"Does Scott think about food? When he's not working?" I asked Gino,
out of Scott's hearing. He smiled.
"He thinks about food," Gino said. "A lot."
Scott is thirty-four years old. He's got dark, boyish good looks, with an
eccentric nose that looks right on a chef. There are dark blue rings under
his eyes and he has the skin pallor of a man who's spent too many hours
toiling under fluorescent kitchen lighting. He wears the bemused
expression of a guy who knows how bad it can get, who's always looking
and waiting for the other shoe to drop. He's not so much a screamer
anymore. "I used to blow up all the time. I still yell, if there's laziness,
sloppiness, someone thinks they're getting over." Pointed sarcasm seems
more the preferred tactic these days. And he does not share my pleasure
in handling a pirate crew. "Someone has a problem with another cook in
my kitchen? I tell them work it out amongst themselves. I don't have
time for that. I say, 'Work it out, 'cause if you still have a problem with
so-and-so tomorrow? You're gone. Maybe you're both gone.'" He doesn't
bully, harangue or excoriate; the occasional caustic comment seems
chillingly effective. I hung out in the Veritas kitchen recently, knocked
off work at Les Halles and ran over to see how the other half works. It's a
very quiet place.
During the middle of the rush on a Friday night, with a full dining room,
the pace was positively relaxing—more a seriously focused waltz than
the kind of hard-checking mosh-pit slam-dancing I live with. No one was
screaming. Nobody was kicking any oven doors closed, putting any
English on the plates, or hurling pots into the sink. Scott, expediting,
never raised his voice.
"Go on, entrees. Thirty-two," he said in a near-whisper. That's all it took
for five line cooks to swing into action and start converging on plates.
"Pick up," he said, "table twelve."