my first chef checks...

When Chef Jason left Cenare, he gave me a pair of chef pants - he’d outgrown them, they were still in good condition, and he didn’t need them anymore. It’s odd that I remember that, but they were my first pair...Cenare (pronounced, che-NAH-ree, in case you don't talk Italian, I think it means "to dine"), an Italian restaurant in my home town, was my first ‘real’ cooking job. Well, second actually, if you count the 3 month gig at Ferrari’s, another Italian place that qualified me for the job at Cenare. I don’t count Ferrari’s, I did my best to forget as much as I could about that sad, dirty, ominously quiet restaurant—let’s just say that it was the kind of place where an 18 year old kid with no experience could be promoted to head cook in 6 weeks. And no, that’s not a compliment to my precocious talent...What I learned there was mostly what not to do, but at least having the experience, however dubious, of working in an Italian restaurant on my resume did help when I applied to Cenare, a real restaurant: a place with a chef, a reputation, you know, a place with customers... Cenare was an “authentic” Italian fine dining restaurant. It was “authentic” to what you’d expect from an Italian joint in a medium to small Texas town in the 80’s; but we’ll just say it wasn’t exactly the cuisine I encountered when I finally travelled to Italy a few years later. It was, however, that particular, comforting, Americanized Italian food that so many of us enjoy, spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna, manicotti, linguine with a clams, picatta, Marsala...Caesar salad. Food fried in breadcrumbs, layered in red sauce and smothered with cheese. It was rich, hearty, delicious and popular.



Cenare had been around for about 10 years by the time I came to work there, and in those days, the kitchen was still an old-school boy’s club. The guys who worked there were career blue collar cooks; regular guys that could hold a hot skillet without a mitt, could handle a 20 ticket rail without flinching (that’s cooking dinner for 20 tables at once...try it some time, it’s a gas!), and could throw out a banquet dinner for a crowd of 30 in the back room, all at the same time... It was tough, hot, fast work, and we took all of our cuts, burns, and screaming managers with a smile. We knew that no-one wanted our job and that knowledge was an immense source of power. Cenare was an old-school boy’s club, the kind of kitchen I haven’t seen much of in the days since—there was drinking and smoking (I still smoked back then, we’d move about three feet off the line to a spot by the back door... it’s hard to imagine smoking in a kitchen now, it’ seems like a scene from a movie...), gambling (poker nights... football pools), and all the competitive games that guys in groups always seem to create for ourselves... we would move the trash can back two feet at a time to see who could hit it from the farthest distance, we would line up to see who could cut onions fastest, mushrooms, peppers, clean shrimp—nothing was just a task, it was a game, a contest, a chance to prove ourselves. We were young, strong and invincible, and as long as the food came out fast, looked good and tasted good, no-one could tell us what to do. Well, except for chef Jason...



Until then, I had worked mostly in fast food, making sandwiches, McDonalds, a short stint at Red Lobster, a taco shack, and, of course, there had been the years in my parents’ restaurant, before I was old enough to appreciate it, as well as that 3 month thing at the other Italian place, but Cenare was, as I said, my first ‘real’ restaurant experience. It was a cooking job where I came to see cooking as not just a part time job to get me through college, but as a possible direction, a possible career. It took me a few years to finally make that decision, but Cenare was certainly the place where it began.



After I had been there about a year, the old Cenare died. Chef Jason, the source of our power and prestige, the quarterback who had carried our team to first place for a decade... left. He took a job at, I believe, a Chili’s, possibly an Olive Garden, something corporate, something with security, insurance. It was a shock. The owners were flummoxed, confused, nervous. I mean, the cooking crew was solid, good even, but the chef had been the key player, and as long as he had been running the plays, everyone knew what could be done; they knew, without question, that the food would be good, fast, consistent. When he left, all of us 2nd stringers started getting the eye; who was going to step up? Who was going to carry the ball? Who would not only be a good cook, but would also lead? Ultimately, it was no-one.



I am proud, prouder than I was about my “promotion” at Ferrari’s, to say that I was given some of his duties, some of the most fun parts, anyway. I was handed a box of indexed recipes and as a “creative” type, asked to take on the job of selecting and presenting our popular daily specials. I was moved from the pantry and pasta stations to Jason’s old station on the ‘hot’ line, where the real action was: doing sauté, the station that is still my favourite some 18 years later. I didn’t get stuck with the stuff I later came to understand was the real meat of his work: the sourcing of products, the inventories, the scheduling, the ordering, the day to day work that a true chef must master in order to enjoy his moments at the stove. It was, for me at that time, just about an ideal situation. I had a place to be creative; some, but not too much responsibility; I was stepping into the shoes (...pants? No, that sounds weird...) of a popular chef, working his old station, cooking for his regulars, some of whom had been enjoying the product of his practiced hands for as long as 10 years, all the while with none of his burdens: the stress of the bottom line, covering for the dishwashers vacation, making sure that the toilets were scrubbed. It seemed ideal, and for a young cook, it was. Ideal for me, anyway... but for the customers? For the owners? Well, these things even out over time I suppose...for me, it was year of learning in the best way I ever got to experience, learning by complaint.



Complaint might be too strong a word; constructive criticism might be more accurate. You see, when I moved to the sauté station, when I moved to Chef Jason’s old spot, the expectation game changed for me. I was no longer answering to the chef, my finished plates no longer passed by his watchful eyes; his stern (but fair and honest) voice no longer corrected my mistakes and oversights. I was instead answering to another boss, the same boss I am answering to today. You.



At some time or another, all of us who eat in restaurants are faced with a similar dilemma: whether or not to complain about a poorly executed meal. Sometimes the decision is easy: a hair, or worse; a band-aid, a bug—perhaps a little gross, but easy. These decisions make themselves for you; “I have the evidence right here, please correct this error.” But as we all also know, other situations are not nearly as easy to decide...a steak too rare or too cooked.(“do I really want to wait 20 minutes for a new one?”) or a flavour combination that doesn’t appeal or really work (“nope, I don’t actually like mussels with mangos and raspberries”). These are the times when we face the tough choice, do we complain, or even just comment? Do we spoil a cook’s night or do we let slide (“Overall, to be fair, it was still pretty good”) Do we swallow our opinion and blurt it out later in a bitter online ‘review’, or do we just say it? Say to our server, “Hey, that was good, but it wasn’t the greatest, the tart flavour just didn’t grab me.”



As a business owner, I want you to have a perfect evening, perfect service, amazing food, the music just so, the temperature in the dining room is good, the memory is pleasant, evocative... and most importantly, I want you to leave happy, plan to come back and tell everyone you meet about what a great time you had. After all, I’ve got to make a living! As a chef, in addition to these things, I want the food to be hot enough, seasoned right, presented in an appealing way, to be fresh. All good chefs also want something more; to communicate a creative ideal. For me it is that of local and organic ingredients prepared with a spirit of honesty, generosity and imagination—I want to not only feed you, but to make you think about where, how and why this particular food came to you at this moment, in this particular way. And finally, as a diner, and a hungry human like anyone else, I also want to be fed well, to feel a sense of value, but most importantly, to get the sense that someone back there really cares what just came out on that plate. So should you complain? Comment? Well, for me the answer is yes. But first, let me tell you why (and how):



I was lucky to have a crack at Chef Jason’s old customers...lucky in a way that few cooks ever get to experience. They were regulars, they were opinionated, they were comfortable and they weren’t in a hurry. When I did something that wasn’t perfect, or was ‘too creative’ or was under seasoned, over seasoned, over cooked, undercooked, they sent it back, they told the server, they might even come back and tell me themselves. They wanted things a certain way, had (rightfully) come to expect a certain level of quality and were happy to let me know when I missed the mark. I should be fair (...to myself, I mean, hey, it wasn’t all bad!), most of the food I sent out that year was approved, eaten, and complimented, but it was the food that didn’t succeed, or was even “just OK,” and the fact that the folks were willing to let me know, that made it easily my best year of school in all my years of cooking.



My taste isn’t your taste. No taste is exactly the same, but good food is like the US Supreme Court described pornography, “you know it when you see it,” –or in this case, taste it; but no chef worth his salt (or lack of it...) should be allowed to get away with serving poor food night after night without anyone saying anything. Now, often, this does tend to be a self correcting system—over time, people just stop coming back to a restaurant with bad food, but what about food that is just OK? Sometimes, price, location and service will keep mediocre food alive for years beyond its due date. What I’m saying is that I suspect that culturally (and this goes for both Canada and the US, and possibly, from my understanding, our mutual grandmother Great Britain, as well) we are too easy on bad and mediocre food; not wanting to come off as boorish or rude, we err on the side of caution and give a pass to most meals without comment.



But this is only half the story, the problem is also that when we do finally complain, we are so rude that it fosters resentment instead of dialogue. What made Cenare so positive an experience is that I was nurtured by complaint; the comments were constructive and honest and when applied became the foundation of my growth as a chef. They were never pissy and bitter, and they always came with second and even third chances. And the best part was that when I did start to hit the mark, they stopped being Chef Jason’s customers and started to become my own...



My fellow cooks (and servers, and pretty much all professional restaurant folks) are probably white knuckled and anxious reading this...Am I seriously giving a pass to complain? Am I offering permission for anyone to be ‘that customer?’ We all know the one: ”The water’s too cold...the plate has a smudge...the baseboard is dusty... my food is too, umm, flavourful...” (...that last one was an actual complaint!) We all know the one, and no, I’m not advocating for the fussy, high maintenance, impossible to please customer to become the norm. I’m just saying that if we considered food to be a dialogue, over time, if we brought more (constructive) complaint into the culture, we would all benefit with a little bit better food.



As a business owner, I want your experience to be amazing, because frankly, word of mouth is my only effective form of advertising. If you don’t tell us what is wrong, (and, I might add, before you pay the bill and get up to leave...) we have no chance of correcting it. If you leave unhappy and complain to other people instead of us, we’ll never know and we’ll never get better. As a chef, I am still learning every day, and one thing I’ve learned is that if I can bring a picky customer around, a person who (rightfully) expects quality and value...if I can please an individual palate, then I can create a loyal customer for life. As a chef who is trying to share a creative ideal, how can I ever bring you around if you don’t enjoy the experience, if you don’t let me know? And finally, as a diner, when I face that choice of whether or not to comment or complain, you might be surprised; usually, I’ll let something go, an obvious accident (things happen...) doesn’t bother me. With an experience that shows that people don’t care, with a truly awful meal? Honestly? I, like most people probably just won’t go back. But when someone is trying, even if they are failing badly, but it is obvious that they care...well, it’s only right to let them know; they deserve the chance to improve just like I did, and, I hope, still do.



Thanks, Boss.