weren't well trained . . . we tried to console ourselves with the usual
excuses. But the truth was, we just weren't good enough. Our food, while
charming to some, was unappealing to most. We did not commit
seppuku. Sam and Dimitri stayed on, determined to go down with the
ship.
But my cousin had hooked me up with my very first chef job, at a
spanking-new but already troubled boîte in the theater district and I
jumped at the offer. I felt bad about leaving my friends behind. And I
had the beginnings of a very nasty little heroin habit from all the dope I'd
been sniffing—but hey! I was about to become a chef!
CHEF OF THE FUTURE!
I WAS TWENTY-TWO YEARS old and the chef of a new theater
district restaurant on West 46th Street (Restaurant Row). As would
become something of a recurring theme in my career, I was following
close on the heels of the departed opening chef—who'd turned out, it was
said, to be an alcoholic psychopath, a compulsive liar and a thief. I, it
was hoped, was the solution to the problem: a fresh-faced, eager kid just
out of culinary school, who would respond to my novice owners' wishes,
and was willing and capable of turning an already bad situation around.
Tom H., as the place was called, was a classic vanity/boutique-type
operation. Named for one of its owners, it was a small, glass and crushed
velvet jewelbox of a place on the ground floor of a three-story
brownstone. Tom, the principal owner, had been a clothing designer, and
with Fred, his longtime lover, had been a popular host to his many
famous friends in the theater, fashion, music and film industries. Tom
and Fred were the beloved hosts of hundreds of well-remembered dinner
parties. They were genuinely lovely, intelligent, warm-hearted and funny
older guys who cooked well, had impeccable taste and were considered
(rightly) to be wonderful, charming and entertaining hosts—naturals, it
had been said, for the restaurant business, especially a restaurant in the