This Time Next Year(35)

Minnie had been working in Le Lieu de Rencontre for six months. It was a Michelin-star restaurant in Mayfair and a very different experience to the place she’d worked before. Victor’s, where she’d got a job straight out of school, had been a family-run restaurant in Kentish Town. There had only been three chefs in a cramped kitchen, whereas here there were usually over twenty people cooking at any one time. The clientele at Victor’s had been families and young foodies, whereas Rencontre was stuffed with city suits with expense accounts who liked to be seen in expensive places. At Victor’s she’d been allowed to cook. Here she was barely allowed to turn on the oven.

Minnie had left school with no clear career plan or vocation. It had been Leila who’d suggested she learn to cook.

‘You’ve got a natural taste for food, you always know what’s going to work well together,’ Leila said.

‘What bangers and mash, spag and Bol, Weetabix and milk?’ Minnie laughed.

‘I’m serious, Min, you’ve got a natural flair. If you got trained up in a proper kitchen, you could be really good.’

She’d been amazed when they’d offered her the job at Victor’s; she had no experience and barely a CV. Paul, the head chef, had asked her to cook him a Spanish omelette and hired her on the spot as he watched her make it. She’d loved working with Paul, the atmosphere of the cosy family-run restaurant, the regulars who came in, learning about food, improving her skills week on week. It was Victor himself, the elderly French owner, who had told her to leave.

‘Minnie, you have a gift, but you can’t learn everything from Paul. You need to work in more kitchens, see how other chefs work. Only then will you grow.’

‘But I love it here, I’ve still got so much to learn,’ Minnie protested.

‘We have a saying in France, “à chaque oiseau son nid est beau” – the bird loves his own nest. You don’t know any other nest, Minnie. You must spread your wings and learn to fly.’

As Victor spoke, a slow smile spread across his leathery lined face. It was the face of a man who’d lived well, who’d spent a lot of time in the sun and drunk red wine every day of his adult life.

So she’d spread her wings and landed at Rencontre. She’d been there six months and she hated it. It was a huge team and every commis chef around her had sharp elbows and even sharper tongues. She was on rotation working beneath various specialist chefs. This month she was assigned to the pastry chef, and he was the worst yet. Rob had taken against Minnie from her very first day. There was a dish on the menu served with a saffron butter sauce. Minnie had mentioned how at Victor’s they’d made a similar sauce but with a squeeze of lime rather than lemon. Rob humiliated her in front of everyone, asking if she wanted to rewrite the whole menu that had been designed by a Michelin-star chef. She’d quickly learnt to keep her thoughts on the food to herself.

She wanted to stick it out for a year, try and move up from second commis to first. This place would look great on her CV if she could leave with a good reference. But the hours were gruelling, the pace exhausting, and she didn’t even feel she was learning much.

Tonight was New Year’s Eve and the place was packed. She didn’t want to work tonight, but she’d been rota’d on all week without a break. She’d missed Christmas with her family and worked fifteen-hour days; her whole body ached with fatigue. All week she’d been charged with the monotonous job of piping brandy crème patissière into miniature Christmas puddings. They were to be served as mignardises – or petits fours – after the dessert course. The puddings were the size of walnuts and they had to be delicately holed out then filled in such a way that not a drop of filling was visible.

‘No.’

‘Again.’

‘Not right.’

‘Sloppy!’

‘Minnie, you’re a fucking disgrace of a pastry chef. Where did you learn to bake again? Greggs?’

Rob had been screaming at her all afternoon. Her piping was good and she knew it; he was just making her do it again and again because he could. She’d just finished a perfect sheet of twenty when he’d loomed over her, inspected one, then tossed the whole batch on the floor.

‘The crème pat is warm, you’ve overworked it.’

Rob’s face darted forward, inches from hers. His grey skin and stinking breath made her want to gag. He had eye bags that stretched down to his cheeks, giving the impression that his face was melting. ‘Do you even taste your food, or are you trying to watch your figure?’

Minnie composed a blank expression, trying not to react. A few of the other commis chefs looked on sympathetically; they knew Rob went too far with Minnie. The first week she’d worked there, a few of them had gone for a drink after their shift. Rob had made a pass at Minnie after a few too many beers. She’d pushed him away as politely as possible, but Rob wasn’t the kind of guy who could brush off a perceived slight. He acted as though any woman working in his kitchen was another ingredient in his pantry, to be used as he saw fit.

‘If you’re packing on a few extra pounds, it’s not my problem, Minnie,’ Rob hissed. ‘If you’re going to overwork the crème like an amateur, you’d better taste every batch before it leaves this station.’

Minnie had tasted it; it wasn’t overworked. She cleared up the mess and picked up a new piping bag. If she could endure one more week she’d move out from Rob’s rotation, maybe then life at the restaurant would get easier.