Inside the high-pressure world of Mumbai restaurant kitchens

Uptil 1145 am the kitchen at Kurlas Phoenix Marketcitys sixmonthold eatery Craft Deli seems like the dining area it accompanies mdash the empty tables lend their sense of calm to the staff on the other side of the counterDirector of Bellona Hospitality Paul Kinny serves up an Asian spicy pizza at Craft Deli at Kurla during lunch hour PicsBipin KokateDirector and chef Paul Kinny who heads 10 kitchens in the city for Bellona Hospitality begins the day at 9 am with a short debriefing of his 13member staff brought to an armyesque alertness under his stern gaze The Kitchen Order Ticket KOT mdash the machine that transmits the order to the kitchen once the server logs it into the computer mdash has just beeped Two beef burgers parcel These will go with a Spanish omelette and fries the slip reads Now it feels like were watching a hyperlapse videoThe 13member staff at Kurlas Craft Deli has to cater to 50100 guests at a time while dinner is the busiest time lunch serves a unique challenge because no diner wants to spend more than 40 minutes over a meal in the middle of a work dayThe team swings into action even as the KOT stutters again One garlic bread artisinal rigatoni veg pizza Sriracha chicken wings mdash make it spicy for Table No 2 shouts Kinny who is at the pass for the day The chef at the pass is the kitchen equivalent of an orchestra conductor He picks up the order tickets and barks them to the team Today thats me I will continue barking the order till I hear a Yes chef he says The team barks back in chorus yes chef We follow the first order from scratch to table mdash the cold section prepares the salad the grill section makes the patties and the hot section makes crunchy fries The hot section can scream at the cold section for a delay but not vice versa Also the cold section must work the fastest for you cannot make hot ingredients wait says Kinny calling out to the server to pick up the order for Table No 2 I cannot let the plate sit on the counter even for 10 seconds The quality of a dish begins to deteriorate from the moment it is readyAt Pa Pa Ya the chefs were busy concentrating on the dayrsquos menu and wouldnrsquot so much as lift their heads to answer questions Deadlines are sacrosanct in every kitchen and daily hurdles are manyWelcome to the pressure cooker With tourism on the rise and even the average middleclass family enjoying more expendable income the hospitality industry in India has seen a boom in the last 15 years A new restaurant opens in Mumbai every other week Quality cannot be compromised and sometimes even being deigned the worlds best chef isnt cure enough Last month Benoit Violier who ran the threeMichelinstarred Restaurant de lHotel de Ville near Lausanne in Switzerland allegedly committed suicide no note was found Its reported that he fell for a pound1million wine scam that put him in considerable financial trouble despite the success of his restaurantAt Craft Deli a gas connection that suddenly went off caused a sevenminute delayZorawar Kalra founder and MD of Massive Restaurants Pvt Ltd which owns some of the countrys top gastronomical destinations such as Masala Library and Pa Pa Ya said the best way to gauge the pressure that chefs managers and waiters undergo as you dig into your sushi roll is to spend a day at a kitchenEssence of timeLunch becomes a busy hour at the Asian gastrobar Pa Pa Ya where the kitchen is sectioned off into bits keeping with the menu In one corner is chef Nikhil Amburle rolling out sushis in under a minute even as he coordinates with ground staff on the orders and interacts with curious eaters who need help identifying their chorizo octopus from their tuna and scallops One corner is for the dimsum and pizzeria At the far end is the dessert corner where a baker is making chocolate bombs and at the centre are two chefs working on the central wokChef Gresham Fernandes Impressario GroupExecutive chef Sahil Singh is on the floor answering diner queries like he is responding to a wellprepared viva voce examination But his focus remains on the caviar he is working on When a server complains of delay in a dish his curt response is Time pe punch karo time pe ayega Time all chefs will tell you is of essence Diners especially those who step out of office on a lunch break have 40 minutes in which they can place an order eat and pay the bill Which is why when the gas goes off suddenly back at Craft Deli hell breaks loose Ek ka gaya ya sab ka Kinny asks aloud Sab gaya chef says another chef without stopping the plating he has at hand Even this sevenminute delay has put things offtrack The team has to pick up speed With one person short on the serving staff 33yearold restaurant manager Nikhil Bangera chips in to ready the parcel order And when frustrated we cant yell at customers So one tends to lose their tempers inside the kitchen says Bangera Tempers and verbal abuse fly high But its all in a days workAttrition brings in mannersIn November 2014 a report in The Telegraph UK pulled the lid off kitchen aggression A group of top chefs in France called on their peers to stamp out the culture of violence in the kitchen mdash physical violence seen flying plates in Hells Kitchen hazing and insultsIn India things began to change in 2011 when professionalism and competition stepped in Where once burns and bruises would be a rite of passage in the kitchen expletives are as far as temperamental bosses will go There are women in kitchen now so things are more civilised The biggest pressure is retaining people Earlier there werent as many restaurants so a staffer would take abuse from a senior Today a person will walk out for a raise of only R2000 says Gresham Fernandes group executive chef mdash fine dine Impressario Group There have been newcomers Fernandes says who have lasted as little as a day Most drop out in the first year Chef Vernon Coelho who taught at the Institute of Hotel Management for 34 years says less than 50 per cent out of a batch of 100 end up as chefs or restaurant staff The first two years are tough to crack The stress is something they can learn to deal with only if they have a passion for the profession he says That the job leaves you with little personal life doesnt help Here 12hour work days are the norm Sous chef Ajay Samtani has made his peace The real test will be when I get married I dont know how I will manage a personal and professional life then he grins Most cant cope They opt for jobs that will give them a balanced life says Coelho who promises that as you climb up the ladder it gets easier but only because you become used to the pressure Institutes try to introduce their students to the pressure during the course Deadlines remain strict hygiene standards have to be met and mock kitchen classes are held But even the pressurecooker course cant prepare one for the many rungs of the ladder that you need to climb to be as Kinny puts it the rockstar chef An average kitchen in a fivestar or a plush dining spot has four commis chefs and four junior chefs The numbers of course change depending on the specialty cuisine that restaurant serves The rank right below the executive chef is that of the sous chefs And it could take a commis chef over a decade to reach that coveted rank unless their chef sees a spark in them and decides to mentor themThat a commis chefs salary begins at R7000 a month if they havent been to a culinary school or at R15000 if they have makes the wait to R50000 a ball park figure pay scale of a sous chef that much longer And if your aim is to run a kitchen of your own then it could take a couple of years or more for someone to pick you up and make you an executive chefIt is about the moneyKinny says his day begins with the previous nights sales report along with guest feedback reviews and accidents The 120seater Craft Deli sees about 50 diners coming in for lunch daily which touches 90 a night on a weekday The weekend numbers climb to 120 in the day and 150 in the night For a new restaurant thats a good number After all with rentals high in Mumbai besides other licencing costs etc profits are not easy to come by No one makes a profit in the first year and the gestation period to make a profit is three to four years says FernandesAnd in the world of social media one bad review can discourage 100 people from coming to your restaurant Everyone is a masterchef we are mere chefs smiles Kinny The customers various demands dont help ease the pressure Dennis Wu manager at Pa Pa Ya says Often customers want to add and remove ingredients from a dish At an hour when orders are pouring in this disrupts momentum Liquid crutchDeadlines with no margin for error long work days with added pressure during festive periods varying payscales with tough scope for career growth and a very competitive industry to stay afloat in make for a dangerous cocktail Hence the days pressures are often drowned in alcohol Substance abuse is the dark result of the industrys pressures that management has had to come up with policies to deal with Its a joke that after serving all day its peene ka time for people from the hospitality industry Janta Bar in Bandra and a few others in Dadar are watering holes that turn into board meetings says Kinny adding that however restaurants now have a strict policy against turning up tipsy at work Wu adds If anyone walks in tipsy or drunk we send them back Besides just professionalism being tipsy at work is hazardous He could slip cut or burn himself I give three warnings and then fire the person says FernandesKinny adds that smoking is a big no too In my early days my senior chef did not allow me to eat pickle for it blankets the taste buds So does smoking I dont allow my chefs to smoke either Coffee energy drinks and tea are more acceptable addictions What makes the gruelling life worth it Its a questions that begs an answer Singh puts it simply As a team everyone wants the customers to walk out with a smile That makes it worth the effort