Opening night - Not exactly a success 16/05/09
Now we realize why the kitchen was so calm at 7pm yesterday – the cook believes in doing everything fresh and on the spot. Which had sounded good at interview, but is of no practical use whatsoever. We all want freshly made gnocchi, but freshly made in the morning is fine, not at 10.30 at night when the order arrives! Unfortunately, there were huge delays with orders, and the food was poorly presented. The cuoco blamed it all on the aiuto-cuoco, but, since we ended up having to spend a great deal of time in the kitchen sorting things out, we could see that the cuoco simply hadn’t prepared the basics. As my soucera said, it doesn’t take an expert to know that you need to have your basics - tomatoes,onions, garlic and parsley chopped up, parmesan shavings freshly grated, grilled vegetables ready etc. This guy was so out of it that he actually started making up a fishstock when the order for the fish couscous came in. I happened to see the face of the woman who ordered it – not good. The ...