Still excited about working for the startup, but a bit less enthusiastic. Did I say 98% sure I will sign ? Well right now it is rather 70 %. I started working for the restaurant at home this morning producing chocolate financiers. Yesterday the owner was wondering about what he should put on the cafe gourmand, so I suggested to him financiers and mini crème brulées. Since he doesn't have molds for financiers, neither a recipe for them, I did some trials at home and brought them to the restaurant. They made it immediately on the menu !
The final mise en place was rather stressful, because of course we had overlooked a lot of things on the menu that were to be prepared. Everybody skipped dinner and worked through from 3p.m. to 8 p.m. My highlight of the day was the visit of the owner's mother in law. A German lady, that had moved to France in her 20s like me, and has run a restaurant in the Perigord region for 15 years (like me in the future). She made an end to the anarchy and chaos, and drove the team to get ready with all these recipes nobody knew. After the mise en place work, while we were waiting for the first customers she and I exchanged all our foie gras recipies. I hope I will have an opportunity to meet this lady more often.
Then we kept waiting for customers. And waiting. And waiting. At 10.30 finally an order for 4. The frustrated owner and his family. Nobody else had even walked by. He said later that the restaurant was located in the most desert street of Paris. So why the hell did he buy it ????? Just for the terrace potential between May and September ? Even though there were only four dishes to prepare it gave me a first impression of what working with the team will be like. It will not be so easy and I will have to calm down a little. Oh my god they were soooo slow. And clueless about how to do it and what. I just wanted to fire off the plates, get everything cooking at the same time and send it out. As I am used to and have learnt to do in the last year. One new colleague made a comment : "You are really motivated, aren't you !" But I think he really meant that I was too pushy for him and should relax, I guess. But I can't. The desire to get stuff out fast is now inside of me.
Also I am not overly impressed by the food and the recipes. Not the same level of quality as in the last restaurant. So I'll see. Maybe the trial in the other restaurant on Tusday will be good, despite the "lonely basement". If they offer me a job too the choice might be difficult. If they don't take me, maybe I'll stick with the startup until September, when there is normally the biggest turnaround moment in Paris restaurants, and a lot more interesting opportunities than in March during "la crise".
I hope tomorrow we will see the first real customers. Anybody not knowing where to have an reasonably priced, average quality lunch or dinner in Paris tomorrow, please contact me ;)
I just want to say what an excellent opportunity this is for you - it's not every day you get to see how to screw up a restaurant opening!
Seriously, even if you don't take a position there, you will have already learned a lot of 'what not to do' for that day in the ever nearer future when you have your own place.
Posted by: syd | March 02, 2009 at 05:12 AM