Since I have the time off, I decided to fulfill a fantasy: I spent a while staging at Nopa, a three-star, market-driven, extremely busy restaurant here in SF. I was attracted to this place because the food is simple but seriously delicious. I wanted to experience a busy restaurant kitchen, and I didn't want to be distracted by toys and avant garde techniques. Also, Nopa was recommended to me as having a friendly brigade of cooks. I'd eaten there, and everything was fucking tasty. Also, it is insanely busy--exactly what I wanted to experience. So I set out to stage there.

After consulting with a few friends in the industry, I did the ballsy but cliche thing: As Ryan Farr, Gourmet Pig, and others recommended, I walked in the kitchen door and asked to speak to the chef. I told him that I wanted to work in his kitchen for a while, unpaid, doing whatever he was willing to let me do, even if it was peeling garlic all day (and I actually did peel a ton of garlic one day). I was so worried about not having anything food-related on my resume, but he didn't even ask to see it. He basically just said, "great," and put me to work.

My stage was a great experience. The cooks were all very welcoming and friendly, and not at all like you'd expect after reading, say, Kitchen Confidential. In fact, I really liked all those guys. I can't wait to go back and eat there, just to say hello to everyone and find out what's new. Getting through tense moments of the dinner rush will definitely make you bond with people, even if you have nothing else in common.

I didn't learn a ton about cooking technique, per se, but I learned a lot about restaurant kitchen etiquette, terminology, the cult of mise en place, why it pays to keep your station clean, and a lot about how they get out so much great food. It instantly made me a better, cleaner, more organized, more efficient home cook. Terms like "all day," "b and b," "nine pan," and "on the fly" came to be familiar, even if a few of them stumped me at first ("You want me to grab you a bed and breakfast? What? Oh, bread and butter plate, gotcha."). And of course I went out and bought a third pan, some nine pans and a ton of quart, half-quart, and quarter-quart containers, so my home mise can aspire to be like theirs.

When I was there during the day, I mostly did large quantities of prep work. I pitted and halved cherries, peeled and chopped cucumbers, shelled so, so many peas, removed the strings from snow and snap peas, peeled garlic, etc. I love that kind of monotonous, mindless work. I'm serious. I just get intensely focused on what I'm doing, and on doing it as well, and as quickly as possible. The next thing I know, I've shelled enough peas to yield four quarts, and two hours have passed. What I did during the day at Nopa was exactly what I would otherwise have been doing in my free time at home--except vastly larger quantities.

When I was there during the second shift, I helped during the service rush. I spent most of my time during service helping out and learning from Justin and Gerardo at the appetizer stations. Apps are done by two guys, plus me when I was there, handling the hot and cold apps, and those guys also plate the desserts. Eventually I learned those stations pretty well. I was handling the "tastes" (amuses) for almost everyone who walked in. By the end of each night, I'd plated all of the apps and desserts plenty of times, at first only certain components, and later when they trusted me more, whole plates. I occasionally went around the kitchen, just tasting everything. Chef and everyone else encouraged me to do that--just carry around tasting spoons, and taste every single thing. I also helped all the cooks keep their mise en place well-stocked. I'd run up to the walk-in to grab more radishes, then run down and wash them, then slice them on a mandoline for the little gem lettuce salads. Or I'd refill someone's salt, or their olive oil, or retrieve more ice cream containers, replace the lettuce in the reach-in, or fetch some herbs from the walk-in and chop them, or I'd go make more lemon yogurt. And I did plenty of food running, carrying plates from saute to the pass. It all passed so quickly, and I loved every minute.

Richie, a sous chef at Nopa, and writer of the huge blog Line Cook, was particularly instructive. He took me aside many times to explain things to me about kitchen etiquette, dedication to quality, and efficiency. He was there to tell me not to touch someone else's knife, and things like that--things that save one from pissing off other cooks with seemingly harmless things that cooks consider to be disrespectful. Richie will make an excellent chef some time soon. He was there wiping down other people's stations. Cleaning squeeze bottles. Trying out new techniques. He was upping the quality any way he could. He was the one straining the sauces a million times. He's kind of notorious for it, actually, and builds these hilarious stacks of chinois so that he can strain four times just by pouring liquid through once. This behavior lends itself to the "Sup Dawg" meme: "Sup Dawg, I heard you like shiny sauces. So I put a chinois in your chinois, and now you can strain while you strain!"

And of course, Nopa Chef/Owner Laurence Jossel was a corny-joke-making joy to be around ("I know a sure fire way to end up with a small fortune in the restaurant business: start with a large one."). He doesn't mind chopping his own herbs, and has seemingly infinite patience to teach you not to bruise them.

I think I'm done staging at Nopa, but I would definitely like to get to know those guys better and spend some time on the other side of the pass. I think that the highest praise I can give for my time in the kitchen is that even after spending all that time around the food, I want to eat there now more than ever.

Next on the horizon, I'm going to try to stage at some other Bay Area restaurants, for additional fun, while learning as much as I can. Also in the works... possibly starting an underground restaurant. I'm currently looking for cohorts for that venture.

Pictures:

1. Thursday afternoon meeting between Chef and all the sous chefs. Super secret.
   
2. Family meal. Yesterday's bun with yesterday's pulled chicken, and yesterday's lettuce trimmings. Evening meal was usually more elaborate.
   
3. Peeling a box of cucumbers, then doing oblique cuts on them (they call it "roll cuts" at Nopa). I didn't figure out how to do those cuts correctly until after I took this picture. I went home and read up.
   
4. Empty grill and rotisserie. Anticipation.
   
5. Justin sprinkles chives across the top of the goat cheese ramekin.
   
6. Bathed in a heavenly light. Funny guy.
   
7. Ponder plating tons of halibut.
   
8. The halibut gets some arugula.
   
9. Paulie finishing off the chicken plates. Looks delicious, even in a crappy iPhone photo, from a distance.
   
10. Richie and Ponder exchange loving looks. They started making out right after this picture was taken.
    
11. Gerardo plates a duck leg app.

Posted by Barzelay on 2009/07/18 @ 2:45 | Comments (5) | Life, Restaurants

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