Sizzling in a restaurant kitchen

A big team works like clockwork, braving the heat from burners and grills, to rustle up culinary magic

Niharika R Mohan

Niharika R Mohan

What I wanted to be was just an observant fly on the wall. Instead, I was a bumbling elephant in the walkway.

When Karan Upmanyu, sous chef at Toast & Tonic, Bengaluru, agreed to let me in to see what goes on inside a commercial kitchen on a busy weekend, he probably did not expect someone so awkward to turn up.

Never comfortable inside a kitchen, I live to eat and hope no one dies when they eat what I rustle up. I did not expect the chef to show up promptly at 10.30 am on a sunny Friday morning, striding with a model’s ease, a helmet tucked under his left hand. Introductions over, he led me in through the back door to a cellar, handed me a coat and apron while he donned his, and said: “Ready?”

His team of 10-15 had arrived and were already preparing the staff lunch. Their day usually starts around 10. The chef walks in half an hour later. We walked on, with the chef quickly guiding me through the dry-goods storage room, the reach-in coolers, the walk-in refrigerator, a boucherie and the pastry section where freshly baked buns were being lined up. We then climbed up a winding flight of stairs to the kitchen tucked behind the bar of the “cuisine-agnostic” gastropub.

Thus begins the 10-12 hour day in the life of one of Bengaluru’s popular hang-outs. As diners, what we see is the drama, the choreography, and the art that is food. Rarely do we get to see the crew behind the scenes — of cooks obviously, but also butchers, suppliers, porters and waiters — all collectively directing this aesthetic theatre in real-time. We do not notice them on a Friday evening while sipping on a mojito and that is okay — we are not supposed to. But this journey backstage showed me how a commercial kitchen is a complex gear train where multiple wheels have to turn together. If one gets stuck, the other does not turn and eventually everything collapses.

I had assumed the busiest time in the kitchen would be the lunch hour, with diners clamouring for their food. Yes, it is, but the morning hours, before the restaurant starts serving diners, is when an indescribable tension grips the air, and anxiety and excitement build up. I closed my eyes to hear better — the clanking of the knives and forks, the chopping boards being tidied up, the faint bubbling of the vegetable and meat stocks in gigantic containers on open burners and the constant washing of utensils somewhere beyond — this is the time of the great prep.

“The key to a smoothly running kitchen is in the prep and how organised the team is,” says Karan. Prep timetables scribbled in pencil hang from shelves and as chaotic as they may appear to an outsider, they are not so. Prep includes chopping vegetables, checking the freshness of stored ingredients, defrosting meat at the right moment, marinating, preparing sauces and creams, readying the vegetable and chicken stock, and ensuring there is enough of everything. It is the chef’s job to oversee all this.

But his work has only just begun. While I look on, he holds a quick meeting with his Demi Chef De Partie (DCDP) and the Commis 1 (both positions in the pecking order of assistant chefs). I hear snatches of the conversations, and it looks like they are getting a pep talk. I later ask the chef about it. “People think I am always cooking but a large chunk of my time is spent managing staff, playing counsellor, accounting, auditing, managing costs and overheads… Ideally, I would like to get away from it all and concentrate only on the food, but well, this comes with the job,” he grins good-naturedly. The next minute he runs down to deal with a truant fruit vendor. While I walk around trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, I notice the foot soldiers — the helpers constantly doing the dishes at the sink. Without them, the kitchen would not function, and the greatest of dishes would come back untouched if the plates were unclean.

At noon, the orders begin trickling in. Burgers, steaks and pizzas are in demand both for delivery and dine-in. The bills are stuck on the cooking stations and orders shouted out. Once the dishes are ready, the chef does the final checking and tasting. Then comes plating.

The pace is hectic as the orders pile up but there is no confusion. A minor worry about beetroot pops up because there is a sudden lunch party of 25 who want beetroot salad to be served to all. (I assume someone ran out to buy more beetroot!) The chef is calm but alert, his fingers moving deftly, sprinkling chilli oil and arranging a basil leaf while he discusses with the DCDP a new dish he is planning. They have to use up the ingredients bought for the summer fest that’s ending. A break is taken only after the lunch rush is over, sometimes stretching up to 3 pm. And then it all begins again, five-ish, two hours before dinner service starts.

I tell him he has destroyed all my notions of hot-headed Gordon Ramsayeque chefs constantly swearing and being walking terrors in the kitchen. “I have always been soft-spoken but I have learnt to put across my point firmly when it is necessary. It has been a journey and I do swear sometimes!” he says.

It is said chefs find swearing and shouting an outlet from their long and intensive work in difficult conditions. Standing every day for 10-12 hours in the heat is no joke; my feet were begging for a foot spa after a mere four hours. And it is no ordinary heat — in a commercial kitchen you have to put up with the heat from open burners, large grills and massive ovens, all lined up side by side. The last sit-down meal the chef had was nine months ago during one of the lockdowns. What does he eat for lunch and dinner? With all the bits and chunks he tastes in the kitchen, he rarely cooks for himself. “This is how I keep fit. But not recommended,” he says with a laugh.

Admitting that wages are low across the industry and work conditions are nothing to write home about, the chef says the ones who stick around are the ones who have a thing going with food.

“Ultimately if you do not love food and cooking it, you will quit. There is something magical and alive about a restaurant — it is exhausting but highly rewarding — there aren’t many jobs where you get feedback for your work immediately. Being a professional chef is never just a career — it is passion, a vocation, something you cannot but do,” he elaborates.

The reluctant culinarian

Donning a chef’s coat, tying up the apron and tucking my messy bun inside a net was all so fancy and selfie-worthy that I had forgotten I was to cook something in the kitchen as well.

Noticing that I was trying to be invisible behind a shelf, heaving with assorted pots and pans, Rofique, the DCDP, speed-walked to me and asked if I was ready to make mayonnaise. I nodded and he led me to another corner where eggs were waiting to be whisked.

“Put them in,” he said, grinning at my trepidation, and I gingerly plopped them into the blender. And then some pepper and salt went in too. There was an entire bottle of oil next to the blender and when Rofique told me to pour it in, I poured out four spoons, thinking I was being generous. ‘Poora bottle dalna hain...ek kg mayonnaise banraha hai idhar.” (You have to pour the whole bottle...we are making a full kilo of mayonnaise).

Embarrassed, I let the oil flow and was stopped again. “Dheere se, side se..warna phat jaayega..raw eggs hain.” Summoning up all my grace, I began pouring the oil gently while the blender rumbled away. Rofique told me it was his sixth year at the restaurant and he was itching to widen his horizons. Originally from Assam, he was worried about the floods back home but had no way to go back. He was just following the news. And then, voila! the mayonnaise was done. Much relieved, I was slinking back to my corner when he ushered me to another corner to chop mushrooms and prepare the butter garlic rice (used as a base for many dishes). Mushroom chopping went off like a breeze but seeing me struggling with sauteing the rice, he took over. Expertly flipping the rice, he was done before I could say butter.

Engineer who wants to be a chef

As the pace (as well as the heat) was building up in the kitchen, at the last station, in front of the steaming grills, was a quiet young girl efficiently going about her business, chopping, peeling, frying and moving about silently.

Niharika R Mohan is a Commis 3 chef and the lone woman in the kitchen. Curiously enough, Niharika, a Bengalurean, is a qualified engineer: “I had to complete engineering... you know how it is. Get it done and do what you want.” She then did a culinary diploma and interned at a five-star restaurant before ending up at T&T. Her ambition is palpable. Clearly on a mission, Niharika is unperturbed by the physical demands of her job and the low wages. Does it get lonely in the kitchen? “Not really, you keep doing, you keep learning and you are like in a trance and it goes on,” she says.