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Please...
- do wash before you arrive at work in the morning,
don’t arrive after a big weekend looking shipwrecked,
do eat breakfast before you arrive and drink plenty of
water throughout the day, do arrive before the start
time, do greet others in the morning, do wear a mild
deodorant if you are prone to body odour – especially
on the big days, do arrive looking like you’re a
professional, do wear clean/ironed whites, don’t turn
up with a jacket with a big rip in it, don’t wear the
same trousers all week – especially those ones with the
hole in the knee, do clean your fingernails – especially
after cleaning fish or meat or digging in the garden, do
keep your kitchen shoes clean, do clean your knives –
often, do sharpen your knives – often, don’t wipe your
dirty hands on your apron or your arse, do wash your
hands with soap and dry them regularly throughout
the day, don’t walk around with two tea towels like
you’re wearing a grass skirt, don’t use the same tea
Hunter’s gatherings
PHOTOGRAPHY COLIN PAGEBrae, the new book about the famed Victorian restaurant from celebrated European
publisher Phaidon, is packed with in-depth recipes, diary notes and an exploration of
restaurant-craft and the region. But the most revealing part might be the unfiltered
list of kitchen dos and don’ts at the back: chefDan Hunter at his no-nonsense best.
BOOKS
someone’s timer off and not tell them, don’t walk
through the kitchen and not notice things, don’t walk
past something on the floor and not pick it up, don’t
work like a maniac and chop stuff all onto the floor, do
put all your appropriate green scraps into the chicken
feed bucket, do put all your other green scraps into
the compostables bin, don’t put some ridiculous item
of half-prepped food onto the family meal shelf in a
container like it’s a really big help and label it “staff”, do
occasionally, when it’s your turn, cook a really fucking
good meal for everyone that helps to get the spirits up
in the middle of a really busy week, don’t stand at the
stove working and not notice a pot come to the boil or
something burning right next to you, don’t walk past
a boiling stock and not turn it down or let its owner
know, do feel free to skim something you notice needs
to be skimmed, do write a detailed and easy-to-
understand and concise prep list for each day/service,
don’t continually study that prep list without actuallyKNOW THE DRILL
Dan Hunter on the
pass at Brae.
“Don’t ask me to taste something we serve hot but give it to me fridge-cold, do taste
things I’ve given back to you seasoned andlock in that flavour for next time.”
towel all day, don’t grab a tea towel with a massive hole
in it and think that looks good I’ll use that today, do
throw out that tea towel with a massive hole or burn in
it, don’t taste things or eat your lunch off your spatula
or tweezers, don’t taste things and then put that spoon
straight back into the thing you just tasted without first
rinsing or washing it or dipping it in the hot water your
spoons are sitting in – even in service, don’t ask me
to taste something and offer it to me on a dirty spoon,
do change your spoon water regularly and keep it hot,
don’t ask me to taste something that we serve hot
but give it to me fridge-cold, don’t ask me to taste
something you have not tasted yourself, don’t carry
your own “tasting spoon” in your back pocket – there
is only one type of spoon in the kitchen for tasting and
plating and we all use the same ones, do taste things
I’ve given back to you seasoned and lock in that flavour
for next time, do smell things as well as taste them,
do write recipes down the first time, do date the recipe
and record who gave it to you, don’t change that recipe
unless I or the sous-chef ask you to change it, do weigh
things correctly, do use a calculator to work out any
amount changes to recipes, don’t let timers ring
without turning them off immediately, don’t turndoing the work that’s on that prep list, do not work
all morning with a prep list on your bench – try and
actually remember what jobs you will do next, do
discuss the day’s plan with your section, do give more
than one job to those in your section so they get the full
picture of the day and don’t think one job is all they
need to do, do work to agreed times, do set a timer for
jobs to see how long they take, do try and beat that
time next time, do be reasonable when giving others
a time to complete tasks, don’t eat family meals in your
section while you are working – that includes both
meal times, do stop to eat family meals, do have meals
with everyone else, don’t have a half-finished cold
coffee in your section in your way and knock it but
don’t then finish it and don’t clean up the spilled coffee,
do keep drinking lots of water even when it’s cold, do
have damp folded cloths on the edge of the bench in
your section, do only have cloths that you need, don’t
have a big stack of cloths for no reason, don’t stash
a big stack of damp cloths in your fridge and let them
go musty before using them, do use the cloths to wipe
up continually, do rinse them out and wring them out
before folding them every time and returning them
to the same spot perfectly folded, do put a cloth in the>