How much of an experience do we need to satisfy our appetites for an experience capital E? In the old days we felt special sat high up at the chef’s table, white linen stretched out, starched, before us. We played with the extra spoons between courses watching the show, the sous; the way the guy over there got the sauce squiggle the same 99% of the time. The cooks seemed a bit on edge, sure, but then you know for yourself how it can feel cooking with someone over your shoulder. And anyway, this was a special occasion; they could deal with it this once.
In those days, when it wasn’t showtime, we were content for it to be magic. Content to be served at the table with the abracadabra flick, twist, swish of the waiter’s wrist, each puff of the swinging kitchen door conjuring up a new dish. We didn’t question the witchery happening behind closed doors, the wizardry happening in the kitchen. We knew it best not to ask how many sticks of butter were in the sauce.
No longer. Not now, at any rate, that we’re permanently signed up for the full Experience. Remember when surround sound was a thing? Now it’s all about Virtual Reality and really really Real Reality. We’ve replaced the special occasion chef’s table with our every Friday night spot at a wrap-around-the-kitchen table, the linen with stray spatters of oil. Now when the sushi master spears a fish you half flinch you’re sitting that close. Now we’re (practically) sitting in the kitchen all the time.
But other than a badly aimed knife, what’s the danger? Can watching the kitchen’s every move actually damage the experience?
Being able to see everything that goes on in the kitchen can be great. A tightly synced team running like a well oiled machine is a pleasure to watch. So, too, is the fire-dragon eruptions of flame bursting from the stove tops, the flipping, the dicing, the placing and the concentration on 99% sauce guy’s face. Open kitchens may be linked to a reduction in abuse in the kitchen (and if not entirely, certainly in swearing), and signal a departure from (good) food being for only the very few to know about. Sitting in the kitchen is how we do it at home and can help to make what we eat somewhat more accessible to us. At any rate it can be useful to deflect awkward pauses in conversation and can make the meal itself more memorable…
… even if for the wrong reasons. Almost two years later and it’s still the chef’s anger, not his food, that defines my memory of eating at Momfuku Seiobo in Sydney. I can of course remember how excellent the food was, but I couldn’t tell you what we ate, not without looking through the pictures. Instead, what I can best describe is how we felt. How it was impossible not to be dragged in to whatever was going on between the sous chef who seemed to be in charge that night and one of the cooks, and how awkward we felt sitting there, practically on top of the kitchen as they (passive aggressively) battled it out. How we felt a little guilty even, like when you not only hear your neighbours having sex, you listen. The team had nowhere to hide, nowhere to blow off steam, nowhere to go. Everyone and their issues were centre stage to our now amphitheatre table, and the show had to go on. And on. All the way to desert in spite of the machoism and regardless of whose mistake, whatever it was, it was.
In the end, my open kitchen experience was such an Experience that it eclipsed the specifics of what we ate. Sure, I’ll always remember it, but it’s also all I remember. Well, that and the number on the bill and the parking ticket we walked out to. We got that one for free.
Experienced by me in January 2015, written down by Hannah Fuellenkemper.
One week ago I had a new Experience with Momofuku Seiobo’s new chef Paul Carmichael in Paris during the Gelinaz shuffle. This one sure deserves the capital, more about this event will follow soon.
About Me
One comment