Generation Chef (18 page)

He had fifteen minutes to prepare before the rest of Wells's party arrived at seven, and a few minutes more while they sat down and thought about whether to try the beverage pairings. The menu was the menu, no latitude there, but the execution, for this table on this night, was all Jonah.

The three men who were joining Wells arrived at seven, and as they walked past the kitchen on the way to the dining room Jonah recognized Ed Levine, founder of the website Seriouseats.com, whose son had played youth basketball with Jonah—and who was part of a table for five on the following night. The challenge increased exponentially: Jonah had to cook the best meal of his life, and when he was done he had to revamp the menu del dia to avoid any duplication for the ballplayer's dad, who undoubtedly would report back to Wells on his meal.

First out, the pintxos, which on any other night would barely have caught Jonah's eye: the gilda, which they always served; some charred Padrón peppers; garlic shrimp on toothpicks.

The egg course was a bit showier. A fried egg white sat under corn and tomatoes cooked with chunks of homemade, pimentón-cured bacon. A raw yolk perched on top of that. When the diner poked the yolk with a fork, it ran down into the warm corn and tomatoes and thickened the oil the vegetables had been cooked in, creating a sauce.

The fish course was skate served with turnips in a sauce of pureed turnip greens and fennel, a little flourish that made the point about Jonah's low-waste philosophy. He saw no sense in discarding the turnip tops if he could turn them into something delicious.

The meat course was Jonah's homemade chistorra sausage, this version made with lamb instead of the traditional pork or beef, flavored with garlic and pimentón and served with a slow-cooked bean stew.

For dessert, a goat-cheese cheesecake, a dense little puck topped with candied almonds and served with a nectarine sauce.

At each step, Jonah, Nate, Jenni, and the dining-room captain and servers huddled over the plate like surgeons and operating-room nurses considering the specifics of a patient's anatomy, Jonah bent almost double as he arranged even the smallest element on the plate. There was no time for discussion, and no one was about to contradict Jonah as he adjusted a sprig or a bean or wiped the already-clean rim of a plate, but hovering seemed the supportive thing to do.

As the egg course headed to the back, one of the servers reached over to nudge the corners of Nate's pursed mouth at least up to even, if not into a smile. “The boys are nervous,” was the subterranean chatter, as staffers reassured them about how great the food looked and how happy the table seemed. Caleb, one of two servers attending to Wells, measured the collective angst of the knot of people at the pass and reassured them.

“This isn't my first rodeo with him,” said Caleb, who had served Wells at an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side. Wells never
reviewed the place, for whatever reason, but Caleb saw no need to share that part of the story with his coworkers.

Faced with the need to appear very calm, staffers siphoned their nerves into their cell phones and texted friends to say that Pete Wells was back. Those friends tended to be in the business, given the no-weekends off, late-night schedule of most restaurant people—who else socialized at two a.m. on a weeknight?—which was why the front room suddenly got very crowded. Animated customers ate and drank and craned their necks toward the dining room, even as they tried very hard to look as though they weren't. Several restaurants operated without their general manager or bartender or sommelier that night, because they had no idea what Pete Wells looked like and intended to sit at their tables until they got a glimpse. They told the Huertas staffers that they were there to support the gang and fill the place up, and then they admitted their ulterior motive.

It was all peripheral noise. The only talk that mattered was what the host overheard as Wells and his friends headed out the door: Empellón Cocina served what they called a cheeseburger taco, he said. It was right next door. Was anybody game?

With that, the men headed next door for more food, leaving Jonah and Nate to read several courses' worth of empty plates as though they were tea leaves. It could be a very good sign, an indication that the group had liked every single thing they were served. Or it could mean that the portions were too small. The cheeseburger taco could be nothing more than curiosity mixed with convenience, or it could mean that Wells was still hungry—but not interested in more food from Huertas.

There was no way to tell and no time to dwell on it, because Jonah and Nate had to figure out a new menu and get the food orders in by eleven. Wells might as well be eating at Huertas two nights in a row, even though he wasn't, because of his friend, who was.

They slid into an empty booth to discuss their options, with no idea of what was available.

Jonah considered putting chistorra sausage in the egg course, but Nate vetoed that. Wells had tried the chistorra. It was too similar.

Nate suggested fish for a main course, maybe throw in a shared tortilla with pan tomate and serve chistorra migas without an egg. Jonah didn't think that was good enough, so Nate backtracked: What were the best dishes Jonah had done so far?

For a moment Jonah thought about inventing a new dish, but this was hardly the right time for an experiment. They agreed: Diners loved Jonah's duck, and the scallop crudo had gotten raves. One customer had said it was the best crudo ever, so it went on the list along with duck served with turnip and fennel migas.

Jonah had a goat's milk cheese from northwest Spain, the Leonora, which he could turn into a pintxo on top of bread. Nate gave him a thin smile.

“You're going to put cheese on toast,” he said, imagining how that would sound in a text from Wells's friend, no matter how good the cheese turned out to be. They agreed on a smoked trout pintxo instead.

For dessert, the Spanish version of an affogato. Nobody else in town had that almond ice cream.

They agreed to add a shared tortilla to the list, placed the necessary orders, and headed home, confident that they'd come up with a great last-minute menu—the only items that would show up twice were the gildas and the complimentary plate of chocolate and almonds at the very end. But on his bike ride home Nate had another idea, so he pulled over to send Jonah a final text. They should stick with the egg dish Wells and his group had just eaten, the one with corn and tomatoes. That way they could make what seemed like a spontaneous offer when they saw their returning guest, as though they hadn't known in advance
that he would show up. They'd make an order of huevos rotos for him, while everyone else at his table got the egg dish that was on the menu, which sent the right message: “‘We can do something on the fly for you because you were just here,'” was the way Nate saw it. “It's incredibly hospitable. It's the Danny Meyer ethos: We want to cook for you.”

O
livia, who had been a host at Huertas for a week, was making calls to confirm reservations for the last Friday in September. About halfway through the list, she got to a table of two.

A man picked up the phone.

“I'm confirming Friday at seven for two,” she said.

He asked her to remind him of the name the reservation was under.

Bianco, she said.

He mentioned that his dining companion had a shellfish allergy, and Olivia reassured him that the chef would create an alternate dish for the scallop course.

Olivia might be new, but she had quickly become as alert for possible clues as everyone else. Had Mr. Bianco asked what name the reservation was under because she had interrupted him in the middle of something important—or because for a moment he'd forgotten which fake name he used when he booked the table?

As soon as she hung up she looked at the e-mail address he provided when he made the reservation, a weird and seemingly random
assortment of letters. Huertas's reservation software allowed her to search contact information to see if a customer had been there before. She stared at the screen. Mr. Bianco had in fact been there before. He was the party of four in the dining room, seven days earlier. He was Pete Wells, and he had just confirmed that he would be back tomorrow. And she, with her brand-new review antenna, had picked up on it from a moment's hesitation on his part, just long enough for her to wonder, Doesn't this guy know his own name?

She ran back to the kitchen to tell Jonah and Nate.

That night Jonah and Nate sat down again to plan Wells's next—and almost surely final—meal. Everyone said he showed up a maximum of three times, and even though the first time had been a fluke, this had to be it. Jonah strove for the right balance, down to the smallest detail: The smoked octopus pintxo was a hit, but he'd recently served it balanced on a tiny spoon, which might scream “look at me” and might be more self-conscious than he wanted it to be. He'd perch it on a chip with aioli instead. Still great, but not so precious.

Ideas tumbled out as he imagined the meal, each choice narrowing the options for the course that followed it. He'd revamp a classic Basque stew of tuna, peppers, tomatoes, and onions; make it lighter; substitute scallops; and turn the rest into a jammy sauce. Migas with a slow-poached egg, charred broccoli, and anchovies. Duck, but a different preparation than the one he'd served to Ed Levine. This time he'd do duck with turnips, carrots, and a carrot and duck jus.

But it wasn't a Spanish preparation, and he didn't want to get too far offtrack. “Maybe turnips are a talking point,” he said, as much to himself as to Nate. “Maybe like grelos, a Basque green, usually served with smoked pork, so that's like turnips with duck. We'll make that point.” He resolved to tutor the servers before service, so that they could explain the connection.

He didn't have a dessert, but one would come to him.

The only logistical issue was the octopus. If Wells started at the bar as he had on his first visit, he might order something, and it might be the charred octopus and potatoes that was always on the front-room menu, which would require two last-minute adjustments. First, Jonah would have to substitute a different pintxo on the menu del dia, to avoid serving him octopus a second time. Second, and probably more important, he had to figure out how to step over to the wood-burning oven, in full view of his most important customer, to prepare his single order of charred octopus. That was not a good move; Wells could reasonably wonder if the dish would be different, possibly not as good, when made by the cook who normally worked the wood oven. If Wells went to the bar and ordered octopus, Jonah would have to find an excuse to hang out at the oven after he made that single order, to look as though he often spent time there, and nothing unusual was going on.

He and Nate tried to imagine every conceivable aspect of the meal, despite the late hour and the fact that Jonah had to be up early to do a cooking segment on the
Today
show, which until the Wells confirmation had been the biggest media event on the horizon. Now the proportions of the day had changed. After a little bit of sleep he'd make an egg dish on TV, hit the farmers market on his way to Huertas, and hope to find a dessert idea somewhere along the way.

Before Jonah and Nate closed up, they allowed themselves to address a question they would share only with each other: Did a second visit to the dining room mean they were in the running for three stars? It was too much to hope for, for a casual place like Huertas, but they allowed themselves to fantasize, just for a moment. One star would be a disappointment, although they would never say that to the staff, and no stars would be a disaster, but Wells wouldn't be coming back if his experience so far had been that bad. They tried to convince themselves that they
were in very good shape for two, and hoped they wouldn't be punished for the fleeting hubris that led them the consider the possibility of three.

Two stars would make a big difference. Jonah had seen it at Maialino. “There's a moment in the meal when the guest realizes, these are professionals, all the little things are being taken care of. That's the moment when they let their guard down, relax, and have a good time.” Two stars from the
Times
would convey that more clearly than all the coverage they'd had so far.

Whatever they got, it would be nice simply to have the process end. The restaurant vibrated with nerves these days, hours after everyone else had gone home.

•   •   •

Jonah had a childhood memory
of walking with his dad up the long block from the grocery store to his family's apartment, laden with bags, and it came back to him as he walked along the western leg of the Union Square farmers market on the morning of Wells's visit. He usually shopped at a smaller market a couple of blocks from Huertas rather than drag a lot of bags three times as far or have to spring for a cab, but he wanted plenty of options, because he was shopping for inspiration. He liked to stroll the length of the market before he made a purchase—particularly today. He was still shy a dessert, beyond a simple flan, and the pressure to come up with the right one didn't make being creative any easier.

The weeks between summer and fall were full of jewel-toned fruits, as bright peaches and nectarines yielded to more somber Italian prune plums and Concord grapes, and the scent of the grapes wafted through the market. Jonah walked past one stall, then another, looking for a way to make the flan more exciting, wondering what he could do to make a grape memorable.

Then it came to him. Grapes were small and round and had thin skins. Cherry tomatoes were small and round and had thin skins. At Maialino, they put Sungold cherry tomatoes into the deep fryer just until their skins burst, and Jonah had always thought that the same technique might work with grapes. The skins would crisp up and slip right off; they'd be a little bitter, and crunchy, which meant that he could use them instead of pine nuts, a more traditional Spanish presentation.

He bought grapes, hustled back to Huertas, and spent a half hour frying sample batches until he got it right: A thirty-second dip in the fryer and the skin gave way with a gentle squeeze, leaving the inside of the grape intact.

Jonah had his menu. A friend at a bigger restaurant called to see if he should dispatch people to make Huertas look busier, and Jonah turned him down. The dining room wouldn't be busy when Wells arrived at six forty-five, but by the time he left it would be pretty full, which was preferable to an onslaught.

Tonight might almost be fun. Wells could have bailed after the first or second visit, but he hadn't, so Jonah had one more opportunity to stick to what had worked so far, to cook for himself, to offer Wells a meal that Jonah loved. Holding to that standard made all the rest tolerable. If Jonah was happy with a dish, if he was proud of it, he could withstand the occasional request for sauce on the side, a less runny egg, the deletion of what seemed to him an essential ingredient, lamb sent back to be cooked for too long; possibly even bureaucrats and licensing delays and staff betrayals.

•   •   •

By the time the restaurant
opened that night, the staff was reduced to magical thinking and superstition.

The dining-room captain and one of the servers wished that there were a way to time-travel to midnight to know that they'd survived.

Olivia tried not to have second thoughts. “God, I hope I'm right,” she said. “I'll feel so guilty if I put everyone through this for nothing.”

Jonah cut the citrus wedges for the bar himself rather than have one of the bartenders do it, as though uniform segments were the ticket to success.

And Nate smiled when Wells walked in the door holding a bicycle helmet, grateful for good karma wherever he found it.

Jonah monitored every plate that went to Wells's table—table forty, even though it was a party of two—and every plate that came back. He was happy that Wells ordered the cheese course, which might mean that he wanted to experience the full menu. He saw it as a good sign that Wells and his guest lingered even after he paid the bill—they must have been there for almost three hours—which they wouldn't have done if Wells was disappointed.

He distracted himself by wondering about the timeline. If September 26 was the final visit, would someone call about taking photos the week of the twenty-ninth? If they took photos the week of the twenty-ninth, would it run in time to help with the holidays?

He got his answer quickly—the
Times
dispatched a photographer and informed Jonah that the review was scheduled for October 7; he should expect a call to fact-check the details. There was nothing left to do but wait until the afternoon of October 6, since reviews went up online the day before they appeared in the paper.

And then Ryan Sutton, the lead critic at Eater, showed up twice in a matter of days for the menu del dia, first on a late-night visit by himself, identified by another diner who recognized him and quickly sent a heads-up text to Nate, “Just FYI, Ryan Sutton at bar,” and again in a
party of three. His colleague, Robert Sietsema, had already reviewed Huertas, so no one had bothered to research his appearance—but here he was, acting as though he was going to write something. There was no time for hard-earned relief at having finished up with the
Times
critic: It seemed likely that Huertas was going to have its fate sealed, one way or another, twice in one week.

•   •   •

Alyssa had started to get
overdraft notices back in August, which had to be a mistake. It wasn't as though she had suddenly started spending money on clothes or home decor. Her life was circumscribed by work: She took the subway in from Astoria, cooked, took the subway back, slept, did laundry, and paid the same monthly bills she always paid. And yet she seemed to have less money than she thought she should, through August and into September.

When she finally had a chance to look at her account, she saw the problem immediately: Her loan repayments for four years at CIA's main campus, in Hyde Park, New York, had increased automatically when a temporary reduction expired, and she'd forgotten that it was going to happen. Alyssa owed close to $80,000, as she'd paid for all of her CIA bachelor's degree with student loans. At the time, she thought that the degree was essential because she hadn't gone to college, so she powered through the program in three years, no summers off, even as she worked at a nearby restaurant. If she'd come to regret that decision, to think she could have gotten where she was on experience alone, she could hardly ask to have the loans forgiven on the basis of her bad judgment.

Alyssa had spent her externship at Gramercy Tavern, graduated in December 2010, and went back to Southern California to spend the holidays with her family. She started on the line at Maialino the following
March, followed by a stint as a private chef—only to get to here, worse than broke. Paying off her loans was like having three rents, she thought, on a paycheck that barely covered the first one.

“Forget keeping my head above water,” she said. “I'd just hoped for my nose.”

She was well-paid for a line cook, at $13 an hour—most New York City line cooks earned an hourly rate of between $8 and $12—but Los Angeles restaurants tended to pay more, so she decided to go home. The math was inescapable: Alyssa couldn't afford to work as a line cook in New York City and pay off a four-year culinary education. Jonah had said that he might still promote her to sous, even though lunch service was on hold for now, a casualty of a slow September and the new menu—but he hadn't brought it up recently, and she didn't see how he could give her a raise when things were so slow and there were no added shifts for her to supervise. In truth, she wasn't sure it would make enough of a difference.

Alyssa had been cooking professionally since she was seventeen, nine years of working the line for too little money, even while she was at school. She'd been cooking for a paycheck longer than Jonah or Jenni had, and all she had to show for it, she felt, was a mountain of debt and not enough of a prospect, here, to make staying a rational choice.

She didn't have the kind of food dream that propelled Jonah and Nate. Alyssa's idea of success was closer to the ground: She wanted to open what she called a “threefold” business with her brother, who didn't want to spend his life helping their mother with her tax prep and immigration business—a sandwich shop; an adjacent store that sold the breads they used in the shop as well as meats, cheeses, and pastas; and a small restaurant with a bar. “A delicious bar room,” was how she described it, “with a dining room that chefs could rent for pop-ups or I
could use as I please. Maybe a tasting menu this Saturday? Get out the word: ‘Chef's trying something new.'”