Life, on the Line (17 page)

I headed into the Laundry kitchen to prepare the
mise en place
, not for dinner that night, but for my future.

 

I landed at O'Hare and headed to the baggage claim to retrieve the box of food that I'd brought along. I headed outside to meet Henry, who had come to pick me up. We exchanged pleasantries and drove toward Evanston.

“I couldn't help but think that you were some punk kid who got cold feet. But man, you genuinely look sick. You're white as a ghost.”

I assured Henry that I felt fine and we began to chat about other Chicago restaurants. The month of e-mails gave us a certain comfort with each other. He mentioned that he wanted to set up a dinner somewhere on the last night I was in town and asked where I wanted to go.

“Blackbird,” I said. “I met Paul Kahan when I was in Spain and he seems like a great guy. I hear good things about his food.”

“Blackbird it is,” he said. “But tonight I want you to eat at Trio with me.”

We exited the expressway and started east down Dempster Avenue toward Evanston. The road pierced a series of strip malls and some low-rise office building sprawl, with the not so occasional fast-food chain in the mix. Compared to the vineyard-covered mountains flanking Napa Valley, the view was depressing. I was worried that Trio would be in the third strip mall to the left.

Finally, though, the suburban grunge gave way to grass, trees, and beautiful homes. This was encouraging. We turned on Hinman Avenue and I recognized the name from the Trio website. It was a beautiful tree-lined street within the community of Northwestern University. Even in March, the Midwest had some beauty and charm.

We walked up to the inn that housed Trio, which looked like it could easily fit in rural New Hampshire. A sign hung in front of a white pillar: THE HOMESTEAD. “Nice,” I thought.

As soon as we walked in, however, things felt a little dated. In the lobby area was an old green event sign—the kind where you pop in the plastic characters to announce private dining events in the restaurant. The gray carpet on the floor was dirty and worn. Henry had made arrangements for me to stay there for the three nights, so I checked in and went up to my room to catch my breath and get cleaned up. We agreed to meet in an hour.

The room was less like a hotel room and more like a studio apartment, complete with small kitchen. It was clean, but I couldn't help thinking that it was incongruous with a four-star restaurant.

An hour later I met Henry in the lobby and he led me through the front door of Trio. I got a glimpse of the small dining room as we walked toward a screen door that led to the kitchen. My eyes were drawn downward immediately. The kitchen floor was painted purple. I looked around and thought, “Thomas was right.” Despite feeling normal to me, The French Laundry was far from a typical place.

Henry gave me the tour of the restaurant and we settled into the smaller of the two dining rooms for my first formal interview.

Henry asked me directly what my vision for the restaurant would be. I knew he was losing momentum at this point. Shawn had already left to build Spring, and the popularity of Trio in the Chicago media had waned. Customers were starting to figure out that Trio was not really Trio anymore.

“Someday, I want to run the best restaurant in the country. Every step along the way I will pursue that goal like it could happen the next day.” Henry looked a little slack-jawed at me. He could tell I was serious, but he looked like my high school buddies that day around the campfire.

I went on to talk about the style of food with one word, “different.” I spoke about crafting tasting menus of various lengths to evoke emotions and engage all the senses.

He began to go into detail: how many cooks, the expediting system, the role wine would play in the menus, the role I would play in service. The questions went on and on, but the answers came easily for me. I spent virtually every waking moment dreaming of running my own kitchen, and whenever I didn't know an answer I defaulted to what I thought the best restaurant in the country would do.

We spoke for hours, and then I headed up to my room to comb over my prep lists for the next day. I adjusted them based on what I saw in the kitchen—the equipment, the layout, and the fact that Henry said he would be sitting at Trio's kitchen table watching me prepare the courses and that I would serve it and describe it to him personally. Somehow I didn't account for that. When I mentioned to him that I was planning to give him seven courses, he made a face. “You don't have to give me that many. I don't want it to take too long.”

I went through my notes and realized that the timing had to be tight. I rewrote my list to the minute.

Later that evening I joined Henry and his girlfriend, Mary, for dinner at Trio. This gave Henry a chance to continue interviewing me in a more informal setting as we ate the heavily Asian-influenced tasting menu.

The meal gave me an opportunity to size Trio up as well. The champagne was served in tall hollow-stem flutes, one of the plates early in the meal was chipped, and the bread was served on neon blue and orange glass plates. Our waiter, Peter, a bald man with a thick Bulgarian accent, was wearing a tuxedo and black bow tie, lending the service a formal if somewhat out-of-place feeling.

I watched the room closely, studying the front-of-house team and trying to understand the system that Henry used to facilitate service. It, too, was different than what I was used to. The food came out on rolling gueridons instead of being carried, the tablecloths were wrinkled, and a few of the staff didn't speak English very well. I knew immediately that I would have to make drastic changes to service if I landed the job.

After the meal I headed back to my room and went over my list again, assigning plates to each course based on what I saw during dinner. I went to bed early that night.

I woke up early and decided to take a walk before getting started. I grabbed a coffee in downtown Evanston, listened to some music, and cleared my head. I was ready.

I walked in the kitchen door at 10:00 A.M. and was greeted by Henry. “Hello, Mr. Grant. You ready?” He was as curious as I was anxious.

“I am,” I said. We set a 2:00 P.M. start time for his tasting.

I had done some advance prep at the Laundry prior to heading to Chicago—time-consuming tasks like curing foie gras, breaking down lobsters, and cleaning and tying the lamb. But I still had plenty of work to do.

I fired up the stove, set my cutting board in place, and composed a couple of
bains-marie
with essential tools. I soaked towels in a vinegar solution for wiping the plates, and ran the serviceware through the dish machine to make sure it was spotless. I treated the setup like a busy service on the fish station at the Laundry. I knew that if I wanted to knock this out I had to be incredibly organized and it also had to feel familiar.

About an hour in Henry walked through the kitchen, acting like he needed something for the dining room, but he was really just evaluating how I was working. “How's your timing?” he asked.

“I can start early if you like. Shall we make it one?”

“Sounds good.”

At 12:55 Henry seated himself at the Trio kitchen table armed with a camera, a legal pad, and a glass of water. “Whenever you're ready.”

I promptly brought the first course of asparagus soup to Henry, described the dish, and bolted back to the line to tend to the black bass that was sautéing on the flattop. I flipped the fish and got the lamb saddle in a hot pan, then delivered the next course. Everything was flowing and the food was coming out great. Henry studiously took notes with each course and lobbed questions at me about techniques, portion size, or plating. He was a good poker player, showing no emotion as he slowly dissected the food. He deconstructed each component, tasted it individually, then combined them as intended.

Course five was the butter-poached lobster, followed by the roasted lamb with favas and truffles. I pulled the lamb out of the oven just as he was taking his first bite of lobster and squeezed the ends. It was there . . . done.

I placed it in a polished copper pot with the browned butter that I had basted it in and the bouquet of herbs. As Henry finished up his lobster I walked the saddle up to the table and presented the meat. “Roasted Saddle of Elysian Fields Farm Lamb with fava beans, black truffle, and spring garlic.”

It looked beautiful and smelled even better. For the first time Henry cracked and a smile swept over his face. “You roasted that on the bone?” he asked.

“Yes, of course. Better flavor that way.”

“Yeah, but how do you know when it's done?”

“You just know . . .”

I walked back to the line to slice the lamb. I pulled a large bowl from the oven where it was warming briefly and added the garnishes and the sauce. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Henry craning his neck to see my cutting board as I began to take the loin off the bone. I stroked the knife down and curved it out while hoping the meat was perfectly cooked.

The medium-rare loin slowly rocked on the cutting board as I sliced it thinly, seasoned it with salt and pepper, fanned it out on the garnishes in the bowl, and sprinkled it with thyme leaves.

When I placed the bowl in front of Henry he looked at it and said simply, “Wow.” It was perfect.

He relished that dish, and when he was nearly finished he said, “I'm getting full. I normally don't finish all of the tryout's dishes. And we have Blackbird tonight! Oh, man.”

“I have one more small bite and we're done.”

Trio had a pastry chef, so I was not required to show Henry any desserts, but I had prepared a single bite of dessert anyway. In reality, the bite was more an
amuse-bouche
than dessert, but because it featured chocolate I placed it at the end as a logical conclusion to the tasting. It was meant to be a showstopper, something completely different than the traditional roast lamb. If I could pull it off, it would definitely be something he had never seen before.

This last bite was a risk. I wanted to show Henry where I wanted to take the food, how I saw my style evolving at Trio.

During our dinner the night before, the
mignardise
were served on a long granite slab not much wider than a ruler. While the captain was placing it down, Henry playfully grabbed a chocolate truffle before it came to rest on the table. When I saw this it struck me that I liked the idea of offering a bite-size composition to the guest directly. It produced an interesting, fun interaction and was more dynamic than placing it on the table.

I found one of the granite slabs and wrapped a white napkin around it. This would be my makeshift service piece for the final bite.

While at elBulli I watched the team make very thin sheets from invert sugars. I thought that you could perhaps flavor the sugar by incorporating a flavored powder into the base. I aimed to create a foie gras lozenge wrapped in a crispy chocolate. The bottle cap-size bite was designed to crack open when Henry bit down on it, revealing the creamy foie gras inside.

As Henry finished the lamb and stood up to walk his plate over to the dish machine I piped the cured foie onto a half dollar-size, chocolate-flavored sugar film and set another directly on top of it. I waved the tray briefly under the salamander and watched the top film conform around the foie gras like shrink-wrap. I flipped the candy and repeated it. The chocolate became perfectly enveloped. I placed the delicate bite on the linen-wrapped stick and walked up to Henry, who was now back in the booth thinking things were over. I extended the granite in his direction and held it out. He looked puzzled, unsure if I was trying to set it down or if he should grab it.

“Be careful,” I said, giving him a hint on how to proceed, “it is very fragile. Bittersweet chocolate-wrapped foie gras. Eat it in one bite, because the inside might be a tad liquidy.”

He picked up the lozenge and examined it closely, trying to figure out how it was made.

“This is where I see my food moving in the future,” I said as he popped it into his mouth.

His reaction was immediate.

“Holy shit, man!” he exclaimed. “Wow, is that good. Holy shit, that is cool. How did you do that? That is from Mars, man. Incredible.”

I nailed it.

That night Henry took me to Blackbird as planned. It was great to finally see Chicago proper and eat the food that Paul had talked about when I ran into him in Spain. Plus, the pressure of the tryout was off and Henry and I were getting to know and trust each other. He raved about the tasting, but told me he had a few more interviews lined up.

The next morning I boarded a plane back to San Francisco, confident that I would be offered the job.

When I returned to the Laundry I asked chef Keller for a moment of his time. I wanted to reflect on the experience and to get his thoughts. He quietly listened as I explained what I served and how well the tryout had gone. But I also mentioned the worn-out kitchen with purple floors, the dated decor, the tuxedos, and the chipped plates.

“I told you, Grant, there just aren't too many places out there like this one. And that's okay. Maybe it's better for you to start out in an environment like that—that's exactly what we did here. By working hard you appreciate it more when you finally get there, when you make it all happen. How was the owner? You trust him?”

“I do,” I said. “He's a really nice guy. But I'm not sure he wants the same thing I do, Chef.”

“What do you want?” Thomas asked.

“I want this,” I said, laughing, gesturing to the whole of The French Laundry.

“Then why leave?” We laughed some more. “You think he'll offer you the job?”

“Chef, it was perfect. The food was perfect. And the place was cleaner when I left than it was when I arrived. The question is whether or not he offers the job to a guy who has never really run his own kitchen. He asked me that, actually. I told him that I had more responsibility being a sous chef here than most chefs have anywhere, but I doubt he believed me. Who would believe all of this?”