Chef’s Diaries 3: Feelings
Mateo Austin is a new chef living in London. Chef’s Diaries shares extracts from his journals, documenting the beginning of his exciting career in professional kitchens. You can read his first diary entry here.
October 2022
“Recently I’ve been in my feelings. Whenever this happens I am immediately disturbed and alarmed, and make recourse to the numbing arms of feel-good B list movies. This week, I turned to Burnt; a much reviled 2015 title starring Bradley Cooper as Adam Jones, a motorcycle riding, ex- crack fiend, enfant terrible on his way to a third Michelin star. I’m not ashamed to say that it wasn’t my first time watching it, in fact Burnt is the only food related bit of media I’ve ever got a romantic partner to sit through. This is heartening as it definitively proves that the only things in the universe sexier than glossy episodes of chef’s table, are Bradley Cooper, and myself.
The movie is pretty terrible, even my unrequited love for Daniel Bruhl can’t save it. Bradley did his acting research by spending some time hanging out with Marcus Waering, apparently learning that three star cheffing predominantly involves hurling plates when you’re having a bad service, making fun of people who use sous vide machines, and playing hide and seek with Michelin inspectors. There’s basically nothing likeable about Adam Jones, who wallows in his steamy role as a byronic genius, exalted for his fearless use of things like pans, fire, and wine in cooking. I honestly have no idea what the message of the film is beyond the fact that Michelin star chefs are monomaniacal dreamboats, and that their life is terribly romantic. This is odd, as romance is not something I’d really ever associate with myself, or the career i’ve had up to this point.
To continue with my investigations, my roommate and I decided to visit perhaps the most romantic restaurant in London, The Ritz. This is a restaurant that is suffused with a strange kind of love, arguably my favourite kind, love of the itself. You sit across from a sleepy pianist, who lazily improvises around 30’s swing classics. Next to him stands an earth-shatteringly beautiful woman, dressed decked out in emerald green and diamonds. The waiters seem to have found a curious gait that has the speed of a dead sprint, while still looking like a smooth walk. Around you the chairs groan under sweaty American tycoons and their wives, octogenarian couples celebrating anniversaries, and strangely, a pack of feral children to whom a haggard server is trying to explain the benefits of a double flambé on their crepe suzette. The children seem unimpressed, two flinching back from the blue flames, and one, clearly already traumatised by having seen this poor chef de rang smoke lavender over her Bresse duck, now demands why he insists on burning her pancakes as well.
The Ritz Restaurant, “considered to be one of the most beautiful dining rooms in the world.”
It’s a completely ridiculous scene, but the waiter seems unfazed. I watch him depart and continue his duties around the room. I can see the circles under his eyes, I know the look well, but he never breaks character. Every single movement is accompanied by a practiced flick, and delicate little turn, his face retains the constant expression of someone who has just had something inserted into them, and are waiting to see if they enjoy it. It’s genuinely one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen. The plates rise and fall in unison, you can almost hear the waiters counting along to some frantic waltz. They are unshakeable, my roommate, a bottle of wine deep, reminisces about his ex boyfriends’ gag reflex just as the head waiter puts down his starter. The waiter raises an eyebrow, and cooly says “apologies for the timing gentlemen, we hope you enjoy the lobster just as much”. I felt like some Bridgeton heir, sharing a private joke with a servant I had known my whole life.
The food was great, but in all honesty was probably the least important part of the meal, because the Ritz, for all it’s pomp, is probably one of the restaurants that understands why we dine. I go out to eat a lot, and it’s been a long time since I had something that I found to be genuinely new and exciting. Annoyingly, nothing at the Ritz particularly did anything to change that. The food was immaculate, but lacked any punch. In fact it leaned so heavily on richness to substitute for substance, that I immediately vomited all of it in the Hotel’s gilded bathroom after having exited the dining room. But even this couldn’t ruin the experience, if anything it enhanced it. This is not a meal to sustain. It doesn’t belong to the dirty flat you have to get the Northern line back to. It’s as if the ingredients themselves didn’t want to leave their gilded home, and demanded exorcism from an unworthy host. The magic ended, I was once again a sweaty boy in an ill fitting suit, my hands covered in burns, my fingernails grimy from working to pay for the most expensive meal I’ve never eaten. To me that’s a kind of romance, the creation of a delusion that you’re something more than you are, of falling for a person that makes you feel like you deserve the care and adulation they give you. Inevitably though, they’ll be gone, the delusion will end, and you’ll be left as you were, unworthy and trying to claw your way back. I fell hard at the Ritz, but what was stunning is that I didn’t fall for a person, the chefs were hidden, the waiters a multi-limbed beast catering to my every want. I fell for an idea, which I think realistically is what we always love most.”
Mateo will be back with another diary entry in the coming months. He also has his own blog! Read it here https://whatmatato.blogspot.com