Life, on the Line by Grant Achatz (book club reads .txt) 📕

that led to the kitchen. My eyes were drawn downward immediately. The kitchen floor was painted purple. I looked around and thought, “Thomas was right.” Despite feeling normal to me, The French Laundry was far from a typical place.

Henry gave me the tour of the restaurant and we settled into the smaller of the two dining rooms for my first formal interview.

Henry asked me directly what my vision for the restaurant would be. I knew he was losing momentum at this point. Shawn had already left to build Spring, and the popularity of Trio in the Chicago media had waned. Customers were starting to figure out that Trio was not really Trio anymore.

“Someday, I want to run the best restaurant in the country. Every step along the way I will pursue that goal like it could happen the next day.” Henry looked a little slack-jawed at me. He could tell I was serious, but he looked like my high school buddies that day around the campfire.

I went on to talk about the style of food with one word, “different.” I spoke about crafting tasting menus of various lengths to evoke emotions and engage all the senses.

He began to go into detail: how many cooks, the expediting system, the role wine would play in the menus, the role I would play in service. The questions went on and on, but the answers came easily for me. I spent virtually every waking moment dreaming of running my own kitchen, and whenever I didn’t know an answer I defaulted to what I thought the best restaurant in the country would do.

We spoke for hours, and then I headed up to my room to comb over my prep lists for the next day. I adjusted them based on what I saw in the kitchen—the equipment, the layout, and the fact that Henry said he would be sitting at Trio’s kitchen table watching me prepare the courses and that I would serve it and describe it to him personally. Somehow I didn’t account for that. When I mentioned to him that I was planning to give him seven courses, he made a face. “You don’t have to give me that many. I don’t want it to take too long.”

I went through my notes and realized that the timing had to be tight. I rewrote my list to the minute.

Later that evening I joined Henry and his girlfriend, Mary, for dinner at Trio. This gave Henry a chance to continue interviewing me in a more informal setting as we ate the heavily Asian-influenced tasting menu.

The meal gave me an opportunity to size Trio up as well. The champagne was served in tall hollow-stem flutes, one of the plates early in the meal was chipped, and the bread was served on neon blue and orange glass plates. Our waiter, Peter, a bald man with a thick Bulgarian accent, was wearing a tuxedo and black bow tie, lending the service a formal if somewhat out-of-place feeling.

I watched the room closely, studying the front-of-house team and trying to understand the system that Henry used to facilitate service. It, too, was different than what I was used to. The food came out on rolling gueridons instead of being carried, the tablecloths were wrinkled, and a few of the staff didn’t speak English very well. I knew immediately that I would have to make drastic changes to service if I landed the job.

After the meal I headed back to my room and went over my list again, assigning plates to each course based on what I saw during dinner. I went to bed early that night.

I woke up early and decided to take a walk before getting started. I grabbed a coffee in downtown Evanston, listened to some music, and cleared my head. I was ready.

I walked in the kitchen door at 10:00 A.M. and was greeted by Henry. “Hello, Mr. Grant. You ready?” He was as curious as I was anxious.

“I am,” I said. We set a 2:00 P.M. start time for his tasting.

I had done some advance prep at the Laundry prior to heading to Chicago—time-consuming tasks like curing foie gras, breaking down lobsters, and cleaning and tying the lamb. But I still had plenty of work to do.

I fired up the stove, set my cutting board in place, and composed a couple of bains-marie with essential tools. I soaked towels in a vinegar solution for wiping the plates, and ran the serviceware through the dish machine to make sure it was spotless. I treated the setup like a busy service on the fish station at the Laundry. I knew that if I wanted to knock this out I had to be incredibly organized and it also had to feel familiar.

About an hour in Henry walked through the kitchen, acting like he needed something for the dining room, but he was really just evaluating how I was working. “How’s your timing?” he asked.

“I can start early if you like. Shall we make it one?”

“Sounds good.”

At 12:55 Henry seated himself at the Trio kitchen table armed with a camera, a legal pad, and a glass of water. “Whenever you’re ready.”

I promptly brought the first course of asparagus soup to Henry, described the dish, and bolted back to the line to tend to the black bass that was sautéing on the flattop. I flipped the fish and got the lamb saddle in a hot pan, then delivered the next course. Everything was flowing and the food was coming out great. Henry studiously took notes with each course and lobbed questions at me about techniques, portion size, or plating. He was a good poker player, showing no emotion as he slowly dissected the food. He deconstructed each component, tasted it individually, then combined them as intended.

Course five was the butter-poached lobster, followed by the roasted lamb with favas and truffles. I pulled the lamb out of the oven just as he was taking his first bite of lobster and squeezed the