and so forth all reside here. Without regular attention, the production box has a tendency to become a garbage dump for leftover mise en place. As such, it is the perfect place to initiate the creative process, to seek inspiration for specials. There is a quart of salsa verde tucked behind containers of chive oil; a six-quart Cambro of beluga lentils hides in the back; a can of piquillo peppers has been opened, half used, and dumped into pints; a tray of boquerones, mummified in plastic wrap, has found its way to the top shelf. Ideas begin to take shape in your head. There is an unclaimed lobe of foie gras in the meat box; fresh herring in the fish box will turn if unused; Piave, Taleggio, and Scamorza collect dust in the dairy box; there are girolles and velvet foots; there are the Brinata, the PX, the pistachios … It excites you to imagine what Chef might come up with for tonight. But since he has the final say on what goes out to the dining room, no real work on the specials will get done until he arrives. And since you have to be doing something when Chef walks in, it behooves you to get started on the two major tasks: one of you will do the pasta, the other will do the fish.
Stefan asserts that he’d like to make the pasta. “Because,” he says, “I’m better at it than you are. Your shit is mad doughy. Mine is elegant.” His real motive is to hide out in the prep kitchen all day. Pasta, of course, is a time-consuming process, but it requires little physical effort. It’s simple and relaxing. A hungover sous chef could immerse himself in the task all afternoon without having to reveal to Chef the state he’s in. Which is just as well as far as you’re concerned, because you consider fish butchery a specialty.
Stefan plucks a Pedialyte from the miniature refrigerator and sets off toward the back prep area. You pull a bib apron over your head and ready your knives.
Proper butchery takes place behind the plastic-flap doorway of a chilled butcher’s room. The room should be equipped with a deep sink, firm tables, and large, flat, self-healing cutting boards. Band saws, meat hooks, and other nifty gadgetry are helpful and often necessary in larger operations, but our restaurant doesn’t generate the sort of business that necessitates massive amounts of protein fabrication, so we don’t have them. In fact, we don’t even have a separate room for butchery. Having seen such rooms before, however, you do your best to replicate the environment.
On a level stainless worktable, away from the ambient heat of the ranges on the line, you begin to set your workspace. You stretch a damp side-towel flat against the metal of the table, smoothing out any wrinkles, and place your cutting board on top of it to prevent the board from slipping. To the right are a stack of extra side-towels, latex gloves, fish tweezers, and a plastic container of water into which you will discard any pin bones. Above your board is a stack of empty stainless-steel half hotel pans of various depths, into which you will load the fabricated fish when you finish portioning it. Beside the pans is a gram-sensitive digital scale, which you will use to check your cuts for consistency and accuracy. To the left you’ve reserved a spot for the trays of fish that you will bring out from refrigeration successively as you are ready to work on them. Nearby are a roll of plastic wrap, a container of ice, and a slim-jim trash bin.
The knives you have brought out from your kit are your specialty fish knives: the Yo-Deba, the Petty, and the Sujihiki. Like any diligent chef, you’ll take them to a stone before even thinking of cutting fish. But you sharpen your knives daily, so all they need is a few passes on eight-thousand grit to buff the edge to a shiny finish. The process is sensuous. They are obedient as you glide them across the smooth, wet surface of the stone. They’re lined with a slim glister in no time—keen as razors. You fell a few scraps of paper to loosen any burr. The paper flutters to bits at the blades’ touch. They are like katana. You are ready to cut the fish.
The first fish you retrieve from the box is the fluke, a flat whitefish native to the Atlantic waters just off the Long Island coast. Its flesh is a shady pearl color, moist and delicate. Its average weight is two or three pounds, but it can reach ten. It is sturdier than most fish its size, and it stands up to many cooking techniques. It is flaky and meaty at the same time. Its flavor welcomes bold combinations but stands as well on its own. It is versatile and delicious. Fluke is your favorite fish.
The spinal cord of the fluke runs directly down its middle. Whereas round fish are broken up bilaterally into a left and a right side, flatfish such as halibut and fluke can be seen as having four separate quadrants: top left, top right, bottom left, and bottom right. Unfortunately, this type of fish allows the careless butcher to carve out four fillets without betraying a lack of ability to the untrained eye. You know, however, that a true craftsman with careful knife work maintains the connection between the two sides of the top half and the two sides of the bottom half. You know to trace the tip of your blade carefully along the spine of the fish at the center, so as to preserve the membrane of skin between the cuts, allowing the fillets to retain their complete cellular integrity and yielding the amplest, supplest harvest of flesh. You try very hard every time you butcher fluke to achieve that. It’s almost a competition you have with yourself. Which is why you’ll cut fish before rolling pasta any day.
Your station is fully set, and the first fluke is on your cutting board. You take a deep breath and start in.
The first stroke of your knife glides hilt deep into the flesh of the fish. You can feel bone on your tip. You begin to trace the spine.
But a clattering at the back door interrupts your work.
“What’s up, bitches!” booms a familiar voice from the entryway.
You glance up from the cutting board. It’s the executive chef. Stefan materializes from the back prep area in a flash.
“What’s up, Chef,” you say, in unison.
“Good news,” says Chef, tinkering on his BlackBerry. “We got a twelve-top at nine o’clock, followed by the Times at nine-thirty. We’re at two fifty and climbing.”
Your knife wavers in your hand. You nick the flesh of the fish inadvertently—a letdown. Chef’s lips peel back like the Cheshire cat’s.
“You boys ready to get your shit pushed in?”
A KITCHEN’S IDENTITY IS SHAPED MAINLY BY TWO THINGS: cuisine and technique—what you cook and how you cook it. They are the obvious differences from one place to the next—Japanese or Italian, say, four-star or greasy spoon. But there are other, less obvious differences as well. The layout, for example, is always unique. The storage spaces, the walk-in boxes, the prep area, the line—they’re positioned differently everywhere you go. Some kitchens have several floors and several rooms devoted to different tasks (pastry shops, sous vide labs, banquet lines, butcheries); other kitchens cram all the tasks into one space. The size and shape of things vary as well. Some spaces are big enough to hold eighty cooks at once; in other places you might cook through an entire night of service without leaving a four-by-four-foot space. In the big places, you use double-stacked combis—computerized super ovens—to make huge batches of things; in the small places you might do everything to order on one six-burner range. Some restaurants are all about volume, turn-and-burn operations where all that matters is the Z report—the financial breakdown at the end of the day; other restaurants focus on the food and the ambiance, exchanging high cover counts for the quality of the experience. Some places can do both simultaneously; such places tend to do well.
Our restaurant is on the finer end of the spectrum. It’s a “Modern American” eatery, tucked into the first floor of an old apartment building on a quiet street in the West Village. We have ninety seats in the dining room and about a dozen more at the bar. We have a small à la carte menu and we do half a dozen plats du jour. Our check average is around $75.00 per person (appetizer, entrée, dessert), plus
