering on veneration. Long after we’d all clocked off and found our way to the Ship, conversations centred around the highs and lows of service from both front and back of house, not one of the chefs ever spoke critically of their leader. Bollickings were taken as a matter of course and seen as an opportunity to better oneself.

There would be plenty more in store. 

Each morning before service commenced, the spring-roll and I would set up the kitchen. Our mise-en-place consisted of cutting and plating butters, slicing bread for service, preparing vinegar pots and wiping cloths for chefs to access on the pass during service, as well as providing chefs with plastic drinking buckets of ice and water. All tasks were of equal importance and if one of them didn’t get done, you’d cop a bollocking from Chef.

As the newest member of staff, it was my rite-of-passage to take care of the slicing of bread. For LDL (Lets Do Lunch) this was a monumental job. Firstly, the bread-knife had to be located, as it always went missing from it’s station; it was usually found in Pastry. Hand slicing twenty loaves of Iggy’s rye and caraway loaf is a genuine endurance event, involving blood, sweat, cuts, blisters and occasionally tears. For this reason, we were permitted to remove our vests and ties. Even then, it became a question of mind over matter.

Set-up would take around an hour, depending on the type and quantity of things that went missing overnight. Once this was complete, we could settle into the repetitive, meditative and oddly calming folding of things that needed to be folded; napkins, waiter’s cloths and fluffy hand-towels for the guest lavatories, because ‘two-hat restaurants don’t have paper-towel dispensers or electric hand dryers’.

All around the restaurant there were staff performing their own versions of mise-en-place, all the little things that must be done and put in place each day before the doors open and the guests arrive. Chefs have been in the kitchen prepping since 7:30am, and most won’t be leaving until everything’s done and packed down, well after midnight.

And yet, despite all this structure and routine, no two days are ever the same. The variables that throw curve balls manifest as equipment failure (extractor fans that shut-off mid service, air-conditioning units that fail, interruptions to the gas supply in the building etc etc) but by and large its the capricious nature of humanity that keeps hospitality fresh, new and exciting with each new day.

‘I hope you’re not saying bad things about any of your colleagues’.

Brett was addressing the spring-roll through the south entry-door into the kitchen.

‘I haven’t said a thing about her. Tash can make her own mind up about Teresa’.

In my utter self-absorbtion, I hadn’t really noticed Teresa.

I was so genuinely thrilled to have been accepted on board that even Chef’s tirades weren’t enough to dissuade me. I had come from working in a restaurant that touted itself as ‘small and family-run’, yet at the time it had serious underlying cultural issues. I recall a tres cliquey functions team who were unfriendly and unwelcoming, a crazy, maladjusted young lady who trained me, a couple of sous-chefs who were repugnant (the tip-rat and his fat-fuck sidekick), a wine team of malcontents and a narcissistic kleptomaniac alcoholic restaurant manager. The experience was redeemed by some of the kindest and most wonderful people I’ve ever met, who remain near and dear. My point is, I’d gone from ‘small family-run’ to ‘big family-run’ and the difference in acceptance from managers, hostesses, wait staff, bar staff, sommeliers and chefs was universally warm and welcoming. It was positively bewildering.

But until the moment that Brett and the rice paper-roll made mention of her, Teresa had slipped under my radar.

She came in at 7pm, kept to herself, did her job and went home. She worked only in the kitchen as a runner - as did the other girls I habitually distracted - but she worked apart from them. Polite hellos, minimal conversation, polite farewells. She never came to the pub.

The fire-cracker and her hated each other.

Although I appreciated the protection-racket that kept me employed, I drew the line at being a patsy.

But in her venerable wisdom of human nature, Miss Saigon knew she had my loyalty. 

The South door swings open. A petite young man with striking blue eyes enters, walking the length of the kitchen.

‘McFairy.’

Tim, the sous-chef on the pass holds out a hand in greeting. They shake solemnly, whereupon Mc Fairy advances toward me. We embrace, a kiss on both cheeks. Proceeding, he encounters France, who gestures to punch him in the face.

Mc Fairy, a leprechaun, started work at the restaurant at the same time I did. We quickly became the best of friends. Well-versed in hospitality, he did his first few shifts in the kitchen learning restaurant procedure, and was soon allocated onto the floor as a section waiter. I would often see him in times of peak stress, standing at the Point of Sale terminal, finger poised to start tapping in an order, paralysed by uncertainty in the face of guest’s myriad requests.

It can literally be a matter of life and death to get orders in and communicated correctly, with zero wriggle-room for interpretation. Getting 150 guests in-and-out of a restaurant, served at the highest possible level (time and staff levels permitting), watered, cocktailed, fed, coffeed and petite-foured, in one and a half hours without killing anyone can be a stressful task, and it takes a bit of getting used to.

Post-work alcohol and substance-use are traditional hospitality coping methods.

‘Its a pity that you’re gay and you’re a lesbian; you’d make such a nice couple.’

Tim, observing McFairy and I together in the kitchen.

Now, I’m not about to launch into the sexual politics of this statement, suffice to say that I wasn’t offended and neither was McFairy. This is just how we spoke to one another. Every day was an adventure in verbal sparring, and it helped to be reasonably resilient.

What did raise my eyebrows was the physical sparring that went on, primarily amongst the males. Flicking a penis on the way past, poking someone in the bum-hole were not games particular to the kitchen; nor were they confined to our cheeky gay wait staff. It went on constantly, and it peaked one night when Canadian Dave, sous-chef on the pass reached behind him mid service and grabbed the tackle of a gentleman guest who was being led through on a behind-the-scenes tour of the kitchen.

For the most part, I attempted to keep out of the imbroglio; everything moved so quickly in this place, I needed to update my entire operating system to come up to speed. Certainly I needed to sharpen my blade. Meanwhile, I tried to focus on a different way, an incipient awareness of the principals of Tao. Specifically, the detachment of ego, and the importance of the path of the humble servant.

To this end, Mc Fairy was instrumental, simply by being a friend.

I often reflect on the type of friendships that form in hospitality, and of how they differ from ‘civilian life’. At the risk of offending millions of genuine war veterans, I’m going to describe the working practice in large-volume, high-profile fine-dining as ‘trench-warfare’. With the exception of whizzing bullets and exploding shells, its not that absurd a metaphor, given the modern restaurant is modelled on the French system of military hierarchy. Anyway, when you go into battle every night, your entire life-cycle speeds-up, friendships form and fuse quickly, and you work out who you can depend upon for your life, and who you’d like to see executed by firing squad.

A lot of people pass through your life in hospitality, but the friendships that endure invariably share the particular characteristic of an uncommon depth.

‘Service! I said service!’

‘Table 30, dear.’

‘Did you just call me ‘dear’?’

‘I’ll call you whatever I fucking-well like.’

Young, handsome and talented, working with Tim on the pass was when I began to enjoy being in the kitchen.

‘Service, mole!’ (under breath) ‘You know I’m only joking, right?’

Di Caprio is in with his girlfriend. They’re preparing something special, theres a container of whipped, sweetened cream that one of the chefs is quenelling. Tim addresses the spring-roll and myself.

‘Service! Now, rub the cream all over each other’s tits. I said ‘service’, you have to do it!’

Putting your innate political correctness aside is generally best in these situations. Personally, I welcomed the brief respite that blatant silliness offered in the face of the relentless grind of service.

At the close of the night, Tim and I pass each other on the stair.

‘Goodnight, creamy. Lets do it again tomorrow.’

You enter through the South door. On your right is the Pass, the boundary of worlds; front-of-house and back. The Pass is a long, deep, stainless steel work-station which sprouts stanchions supporting shelving and heat lamps. Proceed along the front line stations; larder, hot entrées, garnish, sauce, meat.

In the centre of the kitchen turn right and cross over into back-of-house. This is chef’s territory, the rules are different, anxiety ratchets up a notch. Its a thoroughfare, a pinch-point, where the functional space of the kitchen is split in two. Every staff member passes through here every day. Don’t get burnt or stabbed, don’t get in the way.

Never stop to linger here, but on your left is the continuation of larder (salads) and around the corner is pastry. To the right is the central island of ovens and stoves. Proceed to the end, tight turn right around an upright combo-oven, then squeeze past the chef cooking fish, say hello to the poor fellow on mash, then hurry down the spiral staircase into the relative sanctuary of the prep-kitchen.

‘Hey baby’

I’m walking past on my way to clock-on. Coco, the French chef currently on fish section, squeezes lemon into a frypan. Huge flames leap up.

‘I can do this, at your place, naked.’

I often wondered about nature-versus-nurture when it comes to chefs; are these very specific people the way that they are because they spend all day and all night in a kitchen with no access to natural light or air, preternaturally focused on what’s in front of them, drilled and working like machines, all the time standing, or are they genetically different from everybody else?

I’d be wondering such things as I stood in the kitchen, watching them from where I stood on my side of the Pass going about their daily routines. I used to feel as though the Pass was a kind of ‘proscenium’, the metaphorical plane of space in a theatre through which the audience observes the events on stage, and that I was watching a show. It was with rather a big jolt when, one day, I realised that the proscenium worked both ways.

‘Dave reckons you’re getting laid.’

Chef Bruno levels this information at me as he pushes two plates across the Pass. I had seen them earlier talking, watching me. ‘Jesus, there goes the fourth wall’, I thought.

These rigorously-trained, highly-attuned people, so well-versed in their daily tasks, so sensitive to their surroundings that the slightest differences are detected. It was a naked moment. This was not a place for secrets.

Chef is calling the pass; elsewhere, there’s silence in the kitchen. Each member of the brigade sedulously goes about their business. Runners stand at attention. The air crackles with assiduity.

‘Service! Beetroot:1. Scallop:2. Oysters:3. Table 2’.

There’s no beetroot up.

Chef Ebony in larder yells from the far end of the Pass.

‘Aaargh! Its not done yet!’.

I stand back off the pass.

(Chef) ‘C’mon Natasha, don’t be a cunt.’

This is Chef in a good mood, being playful. He’s content because prep and setup have gone smoothly, and everyone this morning has managed to overcome hangovers and personal demons and turned up to work, literally and metaphorically. Front-of-house is not his concern - there’s another team of managers to deal with that side of things - he knows that everything he’s in charge of is in optimum shape.

Political incorrectness, tactlessness and insensitivity are common place, largely overlooked or excused as a way of letting-off steam. I was fascinated by this aspect of the restaurant. from the point of view of someone with a strong history of indecisiveness and fence-sitting, I found the honesty and directness refreshing. Everyone had something to say and was capable of saying it; there were very few shrinking violets amongst the team.

In his piece Morning at the Ivy, A.A. Gill does a fair job explaining the workings of the engine room:

‘[Kitchens are] a masculine place, incorrect, unfair, hierarchical…That’s not to say that women don’t fit in here, or are not respected, it’s just that kitchens don’t say please and thank-you for a reason. You have to want to work in them very much indeed to get on here. This is not a place to have doubts, want a view, miss fresh air, be squeamish or become a vegan. Kitchens are tough because nobody can fail alone in them: everybody works together or they all fail together.’

All credit to the great writer, this version barely scratches the surface. 

Life as you thought you knew it changes once you walk through that door. Rules and beliefs you held dear. Principals and truths. Don’t get too attached. The game’s about to change.

Let’s work on your vocabulary. Food first. You need to know your amuse buche from your petite fours. Know your velouté from your consommé. Know your raclette from your taleggio and your Roquefort from your Gorgonzola.

Its not a scullery its a wash-up. They’re not dish-pigs, they’re kitchen-porters. Sometimes a spider is a piece of kitchen equipment and not something that we’re not here to fuck.

You can specialise further, there are all manner of argots, idioms and patois to learn if you’re so inclined. ‘Bar 97’ means there’s a hot female nearby, as does ‘chaud’. Its never a dull moment for the linguist, the polyglot, the phonemicist; you’re always surrounded by a multitude of nationalities.

Lexicon descends into base vernacular in the kitchen, where you learn many more colourful, useful concepts such as prawning and tossing your salad. Be warned; these terms have as much to do with food as a rusty trombone has to do with musical instruments. Get lubed-up, we’re going to get fisted.

(Guest on arrival) ’We’re here for the reservation at 7:30pm.’

(Brett) ’Madam, we have many reservations this evening. Under what name was the booking made?’

Communication. Tricky to define and almost impossible to teach, it helps to become very good very quickly. Unfortunately its full of vagaries and subject to a multitude of human failings.

Start by getting to know your audience. Are they locals? Celebrating a special occasion? Business people? Diners? Regulars? VIP’s? Are they Russians? Americans? Asians? There are flow charts of dependable behaviours that you can follow in your head if it makes things easier. No, its not racially-profiling. People are predictable. Except for when they’re being unpredictable.

(Guest) ‘Do you still have the Snow Egg on the menu?’

(Waiter) ‘You’re in the wrong restaurant madam.’

Delivery. You must be fast. Mercury-quick. Accurate. There’s no room for error. You must deliver the food with aplomb and then get back to the kitchen, where you can hear Chef screaming ‘SERVICE!’

(Food runner) ’Good Evening. May I present tonight’s amuse buche: eggplant, albacore tuna, bonito jelly.’

(Guest) ’What is ‘apple-core tuna’?’

(Food Runner) ’We have two types of bread on offer tonight: sourdough rolls, or rye-and-caraway.’

(Guest) ’I take it the rye-and-kerosene is more healthy?’

(Food Runner) ’Carraway seed, madam, not kerosene. That wouldn’t be very healthy.’

(Guest) ’Carraway seed, that’s what I said.’

Anticipate the guest’s needs.

(Food Runner) ’Excuse me madam, what kind of bread would you like?’

(Guest) ’I don’t eat bread!’ (Snappily, as though the stupid wait-staff should know this from the cold-shoulder)

‘Remon, these people won’t let me get a word-in. How do I get their attention?’

‘Watch’

Remon; suave, sommelier. Slim black suit, black hair, black glasses. Approaches a table of six guests deeply involved in conversation. Calm, gathered, sanguine. Cheshire-cat smile. Hands clasped behind back.

‘Good Evening.’

No discernible response.

‘I said, GOOD EVENING’

The table goes quiet, he has the floor. Bears the same beatific smile, only now with an edge of smug satisfaction.

From the opening of the door there begins the subtlest of power plays. The guests have entered with enormous expectations and its our job to exceed them. We take control of them, corral and shepherd them to their table, explain why they can’t have what’s clearly the best table in the restaurant (because they only booked this afternoon) then we must woo and seduce them, pamper and indulge them, all whilst being acceptably submissive.

Theres an art to commanding the guest, and it was evident that amongst the company I was keeping there were no better experts on the subject to learn from.

The world of the food runner is unique. When in service, we’re free to roam the entire restaurant, unlike section waiters and bar staff, who more-or-less have to hold their positions. Chefs of course are welded to their stations, so runners are often engaged to run messages to wait-staff or managers.

I imagined us all working together in the restaurant each night like we were players in a chess-game; the food runners were the pawns, the foot-soldiers. Dispensable, often unnoticed slipping through enemy lines, we had our own limited value and moves, but were nonetheless capable of calling check-mate.

My greatest enjoyment was being in the kitchen around the chefs, watching the treatment of the food and asking, when I had the opportunity, about technique. Then, with a solid understanding of every aspect of every dish, I’d mentally rehearse explanations for the guest as though I was a stage actor going through my paces, working and reworking my routine to milk the most out of the words and to keep the routine fresh for my own entertainment.

Despite its few meagre advantages, our zone of the kitchen could at times be a bear-pit.

No working environment is without its contentions, and I’d walked into a doozy. My mentor Miss Saigon was involved in an apparently irresolvable disagreement with another of the runners, which made for an awkward atmosphere given that we worked side-by-side in tight quarters.

Argy-bargy whilst folding hand-towels was common place, with milk-crates being shoved one way or another in an attempt to gain ground. I didn’t much care for this schoolyard stuff so I tried to stay out of it, although in reality it was a bit late. I was tacitly on the side of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. In her favour, she was charismatic and very funny - I wanted acceptance and she wanted an ally. But I soon found myself dragged into a psychodrama of boyfriend-breakup, excessive drinking and prescription medication abuse.

Then we had the new staff, people who had come on-board after I started. The rule was that all front-of-house staff started in the kitchen to learn restaurant procedure from the ground up, and the kitchen runners were responsible for their training. it was a great idea in theory and worked most of the time.

Until you encounter somebody as mentally unstable as Rebecca.

Rebecca was an attractive girl who flirted her way through life. If she met with anything she didn’t like she’d run to the closest person with a penis and demand to be rescued. Sure, the kitchen was hot and horrible and hard for any newcomer, but Rebecca rebelled in a remarkably short period of time. She was on her second shift when McFairy confronted me.
 

‘Rebecca just came to me and said you were being mean to her.’

‘I asked her to take bread to a table.’

‘Ground-Up Training’ is great for normal people who are interested in doing their jobs, but it takes a lot of effort and specialised management skills to get anything worthwhile out of game-players, megalomaniacs and people with overinflated egos.

Unfortunately your kitchen-runner is at the cold-face of this operation; we are unarmed when it comes to authority, so our strategy is just to get them out onto the floor and away from us as rapidly as possible so they’d stop fucking with our world.

There was Diana. Tall, blonde, slim, German, Diana had a nervous disposition and looked like she was about to cry at the drop of a hat. Nice girl, but even I could see that she wasn’t suited to this environment. I remember standing in the kitchen together at attention, facing Chef as he was about to commence the call on a big fire. Diana would be turned the other way, talking to one of the kitchen runners and I’d be thinking:

‘Oh for goodness sake shut up! Chef’s about to lose-it and start screaming…can’t this woman sense the tension?’

Then I realised that was me not so long ago; nervous and oblivious. I had evidently developed my antennae to tune in to Chef’s mood-frequency.

This waiter showed up on the floor one night who hadn’t done time in the kitchen; us runners were a little put-out. Who does he think he is? Must think he’s pretty shit-hot. In a restaurant full of shit-hot waiters, that’s a big call. But this waiter had been head-hunted from Pendolino by P.S. himself.

I remember thinking that Carlo was rather arrogant when first I encountered him. He’d been given a section in the front room - prime real-estate - immediately on setting foot in the building. But he was polished like a gemstone, knew what he was doing, rarely made a mistake and most importantly he kept pace; impressive given it usually felt like swimming on a tidal wave.

Carlo’s special gift was setting up the floor for service. He’d float gracefully through the front room to a salsa beat in his head, making barely perceptible changes to settings, shifting tables fractions of millimetres to ensure the outlook for guests is just-so while egress for wait-staff is optimal. Then, when in service, he’d engage Cuban Motion, dropping his leading hip forward and bending his leading knee, salsaing around the floor, dancing with an unseen partner.

One night, the owner of the restaurant came in with his wife and another couple. There was a discernible escalation of tension in the atmosphere from management down to runners, who were jockeying about in the kitchen so as not to be asked to run food to his table. Typically ignorant of the implications of fucking-up on his table - whether that involved putting food down in front of the wrong person or cocking-up the all-important food description - I didn’t really know what all the fuss was about. I happily ran amuse buche, bread and entreés to his table and was unfazed in his presence.

I was off in another part of the restaurant when mains came up on the pass, which left the skittish Diana to run the King’s food. Chef wasn’t about to wait for anyone more competent to appear in the kitchen. In fact, given the covert tension between back-of-house and front that Chef harboured, I suspect he secretly enjoyed the opportunity to throw some hapless front-of-house staff member under the bus every now and then.

I only heard about what happened in the aftermath, but by all accounts it was a balls-up. I found myself down in the change-room with poor, inconsolable Diana. Lamely I attempted to comfort her whilst my brain throbbed with wild relief that it hadn’t been me in her shoes.

It so easily could have been.

‘Are you ready for another episode of Fawlty Towers?’

Given that I was the instigator of carnage in every section of the restaurant at some point, it was with surprising good-nature that the waiters greeted me at the start of each shift. These people, demonstrating tireless professionalism and good grace, were (mostly) aspirational examples of their vocation and I watched them closely, seeking points of style and other secrets.

If food-runners are pawns, the waiters are the chivalrous knights. Some are armed with note-pads and Mont Blanc pens, others only with acerbic wit. In the heat of service, the best could perform impossible manoeuvres, virtually leaping across tables. They control the floor, and the flow of service is planned around their strengths or weaknesses.

Bishops are the sommeliers, the wine-waiters. Gliding diagonally across the room with wine-glass in hand, their dapper suits are their robes and they anoint guests with consecrated liquids, unctions and last-rites.

Moving only in rank-and-file are the bar-staff, the rooks; they come out when everyone else is annihilated, engaged in battle, then they have to run their own drinks. Some of the bar staff didn’t come out from behind the bar for years and when they did, they hadn’t a clue about table numbers.

The queen can go wherever she likes. She’s the most important piece. Nothing escapes her attention; she controls and micro-manages the army.

Brett was our queen.

There were a bevy of managers at the restaurant and there was of course a hierarchy for what it was worth. But Brett was the most senior person on the floor.

Now there are as many different styles of restaurant manager as there exist restaurants. Some managers wear the suit and claim the title, leaving all the hard work to the underlings. Some are more naturally suited to the role of Maître d’. Brett was a details man, hands-on, and he managed to be everywhere, all the time, switching focus from macro to micro like a supercomputer. He knew everything that was going on in that restaurant at any given time. I’m still not entirely sure how he did it, but when you weren’t wondering about his miraculous uber-powers, you were smarting from some expertly-targeted abuse about a bowl of sides delivered incorrectly or one of a thousand other oversights that he just happened to notice as he walked past.

You couldn’t get away with anything. Brett would be on your heels, the tirade penetrating the back of your skull like a sonic boom. Often you’d have good reason for doing whatever it was you did, but you soon learnt that resistance was futile, that formulating a defence and attempting to deliver it was a waste of time; it was easier to say ‘Yes Brett’ and move on.

You may be delivering cheese-plates to a private function where the head of the Reserve Bank of Australia is discussing with incumbent politicians whether or not to raise interest rates on Cup Day. You’re supposed to be explaining the cheeses on the plate, but you’re feeling insignificant and frankly a bit of a bother in the presence of these big-hitters. You break out in a sweat as you sense Brett’s presence in the room. He’s watching you like a sniper, the infra-red sight trained in the middle of your waiter’s vest. A messenger from your basal ganglia is banging on the door of your limbic brain screaming ‘TELL THEM ABOUT THE HOLY GOAT’.

And there you have it. Eventually you stop fighting, the abuse ceases, and you realise that you’ve been successfully reprogrammed. If you’re smart, you also notice that doing things the right way is actually easier in the long run. Do your set-up properly and you don’t have to run through three sections of the restaurant looking for a steak-knife. Change the docket rolls when the red-stripe appears and the paper won’t run-out mid-transaction while you’re processing a guest’s bill. And so on.

Not everybody in the restaurant was playing Chess. There was a small but influential contingent who preferred Mahjong, led by the indefatigable Mr. Chow.

Chowie was another ‘big-dog’, the restaurant manager to whom I’m indebted for hiring me. His management-style was different again, and his presence on the floor something to behold. Zooming around the front-room in polished Birkenstocks, his boundless energy was infectious. Like the tide he lifted all of us together, ocean-farers and tinnies alike. On nights when you saw big numbers on the run-sheet and you didn’t know how it would be possible, you’d see Chowie on the allocations and you’d mentally stop drafting your resignation letter. Chowie was a weapon. He was the suit you wanted to smooth-over any guest-based problem. Furthermore, he didn’t berate us lesser mortals - he left that job to others who were better at it.

The restaurant was a postmodern mash-up of a game, a big unscripted show with lots of rules and a bunch of contestants. Sure, the guests were the reason we were all there, but occasionally I’d mentally switch-off that layer, magically making them vanish instantaneously. The show would go on regardless, madhouse that it was. Bartenders would be shaking cocktails as runners desperately re-set tables. Brett would run past barking orders to take Bar 93 to table 4 which due to his haste would be distorted by the doppler-effect so that it instead sounded like ‘Take bar 94 to table 3’, which of course meant the end of the world was nigh.

Standing at the bar at the Ship, handbag over my shoulder, wallet out, buying a schooner of beer. Long hours worked to the point of exhaustion, minefields of interpersonal negotiations and misunderstandings notwithstanding, no-one could dispute that Brett and Chow were a formidable middle-management team to work under.

I put the schooner in my handbag and proceeded to drink my wallet.

Three-quarters of a tonne of barramundi later, we’d made it through Lets Do Lunch.

750kg works out at around 3,750 serves of barra, an average of 160 serves every weekday for a month.

The general consensus was that numbers for LDL were down on previous years.

Much has been written about working in high-end dining where everyone gives to the point of exhaustion night after night. You do so for your team, out of pride, because you’ve got bills to pay, because you have no choice. Guests always find fault, but when a team gives their all, complaints are an exception.

I was a neophyte with a fascination for patterns in human behaviour, naively hoping to derive meaning from chaos. Taking things far too seriously, I’d observe guests and cache every bit of data I could get my eyeballs on, adding flourishes of personal interpretation. This was the start of my lessons in How to Read Your Guest.

I was always struck by frowny women with down-at-the-edges mouths. Irritable women defined by frustration not used to being heard, who’d developed crankily assertive dispositions after a lifetime’s disappointments. I could recognise them at ten paces and I’d break out in a little sweat of empathy whenever I served one.

You’re sorry when people don’t seem to be having a nice time, but then you realise that some people don’t go out to have a nice time. Some people are miserable and they do their best to make everyone they encounter miserable.

A thousand little realisations like this every day help you become a better, more proficient waiter, adapting to the peculiarities of hundreds of people a day, anticipating their peculiar needs more seamlessly than a mind-reader, while managing a dozen or so tasks in the background. With all these balls in the air, a guest will approach you and ask for something.

‘Excuse me, would you mind…’

‘Turning down the air-conditioning / seeing if we could have that table over there / telling me where the bathroom is / ordering me a dirty gin martini with an olive / if I had another slice of bread / getting me another fork / if I could have some lemon in my drink / if I could get some fresh chopped chilli / if I could get some more butter/ getting me another napkin / I’ve spilt my drink

Of course I don’t mind.

I started becoming aware of my nascent Hospitality Face, that one you put on just after Chef is done screaming at you, or when you read the allocation sheet and discover you have to spend the next eight hours working with someone you despise. Hospitality Face and Hospitality Smile are powerful pieces of personal armour. Like a benzodiazepine, your mind can be twisting into a pretzel and nobody ever need know.

This started me thinking about the face of hospitality; is it real or is it fake? Our best waiters, Queen Brett and Chowie were genuine practitioners of the chivalric customs; courtesy, generosity, valour and dexterity with a drinks tray. They were sublime to watch.

But there were clangers too. One of the somms pours from a decanter into a guest’s glass.

‘And thats when I remember realising that wine is a living thing’.

(Guest) ’Mmmm very savoury’.

What’s grossly pretentious to me causes another man to have an erection.

Personally, I can’t do small-talk with people I don’t know. I can’t ‘fake-it’ very well. If I happen to have a nice exchange with a stranger, I’m inclined to run-away at the first opportunity in case it was a fluke, so that I finish on a high. The prospect of awkward conversations gives me anxiety. I’m surprised when people indicate any interest in speaking to me. For this reason, in the early days, I’d sneak off to the park on my breaks, preferring to be alone. It was only at the pub with the help of a few beers that my suspect self-worth ceased to be the loudest voice in my head.

It was mid-November and I decided to bring my dad to the restaurant for his birthday. It fell on a Thursday, I was hoping it would be a quiet night.

As the date approached I looked in reservations to see which table I’d been allocated. I saw that they had us on table 36, which was fine. Probably my second choice after table 67, all the way up the back of the restaurant. Truth be told, my predilection for a quiet table had less to do with dad’s poor hearing and more to do with my hospitality-induced PTSD.

Dad knew I was taking him out, but he didn’t know where, although it can’t have been that much of a surprise. As I was getting ready, I remember an overwhelming heaviness bearing down on me. It was my day-off work, and the last thing I wanted to be doing, the last place I wanted to be going to, was work.

We arrived early for a 7:30 reservation. Brett welcomed us and we were seated in the bar for a pre-dinner drink.

The bar was empty.

I ordered a martini, dad, a beer.

The bar was full.

Drinks arrived, as did bar snacks. I knew the logistics of how the machine worked but on the receiving end everything was different. Seamless. Magical.

Brett and Chowie were in full flight, moving furniture to accomodate the sudden onslaught of people. Drinks done, Brett took us through to our table. It wasn’t 67, nor was it 36. It was table 5.

Guests from the U.S. who are led into the dining room instantly identify tables 5 and 6 as the best tables in the restaurant. Invariably they ask for those tables. Invariably they crack the sads when they’re told they can’t have them.

‘You’ve been upgraded!’

McFairy sweeps through the front room to greet us. He’s all smiles and hospitality polish.

‘Welcome Oscar, happy birthday! So you’re riding in first-class this evening. I’m back in economy.’

In a touching gesture, McFairy had left his section to welcome us. I felt very special. But it was just beginning.

Our waiter for the evening was Ash; an effortlessly brilliant, patient, funny, dirty, wicked, singularly beautiful soul. He took us on two concurrent trips; to Happy Birthday Oscar-land, and Stupefy Tash-land. Mr Dunne, head sommelier responsible for the most awarded wine list in Australia, was selecting and pouring our wines. There were no cringeworthy descriptors served at our table that evening.

And then, like some surreal procession of the Magi, one after another of my colleagues came to greet and welcome us. To say hello. Denis and Charlie and France and Chrissie and Remon and Andrea. As if I didn’t see them here day after day. As though it was something special to see me.

But it was something special. They made me feel special, in a way that I didn’t expect, could never have predicted. They made me feel important and loved.

And love that takes you by surprise is overwhelming.

With all this going on in the background, dad and I shared a beautiful dinner. And although I’ve been lucky to experience many wonderful dinners, this was the first time that I really, truely got it

TOM HAYS, young, proud, precocious, perfectionist. I’d see him in the kitchen flaying chefs with a berserker-fierceness. He hadn’t yet been appointed Sous, but Chef had given him ‘Licence to Yell’, a role he was very good at. Some might say too good.

It never happened in service, only ever during prep. It was usually over a poorly executed set-up.

It would start innocuously enough, factually addressing whatever seemed to be the problem.

Its unlikely there was ever any back-chat from the chef being taken to task. The core issue was generally a fair-call, there wouldn’t have been a case to argue.

Rather than dissipate, the scolding would build.

Thats about when I’d pick-up on it. I’d have my back to the action on the other side of the pass, folding napkins. You wouldn’t dare watch, better to bury your head in whatever it was you were doing and try to make yourself invisible.

Suddenly and without warning it amped-up to alarming proportions, the victim’s mother would be implicated in unsavoury acts, and you’d be praying for the end. The whole kitchen was in a state of shock, making themselves as small as possible and searching for ovens to stick their heads in.

The sick, sadistic part of you might secretly enjoy the vituperation; it’s the reason we watch Gordon Ramsay after all. Sometimes the enjoyment is purely the by-product of knowing that you’re not the one on the receiving-end. And Tom would be the first to tell you that there was a degree of job satisfaction in mauling a deserving subordinate.

Chef scared the shit out of me, but Tom Hays scared the shit out of everyone below him. In truth, I had never been skewered as comprehensively or as thoroughly as Tom Hays skewered his luckless targets. Mid-spray he was terrifying, and I rued the day I’d feel his wrath.

But that day never would come; like a shark in a tank, you weren’t going to get bitten if you didn’t go in the water.

Besides, once you were at the pub, the animosity ‘didn’t exist’. What happened in the kitchen, stayed in the kitchen. If you could manage to scrape yourself off the bottom of Tom’s shoe and front up to the Ship with your shredded dignity more or less in tact, then chances are he’d buy you a beer.

I’m not sure that all of his victims would agree, but ostensibly thats the way the kitchen operated.

SMITHY worked on larder when I first started. One day he took himself over to pastry and he never went back.

I didn’t have a clue how the kitchen worked, but it seemed to me like an unusual move. Chefs didn’t switch sections very often back then. Furthermore, movement from one section to another only seemed to occur in the main part of the kitchen - it was rare to cross over to pastry.

The key sections were meat and fish; they were critical to the whole operation and a matter of life or death to get right. There were only a handful of chefs who cooked on meat. When someone new came onto the grill for the first time it was a very big deal.

Fish was the same story. You needed consistency and precision, and thats why Tom stayed there on that station for two solid years, cooking fish day after day, honing his abilities until there was no shadow of doubt that he would cook, and replicate, perfect fish every time. Like a machine, only better.

Nobody asked Tom to undertake this rigorous and methodical approach, it was his way of being thorough. It’s an approach redolent of the way of the itamae, the sushi master, who begins his apprenticeship by taking on the lowliest of tasks - sweeping floors and the like - before learning how to cook rice. This may take five years to perfect, whereupon he graduates to grating ginger. And so on. Theres no fast-track to success, no ‘fake-it-till-you-make-it’, not if you want to work from a platform of integrity.

Smithy and Tom were close friends, but their personalities were polar opposite. I don’t think I ever heard Smithy raise his voice in the kitchen. Ever.

One night at the pub, Smithy told me about where they met.

‘We worked together at Claridges in Mayfair. Tom was making these blinis for Kitchen Table. They ‘ad to be perfectly round, an’ one of ‘em wasn’t. The head chef threw ‘em all over Tom an’ told ‘im to “pick ‘em up off the ground like the dog you are”’.

‘This guy was awful. I was on sauce one day an’ there was this girl on fish. She ‘adn’t cooked the fish properly but she gave it up anyway. ‘E threw the plate at ‘er, smashing it on the floor, an’ ‘e poured the sauce all over the range.’

‘When I resigned, ‘e collared me, threw me around the kitchen. Took me outside an’ held me by the throat as ‘e punched the wall’.

‘So its pretty tame here by comparison.’

So its an English thing, I supposed.

I asked my friend Sammy Lee, a pastry chef working at Caravan Restaurant, Kings Cross, London.

‘That style of kitchen is finished. No-one operates like that anymore over there.’

Its a strange feeling to stop and look around at your quotidian, your daily dose of everyday, and realise that everything is changing, that it won’t be like this forever. You’re part of history that’s coming to a close.

I wasn’t devastated to hear her prediction about the end of haranguing as we know it, and I was fascinated to imagine how we’d evolve to cope without this unparalleled motivator.

Back then, the future was a far-off place, but the brave new world was marching relentlessly toward us.

I’m having a beer with the spring-roll after work. We’re sitting outside in the beer garden in the middle of Circular Quay. We watch while a dishevelled fellow wearing baggy jeans and a baseball cap, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Chuck Norris strides past, clutching a bunch of flowers.

‘Hes a good guy.’

I hadn’t recognised Canadian Dave until she mentioned him directly. I found it mildly ironic that Miss Saigon anointed herself arbiter of such things considering her private life was in crumbling disarray. All she saw was a simple-framed picture of a chap bringing flowers home to his missus, with little consideration of the complexities at play beyond the frame.

Everyone had their struggle. These days mine was getting out of bed.

(Brett) ’Why don’t you try going home one night and putting on a pot of tea?’

You had to be in terrible form to call in sick. It just didn’t happen. The managers knew their wait-staff had been down at the pub till the wee hours. You couldn’t not show up to work after a night on the sauce, it was approximately the worst thing you could do. Keep quiet, put your head down, don’t expect any sympathy; everyone else is in the same boat. Get on with your job and after a while you’ll sober up.

There was the question of performance. It was pretty normal for new staff to want feedback regarding how the managers thought they were doing. I know I did. But it wasn’t very forthcoming. I’d ask the spring-roll for her thoughts and the only response I ever got was;

‘You’re still here aren’t you?’

There were mentions of performance reviews but there was never the time to perform them. The machine kept rolling on, the wheels grinding away and the best you could do was develop your intuition and hone your CPU. In other words, you develop your own Hospitality Intelligence. It works exactly the same way as A.I: you feed in tonnes of information, snippets, jigsaw-puzzle pieces of throw-away comments and flippant remarks and before you know it you’ve built a Frankenstein who can wait tables. You might be off the mark with a few judgements and perceptions, but theres enough H.I. around you to keep you more-or-less steady on the path.

It wasn’t foolproof. I recall hare-lip Mikey, a particularly detestable waiter who thought he was the shit. He very much wasn’t. My first encounter with him was in the kitchen, where he was making lewd comments about me just out of earshot. Teresa looked squarely at me, registering by my response that I hadn’t heard what was said.

‘People are saying things about you…’

I just laughed. ’He’s got balls saying anything with a face like that.’

Soon after this incident, hare-lip Mikey ran some food out to a table in his section. Perhaps he’d thought that he’d developed some banter with his guests or perhaps he was just wildly deluded about his comedic abilities, but he thought it suitable to remark to the guest that ‘the lamb was pissing so much blood it needed a tampon’. After that, we never saw hare-lip Mikey again.

Although I thought I was happy with my place in the world, playing the rôle of kitchen runner, there was a certain prestige involved with being a waiter, and I’d never been offered the opportunity to go on the floor.

‘Being on the floor is a head-fuck’, was ping-pong’s blunt advice.

Come to think of it, it was rare that Miss Saigon ran a section. When she did, it was plain that she wasn’t riding the horse, the horse was riding her. Not that I recall she ever caused any clangers, she just didn’t command the floor when she was on it. Altogether different in the kitchen, there she was an Alpha; cooly confident, not so much a natural born leader as a natural born bossy-boots.

One night we’re down at the pub with a few of the chefs, and she gets this bee in her bonnet that she should be doing Chef’s job calling the pass.

‘One night he’s going to need me. Bruno will be sick, Kazu won’t be there, Dave will be too drunk and nobody understands Coco. It’ll be up to me!’

‘Do you play out this little fantasy before you go to bed at night?’

‘She’s got a little pass set up at home, with teddy bears all lined-up, and she shouts at them; “Bruno, you cunt!”’

It was gasconade dressed-up as comedy. Anyway, at least I knew where I stood with her. The managers, not so much. 

Criticism was the most common form of feedback, delivered directly mid-service. Occasionally there’d be more indirect and oblique methods utilised. You could be walking along the arc of the front room and you’d cross paths with Chow travelling in the opposite direction.

‘Whats wrong with table 3?’

It may end up being a question that you never know the answer to, that keeps you awake at night and you find you’re still pondering several years later, like some Taoist riddle.

While generally you’d be told what you were doing wrong, encouragement from higher-up was less forthcoming. When eventually you realise that management simply doesn’t have time to sit down and nurture staff, you learn to find solace in a pat on the head or crumbs of kind words from guests or colleagues.

Being told by the waiters that they loved me bringing food to their tables because of how I explained the dishes, or the cheeses, remains one of the most gratifying experiences in my time at the restaurant, vindication for the idea of doing your job well, no matter how humble your position may seem.

‘Right. Everybody into the bar; we’re having a briefing.’

Brett strides through the kitchen, marshalling all front-of-house staff. The spring-roll resists being swept into the tailwind of Hurricane Windy.

‘Do we still do briefings?’ She inquires archly.

Still a novice, it surprises me also.

Back where I used to work we had nightly briefings before dinner service. It was quaint, a bit old-fashioned. A nice hangover of a European-style of service. I never saw the point; it was a breather between set-up and service which was supposed to be informative but was really an opportunity to wisecrack and check-out your colleagues.

There were two styles back then.

Monty would address us, dry, laconic, promising one day in the near future he’d bring in a cassette-player to replace his particular brand of tedium.

On the other end of the spectrum, Marty wanted to win hearts and minds. Marty wanted to be our inspiration.

One day, briefing went as follows:

‘Fight and you may die. Run and you’ll live - at least a while. And dying in your  beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this  day to that for one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they  may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom.’

I found it bewildering, but as a runner I was chuffed I got a mention, and glad that I was at least going to live.

My new environment was altogether different; I’d never experienced briefing here, even after having worked for some months.

My still-limited understanding of procedure was that notes were posted in the kitchen. Staff, as they arrived, would stop to check where they were allocated, what the specials were for the evening, which guests were booked in their sections, which VIP’s were in, who needed champagne on arrival, what dietary requirements had been requested on booking, whether there were any special occasions being celebrated. It was a precision machine. The waiters and the sommeliers didn’t need the information read out to them. They knew where to find it, and they knew that starting their shift on the floor without this knowledge was unprofessional and unacceptable. Furthermore, you briefed yourself before you clocked-on. You arrived, ready to rock-and-roll. If you were ten minutes early you were on time. If you were five minutes early, you were late. More a mentality than a rule, the current of energy and stress that travelled through the restaurant reinforced this ethos, it became part of your DNA. TIA. This was the new normal.

Its a hot Saturday in December, front of house wait-staff are gathered quietly in the bar. Big Tim has a broom with a sponge tied to the end and he’s carefully mopping the condensation forming on the air-conditioning vents in the ceiling, which are working overtime.

Miss Saigon and I linger on the edge of the gathering.

P.S. is in the bar.

Whether we knew it or not, P.S. was the reason we were there. He was one of the owners of the establishment, the reason it worked as it did, was as successful as it was. I had heard his name mentioned - always with reverence - and was still in the process of constructing my own understanding of this mercurial enigma.

Naïvely I concluded that briefing was for P.S’s benefit. From our end it was a mildly farcical show, although Brett was giving a rousing performance. I surmised that P.S. was here to act as Maître d’ - fluffing guests - and that it would be business as usual for the rest of us.

I didn’t think for a second he’d get into the trenches with us.

Pre-theatre is a short service with a clearly defined end-point which needs to be perfectly timed for guests prior to the start of their show at the Opera House.

Tonight was busy - monstrously so - with a huge ‘pre’ and a big turn-around for à la carte. Waiters and sommeliers were intently engaged putting orders in with their first few tables to ensure the flow of service before the main wave of pre-theatre came crashing through the door. Runners were darting about with apps, weaving between tables and scurrying out of the path of the little processions of staff and guests en-route to be seated at their tables.

Claire would appear carrying menus and a wine list, leading in the stately manner of a consecration. Her back to the guests, her carriage orderly and elegant, the expression on her face was telling to those who could read it; ‘Get out of the way, I’m heading for the table right behind you.’

And that’s the last clarified thought that enters your head before pre-theatre service engulfs the restaurant. At that moment, you switch to auto-pilot, muscle-memory, basic-instinct. Don’t think, just do. This is what you’re trained for, everything in hospitality you’ve experienced has been leading up to this singular moment. There’s no stopping the machine and you won’t get to come up for air for at least six more hours.

Now the kitchen becomes a haven, it’s your turf, your refuge, where you feel most at home. Pay attention, listen closely to Chef and don’t fuck up, everything should be ok.

Out on the floor theres an extra layer of tension; you realise that everyone’s feeling it, as though you’re all connected by invisible mycelium, the atmosphere tangible as electrical impulses. You’re running back, heading for the kitchen and out of the corner of your eye you catch a glimpse of Terry standing at the POS machine. Every molecule of Terry is standing at attention, focused on that glowing screen. But Terry’s wearing a shadow: bearing down immediately behind him is P.S. looking over his shoulder, staring intently at the same glowing screen. In that moment I see P.S. exhale, his nostrils perceptibly flare. Simultaneously I see the back of Terry’s neck rise with goosebumps as beads of perspiration glisten on his head.

‘God I’m glad I’m not a waiter.’ I think, as I push through the door into the kitchen.

‘SERVICE! Ok you’re going to Table 16. Dory position 1, venison: 2, lamb seat 3. SERVICE!’

I pick up the dishes and I’m out the door, heading to table 16. But I get to the table and they haven’t finished their entrées. They’ve been called away early but the waiter hasn’t got the timing right. Shit. Now what? I look for the section waiter, Front Right is France.

‘But I didn’t call them away.’

I look from his horrified face down to the three plates of food. I can’t take them back to the kitchen, Chef will kill me. And I can’t do laps around the restaurant, table 16 is a long way off finishing entrees. This is a proper cock-up.

There’s a runner behind me with another plate and side dishes to complete the table. What to do? We have no choice but to go back to the kitchen and face Chef’s wrath.

Chef glares at us returning with full plates of food. I say that entrees aren’t finished or cleared.

‘Alright put the food down.’

I’m expecting a tirade of abuse but it's not forthcoming. I drop the food under the heat lamps and shrink back awaiting my next order, relieved that I wasn’t responsible for this particular mistake. I’d hate to be France right now.

‘SERVICE! Table 8…’

It happens again.

This time I’m in Terry’s section, Front Left. I retreat back to the waiter’s station.

‘What’s going on Terry?’

Terry’s again staring at the screen, this time looking for an answer. The floor plan is lit up with every single table in the front room coloured orange. Terry responds as though in a dream.

‘P.S. has called ‘Mains Away’. On every table. At the same time.’

Denis strolls past, singing softly to himself. I recognise the tune; ‘Tell me Something Good’ by Chaka Khan. The usual madness has taken on a different flavour, its like the Titanic has just struck the iceberg and everyone is dealing with the impending doom in their own personal ways.

Again, its back to the kitchen with the premature food, and now I look up the pass which is covered in mains dishes, all ready to fly out into the front room.

Only the front room isn’t ready for them.

I’m expecting Chef to lose it spectacularly, but he doesn’t, he takes it in his stride.

‘Why can’t he be like this all the time?’ I wonder, while concurrently puzzling over P.S’s modus operandi. ‘Why would he do that? Why does he hate us so much?’

It was all beyond me, but we made it through service and furthermore we made it to the pub post-service.

The shipwrecked survivors - the chefs, the somms, the waiters and the runners - all swapped animated stories about their experiences of the evening, and the beers tasted better than ever.

The end of the year sees a spike in functions hosted at the restaurant. For front-of-house staff, this means later-than-usual finishes, as rooms set for standard à la carte dining need to be dismantled and rearranged into function configurations; large round tables, one long table, cocktail-style and occasionally cabaret.

There’s always grizzling about staying back to help from staff who’d been on long double shifts / need to catch the last ferry back to Manly / have to be back early in the morning or who are simply physically or emotionally drained. There were occasional instances where people who should have stayed to help managed to slither out the back door, but this was widely considered a dog-act. Despite the inevitable complaining, everybody knew that functions were lucrative to the business, ergo to the staff, so while the whiners whynged, the workers worked.

Co-ordinating the timing of cooking, plating and sending food for a function in the middle of à la carte service is a tricky balancing act. It means that everything else essentially needs to stop. The waiters need to be aware of this, and time their orders accordingly. In fact, everyone needs to be aware of what stage everybody else is at, no matter what section you’re in. Its just not possible to work in the restaurant with blinkers on.

Unless you’re Andy.

Its lunchtime and Chef is preparing to call mains on a huge function in Section 3. The pass is covered in finished dishes. There’s five of us standing with our full attention directed to the man holding the docket, ready to give orders. At the other end of the kitchen, obscured behind a white-tiled wall, we hear the tinkle of the pastry bell. None of us break rank; we’re all needed to get this food on the table as quickly as possible.

There’s order and relative calm down our end of the kitchen. Chef is entirely focused on his docket and dishes.

‘SERVICE! Lamb 3, 4 & 7.’

The bell sounds again. This time its not a tinkle, it conveys annoyance. I glance back at pastry. One of the front-room wait-staff will be in in a minute, knowing that everyone’s held-up running function food. Soon enough they’ll realise that they’ll have to run their own desserts and petite-fours for the next ten minutes.

But no staff come in from the front-room, they’re all too busy.

Watching as his ice-cream melts, dissolving delicate sugary tuilles, Andy starts screaming like a mental patient. With no direct line of sight between pastry and the main pass, Andy can’t see that all available wait staff are down the other end of the kitchen.

To further complicate things, Andy is deaf.

I’d had no direct dealings with Andy at this point, but watched keenly as he conversed with Hannah in the kitchen, with whom he appeared to have a close bond. Andy is a lip-reader, and gentle, sweet Hannah would speak to him with no volume to her words, so their conversations were confidential and imbued with an air of mystery. This manner was entirely at odds with Denis, who would yell at Andy, imitating his ‘deaf accent’.

I couldn’t believe these goings on, it was like being in a mad-house. And now I stood on the pass thinking, ‘If the waiters in the front-room can cotton-on to whats happening and they’re not even in the kitchen, why is Andy going off his brain? He knows there’s a function on.’ I couldn’t understand how any of this was allowed to happen. Perhaps the restaurant was subsidised for being an equal-opportunity employer?

What I wasn’t considering was that Andy was one of Sydney’s top pastry chefs, and had been a fixture at the restaurant for the past seven years. Clearly he was doing something right.

The intensification of functions was only one of the indicators that Christmas was just around the corner. Mercifully, the restaurant had a ‘no carols’ policy. Back then, the bell-curve of Silly Season looked something like this;

Peak Coral Trout conditions. (Sept Oct Nov)

Lets Do Lunch commences. 

Bin-chickens start building nests.(Oct)

Samphire season begins. (Oct to Mar)

Cherry season. (100 days from late Oct through Nov)

Melbourne Cup, the official start of cocaine season (1st Tuesday in Nov)

Functions explode. (Nov)

Circular Quay seagull season; guard your cheeseburgers.

Oprah Winfrey films two shows at the Opera House. (Mid Dec)

Everyone at work gets noticeably more tired and irritable (than usual).

Get two days off, spend them sleeping (to the annoyance of family members). (Xmas Day, Boxing Day)

Over the trenches again for the New Years Eve push. (Dec 31st)

Champagne and cocaine consumption peaks.

Everyone rostered-on to work New Years Day is deeply hungover - the kitchen is spookily quiet. (Jan 1st)

Cruise ship season commences. (Jan Feb Mar)

Influx of Americans, wealthy Russians and Crazy Rich Asians. The rest of the world is on holiday, they all come here.

Night after night hordes of people come to dine, and night after night the staff at the restaurant run about to serve them. Commencing with amuse buche, us runners would fan out onto the floor, delivering delicacies and describing in detail their very deliciousness. At the beginning of pre-theatre, there were that many tables who’d all be sat at the same time, we’d find ourselves talking to a table while our colleague would be making the exact same announcement at the next table. This rattled me, so I’d work on presentations that wouldn’t conflict with my colleagues.

But innovation attracted imitators: I remember returning to the kitchen in disgust on occasion;

‘That bloody mole has stolen my descriptions!’

They say that 10 000 hours is the key to achieving world-class expertise in any skill, provided you practise correctly, and I was well on the way to mastering cutlery-polishing perfection. This was back in the glory days before HACCP forbid the use of methylated spirits as a polishing aid; the cutlery would gleam as the skin on our hands would split open from desiccation. We’d sort as we polished, the pieces falling like spent cartridges into plastic cutlery drawers, the kitchen ringing like a pachinko-parlour with the clang of stainless-steel. While polishing, I’d wonder in amazement at how difficult it was to teach new staff the difference between an entree knife and a main knife - the feel and the weight was obviously so completely different - all of a sudden one of the she-devil kitchen runners would scream at the trainee in question:

‘YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!’

Indignation and intellectual thievery aside, the murky tide of madness was waxing like a lunatic moon. Like the frog in the pot, the temperature wasn’t always easy to gauge, particularly when the physical and mental exhaustion of service was exacerbated by after-work sessions at the pub. They were a blessing and a curse, refuge and damnation, two sides to the same coin.

Ping-pong, convinced her relationship with her loser croupier boyfriend is over, suggests we go cruising to pick-up, before disappearing into the gaming room for a slap. She’s moody, needy, erratic. I was concerned for my friend but simultaneously daunted by the emotional eruptions of the Vietnamese volcano. 

Brett was the one with the sage advice, putting things back in perspective.

‘We all hate each other before Christmas. Then it happens, it’s over. Then it’s New Year. Everybody’s emotional, everyone’s been working too much. Then the Christmas party comes around and we all love each other again.’

The photos that remain of that day, my first Christmas party at the restaurant, paint a picture of wild, unmitigated joyousness. Like everything else associated with the restaurant, it was overly-accentuated and hyper-real. There were prizes and gifts presented to each and every staff member by the owners, there was Champagne for front of house and beers for the chefs and, with grudges (mostly) sidelined, there was love and friendship.

In such an all-bets-are-off environment, I found myself breaking out of my comfort zone to broaden my social horizons, approaching Hissey - the old dragon waitress who would sibilate me on the floor, scolding me like a primary school teacher with no offer of guidance or help. I remember I had my first cautious conversation with pastry chef Andy. Why so circumspect, I wonder now. I had never encountered people like this before in my life. 

Late-summer was party time: recreational activities got wild. I started exploring different social circles. Front-of-house was distinguished with a diverse, mature and worldly wait-staff, existing at every possible stage in life from hard-drinking party animals who liked to go dancing on pre-lock-out Oxford St, to dads with families.

I was graciously welcomed into the fold by those who took their recreational activities seriously, and was fortunate to attend some memorable house-parties, where the sound-system was intense and the company excellent. Staggering along St Peter’s or Marrickville station in golden morning sunlight whilst taking stock of my life was a fair indication that I’d had a good night.

The warm embrace of feeling that I belonged to something big was intoxicating. Perhaps it was illusion, but with the crew around you felt safe. Certain individuals were the physical embodiment of this idea, and at the time Big Tim in the bar was the most prominent. Before service, he’d come into the kitchen with a full tray of coffees for the chefs and scream at the top of his lungs; ‘COFFEES ON THE PASS’. It felt as though we looked out for each other.

I’m not sure if thats how it worked in the kitchen. Actually  I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.

Hyper-sensitised to a roasting courtesy of Chef, I noticed a couple of the young hands consistently bearing the brunt of domineering behaviour in the kitchen. I was also beginning to decode the power dynamics operating between three of the sous chefs, who jostled and disparaged one another at any given opportunity. But that wasn’t my section. I watched but didn't comment on what I couldn’t then understand.

Despite the imaginary policy of care, the casualties piled-up.

Mc Fairy was in the bad-books with Brett for calling in sick on New Year’s Day after busting-open his face, duck-diving in Charlie’s swimming pool.

Bruno approached me breathlessly one morning at work to tell me about a melee between several chefs and a taxi driver in Circular Quay resulting in a smashed taxi window.

Shortly after, the Flying Dutchman himself came in to work busted-up after being king-hit at the Columbian on Oxford St.

Nights out with the crew suddenly began to look less appealing.

‘Darren crashed my Cappuccino. He owes me money and now he’s gone to Queensland to see his mum.’

The spring roll’s finally flipped, I thought.

‘My Suzuki Cappuccino’ she explained.

‘This is bullshit. I think its time you moved out. You can stay at my place until you find somewhere of your own.’

We drove to Rockdale to the flat she shared with Darren and got her stuff. It wasn’t a well-considered plan but I’d had enough of the endless whining and zero follow-through.

‘Let’s not tell anyone at work about this’.

‘Did you know that Dim-Sim and Teresa used to be good friends? They went away on holiday to Bali together.’

I was up the back of Section 3 in the back bar chatting to Heliproctor when he disclosed this unlikely fact.

‘They came back and I asked Teresa if she’d ‘gotten any’, and from that time on they never spoke to each other again.’

Victor Charlie’s penchant for subterfuge and chaos was beginning to spook me. The engineering of others to her own ends seemed to be a favourite pass-time, whether she was aware of it or not. I’d turned down her generous offer to move in with me. I was happy to help, but not so keen on accompanying her on her journey around the s-bend of life. It seemed reasonable that’s where she was headed, on a hedonistic diet of Xanax and beer.

One night we were down drinking at the Ship after a particularly hectic Saturday night service when a brawl broke out amongst our crew. I had gone to the bathroom and when I returned people were standing up yelling at each other.

This didn’t happen amongst our number: no-one who drank at the pub went there to get aggressive. It was entirely unsurprising to find Ping-Pong in the centre of the scrap. Flushed red-faced with beer, she was screaming at Canadian Dave, who was giving it right back to her. There were a handful of chefs including a number of new recruits who had no idea what was happening, but were doing their best to keep the combatants apart.

Everyone was very drunk and making very little sense. The row went on, surging around the pub as one seething mass, with shots fired across the bow and no attempt to quell the querulous contesters, who were teetering on the brink of physicality.

The ruckus continued, I don’t know why the Ship staff didn’t intervene and chuck Dim-Sim out. In the briefest of lulls I was able to cut Smithy out of the pack and, pulling him aside, I asked what had happened.

‘Ping-Pong told Dave that Chef was sorry he’d promoted him to Sous.’

Eventually the fracas died down and Ping-Pong disappeared into the gaming room.

I revised my diagnosis of Ching Chong’s mental health. Canadian Dave, of all people. Only weeks before, she’d labeled him a ‘Good Guy’, for taking flowers home to his girlfriend. Now she was cutting his pride and his professional life to ribbons, throwing all her considerable vitriol at him.

Although capable of being a Grade-A asshole, I wasn’t convinced this was his natural habitat - more so a survival mechanism in the arena. He was charismatic and insouciant in spades, but I don’t know if this was the reason for Chef’s alleged regret at promoting him, or whether it was all a load of tripe; to this day I never discussed the matter with her.

I had developed a liking for rough-around-the-edges Dave who, whilst having tendencies towards melancholia, would more often make me laugh with his unique brand of wrong-humour. Regardless of any perceived failings, I didn’t think he deserved this.

I approached him the following morning to check whether he harboured any ill-feelings. He confided that he wasn’t sure what they had been arguing about.

I took that as a positive outcome.

Back in the day, the restaurant used to do a lunch special of duck and pea pie. It was a dome shaped parcel of five-spiced duck and pea, encased in outrageously rich puff-pastry with the precise ratio of flaky-crunch to chewiness, glazed with egg-white and browned to perfection.

There were always a few left at the end of lunch service, and the waiters hovered, doing unnecessary laps through the kitchen, hoping to be in the right place at the right time to be a lucky recipient of the leftover pies.

How they were accounted for was a source of fascination. They were distributed down the pecking order, beginning with Chef - if he was still present in the kitchen. As he generally disappeared into the office downstairs toward the end of service, a different code of conduct defaulted. It was covert and unwritten, relying on favours and the favoured, communicated by glances and raised eyebrows.

Food was used as illegal currency to barter with useful members of front-of-house. The bar boys and runners could exchange tasty morsels for drinks in an instant. Less transparent transactions bolstering personal connections took place in the same manner, ‘thank-yous’ for obtaining weed or other substances. The tender was a pound of flesh; a premium piece of cooked protein which was not so perfect as to be customer-worthy.

Once the food had made the transition from back-of-house to front, further negotiations would ensue. Some colleagues vanished together with their pie into thin air. Other times you might get a tap on the shoulder from a sympathetic sommelier, along with a mumbled instruction; ‘theres something for you in the lift room’. And then, depending on how hungry you were, or how much you wanted to garner favour with someone else, you’d continue to divide and share the spoils.

Whether you were the benefactor or you missed out, there was no discussion about what had taken place. Officially nothing had happened, so there was nothing to be either joyous or aggrieved about. The situation, in it’s existence and execution, was much like prison-barter.

Eating in the kitchen was forbidden by Chef, but Chef was not always in the kitchen.

Despite the rule, it was often impossible to make it through a physically demanding eight-hour shift without any sustenance. Besides, rules are made to be broken.

Initially, I’d advise new staff to ‘be discreet’, if they wanted to eat a sourdough roll with some olive oil or butter towards the end of service. But people are idiots or perhaps don’t understand the meaning of ‘discreet’, and there were some huge shellackings of novices who defied the ‘no-eating during service’ rule.

It was a tricky topic to negotiate: only Chef enforced the rule. At other times, lines were blurred. Standing in the kitchen facing the working brigade, we’d watch-on as certain chefs grazed on their off-cuts throughout service.

Occasionally, senior-sous chef Kazu - kitchen ninja - would take a meal prepared by mistake and give me permission to share it with the other runners. That was a gift, not a transaction, but it only happened if the meal prepared in error couldn’t be utilised. Were it Chef and not Kazu on the pass, that meal would deliberately and ceremonially be slid into the bin before our very eyes, making sure that we understood our place in the pecking order.

One night I’m stacking plates at the wash-up, and Denis comes through the door from the Front Room. He looks beyond me, down the kitchen and, lifting his chin in the direction of his subject asks: ‘Who’s that bloke?’ I follow his gaze and see an imposing figure flanked by a mob of fawning females. Its MM, another of the owners: the public face of the restaurant.

Denis had a mantra back then;

‘The two most asked commonly asked questions in this restaurant; “Is MM in tonight?” and “Where’s AK?”’

The questions related to an aspect of front of house and back respectively. The first was inevitable, posited by guests who were fans of the show Masterchef. The second question was avoidable - all the more frustrating - frantically uttered dozens of times every service by wait-staff looking for their sommelier, who’d gone AWOL on a whim.

Learning to carry three plates in fine dining is not a difficult skill, despite how some people carry on, but there are tricks and you need to learn to anticipate the problems that inevitably arise.

Trick no. 1. Pick up your plates in order. A chef or expeditor who calls the pass may or may not understand the physical reality of what happens once the server arrives at the table. He or she may direct you to pick up three plates of food going to three random positions on the table. Pick them up starting with the highest number in your non-preferred hand, the middle plate balancing above the last plate on your thumb and pinkie on the same hand, and the lowest number plate (ie, the first plate you drop) in your preferred hand. This way, you travel in one direction around the table and drop your plates as you go. It has the additional advantage that you only need to remember the cover numbers that you’ve been told to go to, ie you don’t need to remember that the lamb goes to cover 7, the barra to cover 13, the beef to cover 15, and so on. You just remember the numbers (although you’ll probably have Chef’s voice reverberating around the inside of your skull as an added bonus).

On that point I must concede that Chef was a brilliant expeditor, because he had a complete understanding of the entire chain of process. It seems odd that something as simple and basic as directing traffic can be affected by the individual style of the person calling the pass, but it can and it does and if it doesn’t work it can really fuck you up.

Trick no 2. Always carry a mains plate in your preferred hand as the dish to put down first - never a side dish. Your preferred hand needs to be freed-up in order to make space on the table. If you arrive at the table with a side dish in this hand then most likely you’ll be fucked over, with stuff all over the table that you can’t move, because you’ve got a bowl of mash in your hand. You have to stand there helpless waiting for a colleague to come and rescue you. If you arrive with somebody’s mains, in theory there should be a nice clear space between the place settings, right between the knife and the fork, where you can place the dish. If there isn’t - say theres a mobile phone on the table, or the person has their hands on the table - you’re well within your rights to announce;

‘Sir, your veal’

Most of the time the guest will get the message and will make space, although often the guest continues to faff around, claiming not to remember what they ordered.

Ettiquette. Is it important? Only if you enjoy dining outside of your own home, and only if you don’t want to be considered a barbarian when you do. Its very simple and the rules haven’t changed for hundreds of years. Keep your elbows off the table. If there are cutlery settings on the table, work from the outside in. Everything is where it is for a reason. Leave glassware where it’s been placed on the table. It helps your servers.

You don’t need a knife and fork to cut your bread roll. Pull it apart by hand, then butter it with your butter knife. You don’t need to tell us as soon as your mains arrive at the table that you have sides coming. We know. Don’t ask four different waiters for one thing. Simple.

One night we’re busy getting comprehensively flogged. Chef starts out in a good mood which progressively sours; the mash boy was pissing him off, Canadian Dave was plating up fish that he didn’t have dockets for and the waiters are all C’s. There was a hair in the bean salad. There was something wrong with a consommé that got sent back. One of the guests complained that their steak was burnt. Tell Teresa she’s a C.

I was sent with two dego lambs on table 18 but when I got to the table and placed it down, Charlie ran over and collared me.

‘NOOOO! They’re on pork!’

There was so much going on, it was so stressful, even your inner-dialogue was screaming at you.

I’d just brought main meals to an elderly couple sitting on table four. The lady was particularly critical, and immediately demanded to know where the side dishes were.

My head's full of curses. Additionally, I'm wishing I’d been born an octopus. I return to the kitchen for the mash and salad and march back to complete the table. In the middle of all the angst and mayhem, Denis is standing at the table before his cantankerous guests grinning widely, radiating relaxed good nature.

‘Tashy, this lady wants to know why you can’t carry five plates at once.’

It was as simple as that; the resentment you harboured through a difficult service could melt away in an instant with a little  silliness. It helped that this unlikeable guest was being called out for her thoughtlessness.

‘Don’t you EVER do that to me…not after the night I’ve just had!’

Canadian Dave and I are in the lift after service. I’d pulled up one of his dishes due to missing components and Chef happened to be standing behind me at the time.

‘Well don’t yell at me when Brett’s in the kitchen. He doesn’t know when you’re joking. Look, Chef sent me to 18 with dego lambs and it was the wrong course. What am I supposed to do?’

‘JUST FUCKING EAT THEM!’

‘In all the years I’ve worked here, I still haven’t figured out how they do it.’

Ashe Webb is hosting Kitchen Table, a small private dining room located within the kitchen, hard-up against where the restaurant’s justly-famous mash is tirelessly dispensed. The windows to the kitchen are open, giving guests the impression they’re in the thick of things, smack-bang in the centre of the action. They wedge themselves around a horseshoe-shaped timber table and remain enthralled as Ashe explains the co-ordination of the seven sections of the pass visible to KT. It’s something of a miracle that this place produces impeccable food of exemplary quality to the standard and consistency that it does day after day, but the flash point - the co-ordination of getting the fish cooked to perfection, passed over to sauce, plated and garnished at the same time as the meats from the grill are similarly basted, cooked to order, rested and ready - well there’s something supernatural about it. 

The guest experience of KT is extra-sensory; the heat and smells and unedited working conversation of chefs who’ve forgotten that they’re being observed is incessant, heightening the authenticity of the experience, hitting guests with the full force of the beast. Particularly when Chef turns all Gordon Ramsay.

‘This place is a machine,’

I overheard P.S. remark to himself in the kitchen one night, marvelling aloud while watching the chefs at work. A machine it was, powered by bio-robots. Imagine the scope of the vision - the enormous gamble - that it took to get this place off the ground.

This restaurant.

This building.

Controversial, highly debated, maligned as a hideous eyesore. It would’ve taken steely determination to lease the space and establish a restaurant of this calibre and consistency. Inspired decision-making, sagacious business sense, hard work and a little good fortune.

Icebergian, you only see a small portion. The dining room is the ultimate product, all polish and finish with million dollar views of Sydney Harbour. The KT permits a peek behind the curtain. Its an audacious snub to the harbour view, designed for people who consider themselves ‘foodies’, for people who want privacy, or for one irrepressible regular guest it was the ‘naughty corner’, a place of containment and confinement on more than one occasion.

The rest of the iceberg exists chthonicly, cloistral and subterranean, pressurised and full of opposing forces. There were the ceaselessly bubbling cauldrons of the prep-kitchen, where offerings of entrails were prepared for the saying of sooth, where chefs and somms emerge sleepy-eyed, post-nap from the rape-dungeon, and where furtively you pause when the dry-store roller-door is open to pilfer chocolate buttons for a little pick-me-up. Oddly for a place with no windows and no direct access to the outside world, it was also the weather station.

‘How’s the weather today?’

You’d enquire on your way through to the change rooms. If the answer was ‘stormy’, you kept quiet and kept away from Chef.

Down into the pits of the building you’d go to the cellars and locked storage spaces to roll the enormous discs that served as ten-top function table-tops, rolling them along concrete-bunker corridors like strange oversized battle shields. Not everyone can roll these huge, heavy wheels of cheese into place. Remember the time Szeeto was rolling one through the kitchen and he smashed through the glass panel in the kitchen door?

Down here is the final place of celebration of all the chefs who’ve come before and who’ve since departed. After service, after the obligatory farewell ritual of an ambush, a smothering in grease and then a hosing-down, the team will drink cans of beer out of a plastic tub that’s been on ice all service. This - minus the tar-and-feathering - is also a Saturday night ritual, celebrating making it - unscathed or otherwise - through the busiest shift of the week.

While front of house was comprised of a stable core team bolstered by a handful of backpackers on 457 visas, the kitchen seemed to be a place on constant high rotation. Some days you’d walk in and forty percent of faces would be unfamiliar. Chef Tom had his own probation policy: he didn’t bother learning the names of new employees for the first three months - it simply wasn’t worth the effort, as most would vanish never to be heard from again. Some walked-out mid service. One chef escaped leaving behind his chef’s knives, which he never came back for. It was a mark of what the restaurant demanded, and it didn’t take long to figure if you weren’t up to it.

But things were about to change. It seemed to happen organically, like the period of stability following the Black Death and the War of the Roses. A new brigade of talented and ambitious young chefs entered the kitchen, coalescing into a tight, loyal team that formed the core of the kitchen for several years to come. The fresh dynamic short-circuited the toxicity active between the staler chefs in the kitchen who were in desperate need of change. It didn’t put an end to the bullying and bad-behaviour, but the death-knell had sounded marking the beginning of the end.

One night as service was slowing to a close - there were only two or three tables left - I was hurrying down the length of the bar towards reception when I witnessed a small sombre ceremony take place. Brett, Terry, Dennis and Mr Dunne were gathered inside the bar near the doorway to the underworld. They each had a glass of champagne.

‘Its been ten years’

Was all that Brett said. They raised and drained their glasses. There was quiet reflection amongst the group, a ripple in the restaurant’s fabric.

Terry later told me the story.

‘If I ever write a book, the subject will be ‘manners’. And I’ll dedicate it to Peter Bartlett.’

‘Peter was the most civilised, deeply cultured, learned, most intelligent person I’ve ever met. He used to work here, years ago, as the Maître d’. He was a great reader - every day he’d read the paper cover to cover - he could talk at length about any subject and he was absolutely captivating to listen to. On occasion I’d stay and have a glass of wine with him after work. Just one glass. And I’d look at my watch and somehow it had become 4am.’

‘He had the best take-downs; with guests especially. One night this family of wealthy Russians came in. There were nine or ten of them and they didn’t have a reservation. Peter took them into the front room and offered them the best possible table that could accomodate them. They weren’t happy. They said: “We want a table with a view!” He replied: “Well, there’s the Opera House, there’s the Harbour Bridge…and there’s the door!”’

Listening to Terry’s story, my imagination cast Brett Windy in the role of Peter Bartlett, as he was the person who I held in the highest esteem. In my version, it was with a puffed-out chest and a dramatic sweep of the arm that Brett quelled the crude, graceless, undeserving Russians. It was incredible to hear that there existed someone whose consummate professionalism, whose elegance and refinement was revered by the people I looked to as the best. My little mind was blown.

‘Peter went home one night and we never saw him again.’

‘He didn’t turn up to work and he didn’t call in sick, which was completely out of character. He lived alone. He was found three days later - passed away - still sitting up in bed in his pyjamas with his newspaper.’ 

Don’t date a chef. Don’t date someone you work with.

Three of the food runners were attempting to conduct relationships with fellow employees of the restaurant, for better or worse. Two were chefs, one was a sommelier.

Teresa asked me one day as we were polishing cutlery whether I thought it was a good idea for her to buy a television with Brendan, whom she’d been dating briefly. I was surprised that she’d chosen to ask my advice at all, let alone with respect to such matters, and concluded that being in love must have compromised her scruples.

At the restaurant, there were plenty of examples of people in successful long-term relationships who seemed capable of negotiating the horrible conditions that hospitality demands; long, unsociable hours, never having Friday or Saturday nights, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, mothers day, fathers day, Christmas or New Years off without having to beg for the privilege, getting home late, negotiating the post-service wind-down, bringing your work home with you and so on. These people had ways of existing or coping that often didn’t involve copious amounts of alcohol consumption.

There were the perennially single (for many and varied reasons) who hadn’t managed - or hadn’t wanted - to find a mate. Brett was particularly sympathetic to this group of misfits. He theorised openly how brutally stressful hospitality can be on relationships, and it was clear that he spoke from a place of pain and personal experience. It was from him that I heard the term ‘hospitality widow’, referring to the person waiting at home with little to no understanding - and even less concern - of and for the dramas that play out every night on the restaurant floor and in the kitchen, who isn’t interested in the service minutia that we habitually obsess over. 

The hospitality widow is oftentimes a ticking time bomb, as they slowly lose patience with their partner and their partner’s profession.

For the unattached amongst us, the need to pair-up was possibly back-burnered because as a group we were each other’s safety-nets. There was inevitable dabbling and cross-pollination, but by and large we had the companionship we needed over a medicinal schooner or two and we didn’t need anyone getting cranky waiting for us to come home.

Down at the pub, camaraderie was a by-product of talking bullshit.

Kylie’s a big fan of Chow, thinks he’s amazing, the dining room always runs smoothly when he’s there. Istvan isn’t a big fan of Brett and his old-school dressing-downs, which he considered over-the-top. He also thought Brett was particularly hard on the boys. Kylie confides that Dom has diction issues. Excuse me? I understand him perfectly. Oh addiction issues. I beg your pardon. He used to be bisexual and have drug dependencies. Lately he’s been taking days off, she suspects he’s relapsing, needing days to recover. Mr Dunne. Everyone concurs he’s a top bloke and we’d all do him.

Conversation segues seamlessly into prescription medication. The Spring-roll was on prescription speed for a while, looked like a stick figure with a huge head. Bulimic, teeth rotting from stomach-acids, looked like a little alien. One side-effect was psychosis; she’d lie in bed imagining things crawling all over her.

Kylie mentions the hospital-grade morphine that she has access to. Start the day with two nurofen on an empty stomach and by the time you’re on the bus you’re buzzing. Of course you need two days a week clean to bring your serotonin levels back to normal. Miss Saigon has a theory about grapefruit juice; apparently vitamin C boosts your serotonin.

The Spring-roll had strong opinions about everybody and by extension about their relationships. It was fascinating and dangerous that she considered herself an impeccable judge of character. Mostly she was a raver, but at times she was quite convincing.

The other kitchen runners were asked to work Chef’s wedding (not me obviously). Ping Pong returned declaring;

‘It won’t last. He’s with the wrong woman.’

Then there was her summation of Szeeto’s relationship with his girlfriend.

‘He holds the remote.’

“Women don’t care about the remote.’ I snorted.

‘I’m starting to. Which is why Darren and I are fighting so much lately.’

The Spring-roll was a relationship-shipwreck, foundering on the jagged rocks of hubris, a singularly bad advertisement for shacking-up at any cost. Although deeply critical of her, I dearly hoped that she’d sort her considerable shit out.

Mc Fairy - also unlucky in love - found himself sailing dangerously close to the same rocks with his Brazil-nut boyfriend who turned out to be a psycho. There were plenty of red flags, buoys, lighthouses and navigation markers, but the siren’s-call leads the foolish time and again into treacherous, uncharted waters.

My own story is equally as tedious.

I took a shine to a boy who seemed to like me but who quickly distanced himself, declaring: ’98% of work romances turn to shit’. I didn’t mind those odds, but then I often placed bets that paid no dividends. Shortly thereafter he began to pursue one of the pastry chefs.

Confused and bewildered, I lowered my expectations, hoping to thwart future disappointment. This staggeringly dreadful idea had me associating with genuine scumbags. It would be a long time before I realised that low self-esteem - bourgeois and predictable, - was at the helm, and I was as compulsive as everyone else who drinks or gambles or eats or shops or takes drugs or has sex to run away from themselves.

I didn’t figure out the pattern, I couldn’t solve the puzzle, but one thing was certain; formulas and aphorisms mean nothing. Examples exist to counter every pithy piece of dating advice from the well-meaning. No rule is water-tight in this leaky vessel. Tim had Noreen, Ritchie had Carla: both met and worked together at the restaurant. One of the chefs found true love at the rub-and-tug shop. Painfully shy, self-conscious Stefan found himself a wife and together they had a sweet little girl. The Flying Dutchman returns home after countless nights at the Strawberry Hills Hotel to what must be the world’s most tolerant human. The stacked odds and overall chicanery of the game is not, after all, unbeatable.

Every moment of every day at the restaurant you had to be ‘on’. It didn’t matter if you were approaching the end of a 90-hour week, it didn’t matter if you were operating on four hour’s sleep after a session at the Casino with Ping Pong and Szeeto. On Friday and Saturday nights, the fluctuation in barometric pressure was markedly greater between the columns and within the glazing of that establishment: my mental snapshot of any given moment is of waitstaff whizzing around in a blur like weightless apparitions in the style of Edvard Munch’s The Scream.

The build-up to Saturday night service was always the worst. It was characterised by a feeling of terror and existential dread, a ratcheting-up of anxiety, of butterflies or sick-in-the-stomach queasiness, often undistinguishable from a hangover. You need to internalise it or get over it, and you need to do it before the doors open at 5pm.

“Good evening sir,’ (placing the amuse buche before him.)

(Cuts me off) ’Can you tell me what this is?’

Smiling, thinking: ‘If you’d shut the fuck up for one second I intend to do exactly that. Because to interrupt would just be rude’.

I need to work on my tolerance.

‘Would you like rye with caraway, or would you prefer sourdough?’

‘Which one’s healthier?’

That depends on which trashy media article you’ve read recently. What religion or belief system are you currently following? Your waiter patiently decodes this mess of cherry-picked dogma to guide you to the correct bread choice for you.

Are you the type who believes that a quality made sourdough with a long rising time breaks down proteins, assisting in the digestion process, tolerable even to those with gluten sensitivity? Where, due to the bacteria from the fermentation process, starch and carbohydrate content is comparatively low, which is good for people concerned about blood sugar levels, while the bacteria itself is a bonus for a healthy gut? Or, are we adhering this evening to the principal that sourdough is WHITE BREAD and therefore SPAWN OF THE DEVIL?

The naughtiness of eating bread! How first-world, the well-to-do people judging each other and hating themselves.

I’m over-thinking again. 

'Excuse me madam, your burrata.’

‘Is this an egg?’

‘Its not an egg.’

‘It looks like an egg.’

‘Its still not an egg.’

Goddamn it madam, you ordered burrata. Don’t you know what burrata is, and if not, why didn’t you ask? Or, why don’t you nod and smile and say thank-you and discover what burrata is. You might even surprise yourself, find yourself enjoying it rather than persisting with your medieval-minded deduction that ‘it looks like an egg, therefore it must be an egg’. 

I wish I was a better person.

Guests can be bad but they’ll be gone in a few hours. Every minute of every day at work, you’re negotiating a psychotic landscape, a minefield of boobie-traps and clusterfuck bombs. On any given shift, you’re far more likely to cop friendly-fire than have to engage in combat with the enemy. You pick your way around the terrain with trepidation, keep your head down and do your best, but you can hear the artillery on the front line even as you approach to begin your shift.

You don’t get time to walk into the kitchen and prepare your service cloths before the bellowing begins.

‘SERVICE!’

There’s a function in Section 3 and one of the canapés we’re serving is croquettes. We serve them in traditional terracotta escargot dishes from the 70’s. Each plate has twelve divots in which to place one shell or croquette. Chef directs me to take two plates. One is full and the other only half full. I’m thinking perhaps the dish isn’t complete.

‘Is this ready to go?’

(Between gritted teeth) ‘Just run the fuckin’ food’

What a turd, I think. Must be trying to impress his truffle-delivery boyfriend, who was in the kitchen at the time.

‘Chef’s in a filthy mood’ I remark to Charlie up the back of Section 3.

‘Yeah, I sensed it the moment I came in.’

Filthy was an understatement, turns out he was in a blind fury.

‘ARE YOU GONNA FUCKING SAY ‘OUI’? ARE YOU GONNA RESPOND WHEN I ASK YOU TO DO SOMETHING?’

‘I did chef, you just didn’t hear me.’

‘WELL FUCKIN’ SAY IT LOUDER!’

He’s got his knickers in a knot, and service is chaotic. He’s sending us out to bread tables, to take bread to tables that have already been breaded. At one point, I came back in the kitchen with apps he sent me to take but it was the wrong table as they’d just received them. I came back very deliberately to the pass to look at the docket.

‘’WHAT?’

‘Did you just send me to 34?’

‘OPEN YOUR FUCKING EARS!’

‘Table 34 already has them, Chef.’

Rubbing his nose in his own mistake was a small, petulant victory.

There was a position going for a front-of-house manager and it had been decided to fill the vacancy by promoting internally. Fei-jai was promoted to ‘suit’. Nobody expected much would change. Fei-jai was part of the ‘asian-mafia’: a known-quantity to us. But by the same token, all the habits, tastes, proclivities and leisure-activities of the wait staff were well known to him, and it wasn’t long before he made it clear that he’d use this to further himself with management.

Time got away from McFairy and I one Thursday night, we were up until 5am drinking wine and chatting. Both of us were on 9-5’s the following day. I felt like death and looked even worse, but made it to work with enough time to make a coffee and pop a few Codrals.

Fei-jai sneered at me as I clocked on. He knew exactly what we’d been up to and indicated he was going to make us suffer.

It was a typical lunch service of the day; frantic and unpleasant. The Spring-Roll was in a nasty mood. I struggled to put on a happy face. After service, we ran around madly readying the restaurant for dinner. The function in Section 3 didn’t leave until nearly 5pm and the organiser for the following function was due in at 5:30, expecting to see the room ready.

With superhuman effort the 9-5-ers got the job done, motivated by the impending finish-line. We gave pause, expecting to be told to sign-off at 5:30. Instead, Fei-jai told us to stay until 6 folding hand-towels. Given that the restaurant was set and that guests were to commence arriving, there wasn’t much available surface-area on which to perform the requested task.

Four of us were crammed onto two little tables set up as a bar at the back of Section 3 when Fei-jai came to check on us.

‘One of you do some pre-folds!’ He barked.

‘There’s no room.’ I replied.

Walking away, he called out; ‘Natasha, can you stay till 7.’

'Nope'

Although it didn’t seem to be a question.

6pm rolled around, we packed-up and went to sign-off. Fei-jai pulled me back into Section 3.

‘What you just said to me just now was extremely rude and I wouldn’t expect it coming from someone like you.’

He went to leave the room.

‘Hang on a minute. I’m not sure what you’re referring to.’

‘When I asked you to do pre-folds, what did you say?’

‘I said: “there’s no room”’

‘Exactly. You need to go and find some room.’

I thought he’d taken exception to my refusal to work til 7, in which case I’d agree that I’d been rude. He’d evidently lost the plot.

Having successfully made it through a rougher than usual shift, it was time for a drink. McFairy, Miss Saigon, Stephen and I were all in a jolly mood as we headed to the pub, where it was decided that we should all go to Marrickville for Vietnamese.

‘I thought you were working tonight Stephen?’

‘I swapped shifts with Olga. Fei-jai interrogated me as to why I wanted the night off and I said: “Because I just do!” He’s turned into a real cunt. I can’t wait to tell him what a great dinner we all had!’

Rebecca asked me one day: ‘Do you think that working in hospitality is good for your self-esteem?’

My first thought in response was: I don’t even like you, why would you consult me on such matters? A mental-image popped into my head of Rebecca putting on a show for the chefs in the lift, ‘climbed the walls and displayed her gash’ were Canadian Dave’s words.

‘I’m not sure that your idea of self-esteem and mine are in any way related.’

Truth was, I didn’t know how to answer that question. I still wasn’t particularly fond of Chef and his surprise ambushes, despite the fact that I’d pulled my socks up and stoped being a complete jerk-off. The last time I carried plates working at Lakehouse I was so intimidated by several staff members - chefs and floor staff - that I didn’t much enjoy the experience. This place was different; I felt a distinct sense of pride being part of such a prestigious establishment, and the hard knocks were mediated by an overwhelming sense of acceptance and camaraderie which made all the shittier moments tolerable.

Your whacko colleagues are the single biggest source of frustration in hospitality.

I’m up the back of Section 3 with Heliproctor and he’s venting about our colleague Kevin.

‘Have you heard his description at tables? ‘MAD-AAAARM. THIS. IS. YOUR THAAAAI SWEET POTATOOO SOUP, WITH CO-CO-NUT FFFFFOOOOAMMMM. Have you heard him say FFOOOOAMMM? And he comes up to the table like this’ (gesticulates) ‘and puts his cock right on the corner, I mean, RIGHT on the CORNER of the TABLE! Fuck, he’s in my section tonight.’

‘And then, when you try to say something to him, he’s like this….’ (gesticulating wildly again) ‘He’s jiving the whole time he’s saying “Sorry chef, sorry chef”’.

‘The other day he put the lamb down on one of my tables and he said; “NOOOWWW here we have some LOOOVELY AUS-TRAAAALIAN lamb…..not like that New Zealand lamb..”. I pulled him aside and said: “Do you really think anyone gives a fuck?” and at the same time he’s dancing around all agitated, gibbering “sorry chef, sorry chef”.

Kevin was a fruit; a singularly peculiar creature. The sizeable mole on his face was his least remarkable feature. He spoke with an accent that suggested he originated in a former colony of the crown, and he behaved in a grovelling, servile manner with overtones of flamboyant gayness. He made himself a very easy target for ridicule.

‘AAAI had a WANNN-DERFULLL day’ He’d announce upon arrival in the kitchen ‘AAAI spent the ENTAAAAIER day in the SUNNN-SHINE, down at Rushcutters Bay PAAAARRK! Its BEE-UUUTIFUL down there.’

Like most people who project boundless optimism bordering on mania, Kevin had a darker shadow side than most. It must have been a hard act, being so fruity all the time.

Then there was Lindsay Bondage. She’d come across from the restaurant over the water, and she was an altogether different ball-game. She was tall, quiet and took herself very seriously.

There was a story circulating that a manager at the other restaurant had once said to her,

‘I’m going to ride you,’

To which she responded,

‘Hold on, ‘cos I’m a big horse.’

I couldn’t work out if this was evidence that she had a dry sense of humour, but by the time she came to work with us it had dried-up completely.

She carried herself with an air of distorted superiority; we were inferior buffoons. It was reasonably apparent that she didn’t like being there, she wasn’t interested in extending herself. No big deal. The restaurant was diverse enough to absorb and incorporate a diversity of ‘types’.

Like all other front-of-house staff, she started in the kitchen learning basic operational procedure before graduating to the floor. She had the same introduction, the same treatment as everybody else, she simply wasn’t a good fit with the culture of the restaurant. Most of us didn’t know what to make of her.

Teresa did. She made her an ally.

There was a Turkish gentleman named Erin.

He was a big guy, rather strangely put-together, a gormless gentle-giant. He was in possession of a peculiar, offbeat gait: once he got-going out on the floor running food he was something to behold. His centre of gravity shifted back so he appeared to be in the act of reclining as he propelled his wobbly-man body through the restaurant with considerable effort - literally going full-tilt - with legs running furiously, feet splayed clown-like flapping in ungainly fashion out in front of him.

English was not his first language.

Kazu was calling the pass one night and Erin and I were running food. Erin was up first, I’m standing behind watching.

‘Saa-VIICE! Ram: 1, lebbit: 2. Sixtyone.’

I followed the call with my eyes as Kazu spoke, in silent rehearsal for my turn. But Erin didn’t move forward to pick up the plates. He wanted the call again.

Kazu obliged.

‘Ram: 1, lebbit: 2. Sixtyone.’

There were only two plates on the pass. It couldn’t have been simpler. Jesus Christ Erin, just have a guess. But Erin wasn’t any clearer, and wanted the call repeated. Kazu was losing his patience.

My focus went from the dishes on the pass to Erin to the chefs facing us on the other side of the pass. They had all paused and were staring. Coco looked like he wanted to stab him.

‘Whatisthisafucking circus?’ I heard him mumble.

For a third time, Kazu repeated the call, visibly irate.

‘RAM: 1.

LEBBIT: 2.

SIXTYONE.’

I’m certain he still didn’t understand, but Erin - who was now flustered as well as confused - moved forward to pick up the plates. One lamb, one rabbit. When the door had swung closed behind him, Kazu - his face flushed in frustration - turned to the line of waiting runners to appeal for sanity.

‘Does he not speak INGERISH?’

And there was Joey Bardetta.

We became fast friends and almost as quickly the Spring Roll told me not to get too attached, as he wouldn’t be there very long. I was a long way from understanding management method and procedure - I’d only just begun to feel secure in my own position. These days though, at the end of every trial shift the manager on duty asked me whether the trial should be hired, but that was as far as my opinion counted for anything. They saw things differently and they had their own big-picture plans.

I never knew exactly why it was that they had it in for Joey, although I had a few suspicions.

Despite what Brett would like to have everyone believe, that he does everything, its simply not possible. Hospitality is a team sport. It follows then, that the single greatest asset is a colleague who makes your life easier by doing their job properly. Someone who doesn’t need to be told what to do: they can already see it, and they know how to do it. Properly. With a minimum of fuss. Its an enormous mental relief to work with such people. There were many like this employed at the restaurant back then. The only reason it was possible to work under such intense pressure day after day was because more people had your back than didn’t. It was supernatural at times, running around with a growing mental ‘to-do’ list, to find that here and there someone had covered your arse, cleared your plates, set your cutlery, called your next course away, whatever, and had done it correctly.

One day I was walking back through Section 3 in the lull between lunch and dinner service. The room was set for a function and McFairy was showing someone new the ropes, ‘this is how we set functions’ and what-not. Instantly the context told me he was not your average-bear, otherwise he would’ve been presented to me for indoctrination. 

Yogi bear - otherwise known as Luffy - was our new restaurant manager. He came on board with very little fan-fare, assimilated readily and most importantly made our lives easier by being bright and positive, approachable, capable, hands-on and good at his job. We didn’t realise how fortunate we were.

For a restaurant of such renown, guests often couldn’t locate the entrance.

People familiar with the restaurant knew of its location and knew that the dining room had spectacular views of Sydney Harbour, but I’m certain that of the hordes of people who walked down Macquarie St who attended shows at the Opera House, most wouldn’t’ve noticed the brass plaque out the front; the only external indication of the restaurant’s presence.

There were plenty of cases of mistaken identity; of people standing in Macquarie Place under a skyscraper phoning reception to ask for directions, of people who thought the restaurant was up on the 15th floor of the Toaster near the sky-bridge, of people wandering around East Circular Quay, wondering how to get in.

The entrance was high-class and low-key.

The physical experience for the guest begins by ascending a pink granite staircase. A pair of heavy brass-framed glass doors are opened by two smiling members of staff. Squarely before you in warm, woody tones is reception. You step into plush, sophisticated surrounds designed to evoke the comfort and intimacy of a classic Benz interior, where you’re greeted by a beaming bob-haired blonde named Kirsten, face of the restaurant since the first day the doors opened.

The front-of-house floor area is shaped like the letter P. The main stem comprises sections two and three facing Circular Quay, the top of the letter is the front-room facing the Harbour. The remainder - facing Macquarie St - is the bar, with reception located in the return. The design of the restaurant is such that there are no clear lines of sight from reception to any part of the dining area. This presents a unique headache for management as it’s impossible to know whats going on everywhere at once.

Brett extended his surveillance capacity via the use of spies. Inevitably this method went beyond the limitations of what was happening on the floor and into the personal lives of every member of staff, thus he was able to take the emotional temperature of the work-place reasonably accurately at any given moment.

The more conventional approach taken by management on a Friday or Saturday night was that there’d be four managers and Kirsten at the front desk. Once all the guests were greeted and seated, three of the managers would peel-off and help on the floor; running food, running drinks, sorting issues. Additionally, one or two members of staff were allocated on ‘the door’. Some staff considered being on the door a bludge, but like any role there were two ways of approaching it.

The first night I was invited to be on the door happened under the new restaurant manager. It was the first time I’d been given an opportunity outside my regular role and it was a breath of fresh air. Brett had entrenched views on people and their capabilities. Already a chronic sufferer of self-doubt, it was monumentally difficult to convince him that I might’ve been ready to work a section. There were times I even thought that Chef would be an easier nut to crack.

With the benefit of hindsight he was of course right - I was nowhere near ready for the floor.

But Luffy arrived at the restaurant with fresh eyes and a different approach. He was quick to identify that the restaurant was staffed with an array of characters, and his instinct for managing character was strong. It was a feature he encouraged and worked with. You can’t have a tedious waiter looking after guests in the Kitchen Table, they need to be quick-witted and affable. The person on the door needs to be equally convivial, as both the first and last impression of the restaurant. And so on.

Luffy gave me the ‘heads-up’ that he was going to allocate me on the door the following evening as I was clocking-off after my shift one night. I immediately freaked-out a little at the thought of being out of my comfort zone but then again how hard could it be. Ping-Pong would be with me on the door, everything should be fine.

It was a completely different ball-game. There were plenty of things you had to just know intuitively; how to cloak people’s coats and umbrellas using the tagging system to match the item with the right guest at the right table - short umbrellas tagged with numbers 1-30, tall umbrellas from 30-60, ‘Don’t you know anything Natasha, Teresa never had to be told any of this!’, another mark against my name in Brett’s black book of misdemeanours.

The pre-theatre guests would begin to depart - a table here and there at first, a trickle before the crush of the coming and going of transient guests like peak-hour at Town Hall Station. We’d stand smiling at the door in farewell but the second they left we’d bolt in the direction of the vacated table. One of us would clear it of coffee cups, glassware and petite four boards, one of us would strip the napery. Tables had been triple-clothed and ironed before service began. Assuming the guest hadn’t spilled wine or sauce penetrating through to the tablecloths underneath, what was left was a pristine blank canvas on which to set for the following sitting. As the linen was taken away from the table, another staff member advanced with side plates and ‘pre-sets’: pre-folded napkin-and-cutlery bundles. It was seamless and well-rehearsed and the quicker it was done the better, to avoid the log-jam of having to seat à la carte guests in the bar while they waited for their tables.

It was called ‘flipping the restaurant’.

You had to have a game plan. No hesitating and no dithering. No thinking - there was no time for that. When it came time to flip the restaurant no one had dibs or sections, it was a free-for-all. You’d be at a waiter’s station gathering settings and then you’d shoot off across the front room, only to find that Teresa had beaten you to it. Fuck! Foiled!

After having your time wasted in such fashion, you start planning your moves two, three steps ahead, and each table you set successfully becomes a little victory.

Racing towards a table in the front room carrying your pre-sets, you’re hoping to god that Carlo’s done the set-up and not Chrissy. Carlo’s sets differ from Chrissies because they’re each perfectly weighted and balanced; if you carry them correctly you don’t lose any cutlery en-route to the table. Chrissy on the other hand, her set ups were like she threw the cutlery into the napkins from the other side of the room and it’s a miracle if you make it to the table with full settings; sometimes she just forgot to put in the butter knives in all together.

While all this was going on there’d be one person whose job it was to report back to reception to let Kirsten know which tables were set and ready. Brett was famous for anticipating tables - the guests on table 9 left five minutes ago, the table should be ready by now so I’ll bring them through even though Respak says the first seating is still there, that kind of thing.

The only problem was that Brett’s system didn’t factor in all the many little things that can go wrong. You’re dashing to table 9 with side plates and some Chrissy-prepared pre-sets. You arrive at the table and you notice a stain. Its dark - can I put a side plate over it? No, its the first thing Brett will see and he’ll yell at me and I’ll get another mark against my name. I have to change the cloth.

You offload the settings - preferably not onto the dining chairs, don’t be fucking lazy - then back to the table to take off the top-cloth. The fucking stain went all the way through. You pull off the next two layers and run back into the kitchen where there’s a big linen bag. Chef is screaming like crazy - theres no one running food because all the runners are out on the floor flipping the restaurant. Running the food’s pretty important but you know that Brett is heading to the table with the guests RIGHT NOW, WHILE YOU’RE DITHERING.

Sorry Chef, gotta go.

You dash back out the door, grab a 54 from the waiter’s station cupboard and head back to table 9. Lay the tablecloth - like a waiter. Don’t ruffle it like you’re making your bed, so that table 8 thinks there’s a hurricane behind them. If you don’t know how to do it watch Denis. Fuck, here comes Brett!

Back to the station, grab your settings. Cutlery clatters and tumbles all over the polished timber floor. Stephen pulls you aside.

‘Can you go and make that racket in someone else’s section please?’

Brett’s approaching with guests in tow. You vault to the table and set it. Brett places down the menus, pulls out the chairs and seats the guests as you take up and unravel the napkins with a flourish, gently laying them across the guest’s lap.

‘I don’t know about you, but my shirt tonight was drenched in sweat.’

Ping Pong didn’t answer as she took a long draft of beer, but from the look on her face she felt the same way I did.