So, as you'll have realised by now, it is with great sadness that I announce my departure from Comerç 24.
To be quite frank I can't exactly say I didn't see it coming, but nevertheless when the time came it was one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make. Initially I'd been planning to stay until the end of the year, to see off the Christmas rush and festivities along with my friends and colleagues. But over the last three or four weeks of my time at Ç24 I began to feel increasingly tired, underwhelmed, frustrated and bored to the point where continuing would have been, if not impossible, in no-one's interest.
I don't think it would be too bold of me to say that, after a year on the Cuarto Frio section, I'd reached a point where I'd seen absolutely everything there was to see and done absolutely everything there was to do. Twice over. It's probably no bad thing that I'm not planning on getting married, because I'm just not the kind of guy who can stick it out when the mind-numbing and monotonous daily routine begins to chip away at one's patience and, eventually, one's will to live. The problem is this: when you've done something soooo many times that you've arrived at the stage where you've worked out the quickest, cleanest and most efficient way of doing it - and then you carry on in that manner and do it another four thousand times - you begin to do it without engaging your brain at all. And that's when the real significance of why you're actually doing the task gradually begins to disappear from your memory.
There was an evening not so long ago when Head Chef Arnau and I engaged in a screaming argument mid-service, in which we were apparently expressing our opinions so loudly and flamboyantly that even the people in the café next door were taking sides. That night after service we had a long conversation - for an hour at least as I recall - and we tried to settle our differences man to man. What he explained to me, and I hadn't until that moment got to grips with, was that I'd arrived at a point where I had perfected the section. Those aren't my words, in case you were wondering. That's exactly what he told me.
"I know why you've been losing your patience so often recently", he said, "and I know why you're bored. To put it simply, you've mastered the Cuarto Frio. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you do every single thing perfectly every day, because that's impossible. One day you might make a bit of a hash of the chives because you're not concentrating and another day you might make the guacamole a little too spicy because you rushed it. But essentially you've perfected the section - organisation of your mis en place, control of timekeeping, delegation of work to your subordinates and general working system for always keeping the section one step ahead. Now you've got to a stage where you're at the top of your game, you couldn't organise that section any better than you currently are, because there is no better way. And because of that, you've stopped in your quest to constantly find ways to improve your organisation. Your motivation to do better and be more efficient is no longer there because you've reached a position where you're at the top, you've moved sideways for a while, and now the only way is down". No sooner had what Arnau had just said to me settled in my mind than I realised I had to leave.
It had originally been planned that I would change over to the hot Plancha section at the beginning of October when chef de partie Michael left, spending my last three months learning what is essentially the polar opposite of what I'd been doing previously on the cold section. Although the thought of such a big change made me admittedly quite nervous and apprehensive, it also gave me a real feeling that I was progressing within the kitchen, moving forwards and ready to take on a whole new set of responsibilities. Also, I'd been on the Cuarto Frio for practically a year by then, so it really felt like I was facing a new challenge - one that would reinvigorate me and further enhance my ambition to self-evolve.
Let's now skip forward to a Wednesday morning two weeks before Michael's departure, with everything thus far going to plan. That morning, Arnau told us that he'd decided not to go ahead with the planned swap over after all, because we happened to have a lot of work that day and it would be best if everyone just stayed where they were to avoid getting ourselves into trouble. So we carried on as normal for the rest of that day, and that was that. Then the following day we arrived, Michael and I having both prepared ourselves mentally for the handover task ahead of us, only to discover that the swap was again called off. Later that day when I enquired as to what was happening, Arnau told me that he wasn't going to move me because it wasn't worth the hassle of Michael training me to take over the section knowing that in three months time I would have to train someone else before I left.
So what Head Chef was saying was that three months wasn't a worthwhile investment for him and I was going to have to stay on the Cuarto Frio until I left in December. Right then I thought to myself: "Do you have any idea how many bloody commis chefs I've had to train since I've been chef de partie? How many times I've had a new stagière put with me only for them to leave or be moved only two weeks later? Do you know how many times I've had to explain to some twerp about every bloody dish on the section and go through the whole tutorial routine all over again just to have them disappear after a few days? Yes I think you do! Then I'm sure you're aware that I'd give my right arm to have a commis stay with me on the section for three whole months and to be able to develop and mould them into the perfect worker and build a working rapport and a level of trust with them like my chef de partie had with me."
That moment was soul-crushing. After a promising glimmer of hope that I'd be moving to the Plancha where I'd be discovering another dimension of a kitchen I was already so familiar with, I felt as though this vision had just been snatched away along with any motivation I had to move forward and progress. I guess it was from that point on that I began to lose interest in what I was doing. I was working each day knowing that there was nothing to look forward to. Knowing that nothing new would happen from that moment to the day I would leave. It started to make me feel like I wasn't contributing anything to the kitchen. I was going nowhere and would simply be carrying out my duties during the remaining weeks feeling like a man on death row. OK, maybe that sounds a bit dramatic looking back now, but it's exactly how I felt. And when you don't have the motivation to improve and to evolve, to impress your boss and more importantly to impress yourself each and every day, there's no value in continuing any further.
It's sad really that things had to end in the way that they did, but everything must come to an end eventually and this is my time to move onwards and upwards. I have some very clear ideas as to where I want to go next (and for the two steps after that), but it will take good luck and good timing for me to follow those planned steps. I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to everyone at Comerç 24 and my time there is something I will always cherish and look back on with great fondness. I learnt so much at Ç24 that will always stay with me and underpin my development as my career progresses. Much pleasure was derived from being a part of a team producing creative and delicious food and a dining experience for customers who, in overwhelming numbers, really enjoyed it. But if the truth be known it wasn't the food that was my most important learning experience. Foremost in my mind, when I look back in the years to come, will be the experience of working for Marta, my last chef de partie.
To be quite blunt, Marta was the kind of woman who wouldn't take any crap from anyone. She was what you'd describe as a "no nonsense" kind of boss. Marta would tell it to you straight. The funny thing was that she had been moved over to the Cuarto Frio in January, by which time I had already been working as the commis on the section for four months. As we worked together we were really both learning from each other. Since I knew the section better than she did, I could advise her about the technical things like how many bunches of coriander we would get through in X amount of days and how often she needed to order dried shiitake mushrooms for the infusion soup. At the same time she was teaching me how to work faster, to learn to put pressure on myself and generally to organise myself and my time to be as efficient as possible. But essentially the most important thing I learnt from Marta was the self-discipline, dedication and focus needed to not just run a section, but to do it well.
I suppose Marta derived some comfort in the fact that she knew she could ask me to do certain tasks that were still quite new to her, safe in the knowledge that I had done them many times before and could be trusted to do whatever was required properly and in a sensible amount of time. After a while working together, it was noticeable to Head Chef Arnau that the Cuarto Frio was running like clockwork. In Marta he had a chef de partie who was the most reliable, responsible and organised leader you could imagine and in myself he had a commis who knew what he was doing and didn't need to be told twice. For a while we were the perfect partnership - Comerç 24's answer to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid! Then the day came when Arnau told me he was going to move me to the Snacks section, so I could also help out with the desserts whenever necessary. He announced the proposed change to Marta and myself in words that still ring in my ears: "You guys are too good together. It's making the rest of the kitchen look bad". It was my second proudest moment of my time at Ç24, second only to my promotion to chef de partie.
In the end the move to the Snacks section never materialised. Personal circumstances caused Marta to leave the restaurant quite suddenly, leaving me in charge of the section. By this time I had been working on the Cuarto Frio for seven months, so I had a fair amount of experience and confidence in what I was doing. But as Marta had upped and left so unexpectedly, I had never been officially trained to run the section myself. I knew pretty much how everything was done, just from being delegated work every day for over half a year, but I had absolutely no idea how to organise the section myself. And, of course, I'd never been trained to be someone else's boss. I was only twenty years old, for crying out loud - and I was being thrown right into the deep end. Those first few weeks were what turned me from a boy into a man. They were my culinary rite of passage.
Now that I had become a chef de partie for the first time, I strongly felt that I had to emulate Marta. Like her, I had to be understanding and patient when it was necessary but not tolerate stupidity, lack of logic or most importantly lack of respect from anyone working under me. I felt like I owed it to her personally to be representative of everything she taught me in the way that I worked, the way that I taught and disciplined others and the way in which I was strict with myself when I was struggling to keep up and could easily have cut corners and not done things the way they should be done. I taught myself to organise the section in my own personal way, but never to have tunnel vision and to stop looking for new ways to do things even more efficiently. I got myself into the mindset that, if I didn't do these things, I would be letting Marta down as well as letting myself down. I truly hope that I conveyed a little of that pride and respect to my own trainees. |
Don't phone me tomorrow because my mobile will be switched off. I'm popping out for lunch. At exactly 1pm I shall take my seat at a table in a restaurant I've wanted to experience for a very long time. El Celler de Can Roca in Girona is a Michelin 2* restaurant universally celebrated by those who understand the dining experience and ranked #26 in the San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants.
