The camera, it is said, never lies but I do not believe that television’s current preoccupation with programmes designed to emphasise the speed, noise and, above all, the bad language in restaurant kitchens paints the full or even the correct picture of life behind the swing door, even if it makes for much better drama.
There is no doubt that speed is an essential ingredient, particularly in those restaurants on both sides of the Atlantic which aim to ‘turn tables’ up to three times in an evening with bookings at 6pm, then 8pm and, finally, after 10pm.
But in those kitchens which sacrifice volume for a much higher average spend and which concentrate on only one sitting in the evening, the reverse is the case. I have lost count of how many kitchens and in how many different languages I have spotted the sign that reads ‘Work Don’t Talk’ above the kitchen range and where the only sound above the whispers of chefs hard at work is that of their timers beeping.
I was struck by the silence which prevailed in the kitchens of Le Cinq in the Four Seasons George V Hotel in Paris the first time I was escorted through it in the wake of the FT’s wine correspondent [that’s me, folks – JR] and the restaurant’s youthful Milanese sommelier Enrico Bernardo shortly after he had won the gruelling Best Sommelier in the World competition earlier this year in Athens. He was leading us to a wine tasting in the hotel’s wine cellar 14 metres underground, way below the level of the Seine and the Metro, carved from rocks subsequently used to build the Arc de Triomphe nearby.
The kitchen was not that much noisier when I returned at 9pm one busy Saturday evening and I stood close by Lionel Durand, the restaurant’s sous chef and long term right hand man to its head chef Philippe Legendre. The only significant noise came when a waiter walked in through the automatic doors, passed the recently taken order to Durand and whispered ‘Ca marche’, or ‘order on’, in his ear.
Durand would then call out the full details of the order via a small speaker which ensured that the line of eight chefs on the other side of the counter could hear him clearly. After which there was just a brief staccato volley of ‘oui, Chef’ as each one heard of their specific responsibility and either started to prepare the dish, if it were a first course, or made a mental note to do so if it were a main course.
For the rest of my time in this prestigious kitchen the greatest noise came from the hum of the dish- and glass-washers. For minutes at a time there was studied silence although the cooks would whisper to one another asking how something was progressing or would check with Durand as to whether a table was ready for its next course. Such is the impact of this hierarchical chain of command, with everyone knowing their place and responsibility, that Durand spent most of his time checking and then ticking off the orders as they went out with his pink pen, hustling the waiting staff to get a move on if any dish was ready and furiously wiping the rims of any bowls or dishes with his cloth to ensure that they were spotless before covering them with a china or highly polished stainless steel cover.
This professionalism and skill, together with great technique and attention to detail, combined to produce a meal of remarkable originality. Both Legendre and Durand were trained in the classic French style (both cooked for a long time at the renowned Taillevent before opening the renovated George V in 1999) and seem to take particular delight in raising more traditional dishes to new heights.
A simple dish of the most succulent steak tartare came topped with Oscietra caviar and was served with a crisp tartare sauce, and although this novel accompaniment has undoubtedly spoilt me for a return to the egg, onion and Worcester sauce it is normally served with, it seemed worth the 105 euros asked for it. Equally refined was the simple but perfectly-dressed green salad that accompanied it.
Far more intricate was a circle of spinach leaves topped with a sliced artichoke and interlaced with sliced black truffles under a sweet onion compote, a combination of flavours that, thanks to the precise addition of top quality balsamic vinegar, redolent of oak rather than simple sweetness, enticed and excited the palate. Equally satisfying, but slightly simpler, were a veal chop with capers for two and an exquisite lemon soufflé. Two dishes, however, revealed that in his pursuit for the new, Legendre may have overstepped the mark: the finely diced melon served with the turbot is just too sweet to do justice to this ‘ the king of fish’ while there was just too much Parmesan with the fricassée of Breton langoustines.
But if Legendre, Durand and their brigade establish an obvious esprit du corps in the kitchen then it is matched and perhaps even overshadowed by that established by Bernardo, the restaurant manager Eric Beaumard and their team in the restaurant.
The first thing that struck me as we sat down in the grand dining room was a sense of confidence. We knew immediately we were in the hands of true experts. And as the evening unfolded I realised that this was not because they stuck so rigidly to the system, so common in France, where only one person can take the food order and another the wine, but because they had successfully merged the two. Bernardo initially trained as a chef before his taste buds were attuned wine, so he deftly switched from taking a food order from a table of Russians, including several taking the restaurant’s children’s menu, to advising a couple of American wine enthusiasts that they could find the California flavours they were looking for in a bottle of Spanish wine at a price which they subsequently confessed was far lower than they were expecting to pay. Beaumard, once a runner-up in the same sommelier competition Bernardo has recently won, obviously has no intention of letting his younger staff steal the enormous pleasure he derives from serving the food to his customers and positively zooms around the room. And all the staff seem to smile.
On our way out I congratulated Beaumard on his team. He explained that they were able to achieve this because they worked in the evenings only and a completely fresh team worked at lunch, a significant consequence of the restaurant’s being part of an international hotel company with much bigger financial resources than any independent restaurateur could match. This goes some way to explaining Le Cinq’s obviously high prices, but nevertheless would fully justify them for that very special occasion.
Le Cinq, Four Seasons George V, 31 Avenue George V, Paris 75008, 01.49.52.71.54 Open lunch and dinner seven days.