Restaurant Babylon

by Imogen Edwards-Jones

  ‘Four glasses of champagne it is,’ replies Jorge, spinning on the sole of his shiny shoes and rolling his eyes. I see Michelangelo at the other end of the room silently punch the air. They have clearly got some sort of bet on, to see if it is possible to get the voucher party to go off-piste, or indeed get piste, at all.

  ‘Do you have a minute?’ asks Anna, gently tapping me on the shoulder. I nod as I follow her over to the desk. ‘So,’ she says leaning and clicking the mouse on the restaurant computer. ‘We have the birthday man, Mr Lister, and his party at the back on Table Ten and then we have Mr Kerr with his usual table and usual time and then we have Mr Russell.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘But I have a problem, because Claridge’s have just called asking if we can take a pop star and his group of six.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Well, we had all the concierges from most of the big hotels in last week and they are beginning to pay us back for our hospitality.’ She smiles. I am never quite sure whether Anna has the driest sense of humour of any woman I have ever met or if she is actually completely devoid of irony.

  ‘Did they say which pop star it was?’

  ‘No,’ she shrugs, appearing completely disinterested. ‘I didn’t ask.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because at the moment we are full.’

  ‘What, no walk-ins?’

  ‘No.’

  Sadly we are not one of those places, like The Ivy, The Wolseley, Nobu or Scott’s, that regularly holds back tables in case the rich, the famous and terribly important decide to patronize us with their presence at the very last minute. Sometimes we’ll get a call from Sean McDermott at Scott’s or Colin Short, the concierge at the Lainsborough, saying that Scott’s or The Delaunay are full and can we squeeze them in, but we are a small place; we can do it at two or three days’ notice, but usually we need a little bit more than a couple of hours.

  ‘I am trying to contact a booking that was made today but I can’t seem to get through. So I have no confirmation for a table of eight.’

  ‘Eight?’ Eight is as big as we get. I try not to overload the kitchen with too many of them, as it is usually a one-way ticket to chaos. ‘Shall I call and check?’ She hands me the number and I dial.

  ‘Hello there, and thank you for calling Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, I am afraid we are busy …’ comes the somewhat nasal, pre-recorded reply.

  ‘Battersea Dogs Home?’

  ‘I know, that’s what I got.’ Anna shakes her head.

  ‘What is the customer’s name?’

  ‘Mr Russell. Mr Jack Russell,’ she reads off the computer.

  ‘Ha bloody ha.’ I shake my head, more than a little pissed off. She looks at me, a small furrow bothering her brow. It is not her fault. It is a particularly English joke to play. Although quite who would do that I don’t know. ‘Don’t worry.’ I shake my head. ‘Call up Claridge’s and say a table has miraculously become available.’ She nods. ‘And please do find out who the hell it’s for!’

  7–8 p.m.

  I’m standing outside the back of the mews having a quiet fag, ruminating over the Jack Russell booking. It only came in a couple of hours ago and Anna confirmed the man had a weird, breathy sort of voice. But it can’t be Big Pete messing me around, can it? It seems rather a juvenile joke for someone of his unpleasant standing. I am paranoid. Surely he wouldn’t be sending me a message this early in the game? As far as he knows I could be backing off – he couldn’t possibly have heard my mad shouting rant. After all, the phone had cut out? Hadn’t it?

  ‘Excuse me, mate?’

  I look up from contemplating the lack of polish on my Church’s shoes. There’s a skinny, twitchy-looking bloke standing in front of me. Both he and his clothes have seen better days. His skin has got that weathered, leathered look that comes from cheap booze and a park bench tan. His eyes are small and bloodshot and have a flimsy grey film across them and his nose is covered in burst red veins that criss-cross his nostrils like the branches of some exotic tree. He doesn’t look well and he persists in scratching a large, sore-looking scab on the back on his left hand. I reach into my pocket, presuming he’s after cigarettes.

  ‘Have you got any oil?’ I look at him, puzzled. ‘You know, oil.’ He scratches. ‘Cooking oil?’

  ‘Cooking oil?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He shuffles from one foot to another. ‘For recycling?’

  ‘Recycling?’ This is a new one on me. I stub my fag out and go back into the kitchen. ‘Barney?’ I grab the first person I see. ‘There’s a bloke out the back wanting cooking oil to recycle.’

  ‘Oh, cool,’ he says, appearing completely unfazed. ‘We’ve got some here we can give him.’

  ‘I thought the council came round and collected the stuff and sent it off to one of those plants that burns it all to make electricity?’

  ‘They do,’ he sniffs, putting his knife down. ‘But junkies have also worked out they can collect it and sell it on for a fix.’

  ‘For how much?’

  ‘I don’t know. A quid a litre, something like that. However much a fix is.’

  ‘And you give it to them?’

  ‘Why not?’ he says, walking towards the storeroom. ‘We don’t want it and it’s a pain in the arse.’ He bends down to pick up rather a large blue barrel. ‘Is he outside?’ I nod. ‘Great,’ he says, carrying the barrel towards the door. ‘He can take this. I hate the smell of old oil, it’s rank.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘We’re just helping out the community,’ he grins.

  I watch him haul the barrel outside and turn to go back through the kitchen.

  ‘Check on!’ shouts Andrew from the pass. ‘One rabbit, two duck, one pork belly!’

  ‘Yes, chef!’ the brigade replies.

  ‘Check on!’ shouts Oscar. ‘One crab salad, one fettuccine.’

  ‘Yes, chef!’

  ‘Oui, chef,’ he corrects.

  ‘Oui, chef,’ the brigade shouts back.

  I see Andrew shoot Oscar a look; it’s enough to curdle the rice pudding soufflé. Fortunately, Oscar’s too busy plating his crab to notice. I feel a knot growing in my stomach; I just hope they manage to get through the next few hours.

  Back out the front and The Times table has managed to consume their starter in a matter of seconds. Their plates are licked so clean the KP could just as easily send them back out again with their main courses. Yet, unsurprisingly, they appear to be nursing their flutes of fizz like newborn infants, gently taking little tiny sips, one at a time.

  Michelangelo walks past with a rather nice Burgundy. ‘Table Four,’ he says, nodding over his shoulder at the Voucher Vultures. ‘I have a £20 bet with Jorge he can’t sell them anything extra. Jorge thinks he can get them to buy wine AND coffee.’ He chuckles. ‘Poor bastard! He hasn’t got a hope in bloody hell. I am really going to enjoy this evening.’

  Another person gearing up for a big night is Adam. He’s got the office party in of over a hundred colleagues, which I think is going to keep him more than busy. Well, I hope it is. I am slightly relying on him making a lot of money tonight. We could do with the cash flow; it is nearly Christmas, after all.

  I remember the days when I was working and training with Maître d’ Spencer, we used to see the office party season as a golden time to load the bill. I remember the biggest rip-off we ever did was for some computer software company and therefore the dullest people in the world. The MD was a regular; a nice, good-looking sort of a guy who would have lunch in the restaurant twice a week and we’d give him the same table and look after him. So he decided he wanted to hold an office party in the place. He said they’d come in late for lunch, so we could do the normal lunch service and then turn the tables for him. It was a great win-win situation for us. We had a hundred in the bar before lunch and did a hundred-cover lunch for them, with Christmas pudding, the works. Everyone was really enjoying themselves and getting pleasantly pissed and then, for some reason, it kick
ed off. The MD got so drunk he tried to punch Spencer out. I am not sure exactly how it happened, but he went from being a nice affable soul into a drunken psychopath in the space of two hours. It was extraordinary. I had to call the police to get rid of him. They took him away, kicking and spitting into the blood wagon, and then he spent the night in the cells.

  Next we found his PA snorting coke in the lavs. Now, there are ways of snorting coke in the lavs and getting away with it. A discreet trip to powder your nose is fine and nobody is any the wiser, that we can cope with. We expect it. In fact, we quite like it as you always drink more alcohol afterwards. I remember a mate of mine who worked at The Pharmacy (a trendy den of iniquity that sold food that was clearly surplus to requirements) used to tell ridiculous stories of rock stars and football stars chopping out lines next to the basins. He’d regularly have to go into the toilets and complain: ‘Boys, is that the best that you can do?’ To which they’d politely apologize and retire to the cubicle.

  But being caught face down, nostrils glued to the cistern, with the door open, shouting like a leery navvy at six in the evening, is not the way to do it. She was so high and rude and had a top lip covered in smeared coke residue that Spencer decided enough was enough. He called Danny, the barman, and me over and said, ‘How much have we done on these computer tossers?’

  ‘Not bad,’ replied Danny.

  ‘How not bad?’

  ‘Not bad. Not brilliant yet, though.’

  ‘Can we make it brilliant?’

  ‘Yes, we can!’ he enthused like some motivational Bob the Builder.

  This was the cue for Danny to notch up the cocktails and write down three drinks when he sold two. He was also to start offering out drinks that were not agreed to on the original contract – so spirits and champagnes – when they only ever asked for wine. I then followed Spencer upstairs where he asked the head waiter how many cases of wine we’d shifted.

  ‘Four,’ came the reply.

  ‘Is anyone sober?’

  ‘Only that bloke in the corner and he’s leaving.’

  ‘Can we rack it up?’

  ‘By how many?’

  ‘How many can we get away with?’

  ‘Another three?’

  ‘Cases?’

  ‘Cases.’

  ‘Do it.’

  You can hardly blame him. The PA’s been snorting coke like a Dyson DC35 cordless, the MD’s been arrested and taken to the cells for the night, he can charge what he likes – so we hit them for £100,000. We thought £1,000 a head was pretty reasonable. They paid. But I’m not sure if the bloke ever came back.

  The only other time of year when restaurants can really take the piss like that is on Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day is the gift that keeps on giving and the more commercial and hideous it becomes the more we enjoy it.

  Everyone knows it is the worst night of the year to go out to dinner. People who normally don’t go out to eat go out to eat, and there’s all that weight of expectation and all that tension. As a restaurateur you know you can’t ever really give them the orgasm they want, you’re just going to give them dinner. So it’s a difficult night. The boys know they have to take the girls out, and the girls expect it. We, having had a relatively lean January, need to make hay while the poor chap’s bollocks are in a cupid’s vice. As a result Valentine’s night is all about a set menu, just like New Year’s Eve, which is another mug’s night out when we force you to dig deep. So the poor bloke sits there, not talking, not wanting to be there, drinking the champagne when he’d rather be on red wine, knowing he’s going to be stung for £300 for two at the end of it all. And he knows he probably won’t even get laid. No wonder they always look so miserable.

  I go and stand outside the front of Le Restaurant and give Adam a call, just to check that he is set and fine for tonight.

  ‘Yeah, it’s all great, mate,’ he shouts down the line above the loud music. ‘They seem to be a nice bunch. Mind you, we’re only a drink in, call me back in an hour!’ He laughs.

  I hang up to see three very attractive-looking girls, with high clicky heels, expensive handbags and year-round tans, go through the revolving door. One of them looks vaguely familiar, as if she might present some programme on the TV – or perhaps she’s one of those women who is snapped ‘flaunting her curves’ or ‘looking worrying thin’ while going about her business, in the Daily Mail. Either way, I have seen her before. I watch as Jorge meets and greets the girls and places them at the front table in the window. Clever Jorge. You always put the pretty girls at the front.

  Dressing a restaurant, sitting the clientele is an art form. There are good tables (facing the door with a clear view of the room, so you can see all the comings and goings and be seen). Bad tables (near the loo, behind a pillar, right in the door draught, at the back, near the kitchen). The prestige tables tend to be booths, the corner tables where you can see and not be seen. But it depends on the diner and depends on the place. In The Wolseley it is all about the inner circle, anywhere else is Siberia. At The Ivy it’s the tables on the left as you first come in. At Sheekey’s it’s the far right dining room. At Colbert it’s the corners and the left-hand corner table as you come in is supposedly the best. In Nobu Berkeley Street it’s the right-hand side of the room by the window upstairs. At Le Caprice, it’s Table Seven, Princess Diana’s table, which everyone wants.

  Some people like to be seen. The likes of Lindsay Lohan prefer a centre table, while others, like Madonna, sit with their backs to the room. Kate Moss apparently doesn’t care where she’s put – she’s far too rock ’n’ roll to mind. It is always the most insecure people who kick up a fuss. But as a rule, you put your stars/your slebs/your VIPs, or WKFs as we call them – Well Known Faces (the letters VIP always look so gauche when written down) – in the front two corners and in the two tables on the left-hand side as you come in. The pretty girls go at the front. The A gays go next to them, as they spend money and are always up for a laugh. Then it’s the tables with groups and mixes. Odd numbers are always the best, as they look less formal and dull. So three blokes and two girls. Or better, three girls and one bloke. The straight fours and couples are put close to the fat Russian men, and the least alluring of all, the four Japanese businessmen, go right at the back, tucked away behind a pillar as there really is nothing to see there.

  I always find restaurant etiquette rather interesting. Women are supposed to sit looking out at the room, and the bloke is supposed to have his back to the room, feasting his eyes on nothing but his charming guest/wife/mistress. But you’d be surprised how often this is not the case. Just as many men no longer pull out or tuck chairs in for their female guests, I am not sure whether it is ignorance when a bloke forces the woman to sit with her back to the room, or whether the man is just a cock. Either way, good manners are a dying breed and I have to say that when any of us see a bloke sitting like that, chest out, we do all think he’s clearly a bit of a dick.

  ‘Ah, Mr Andreyev!’ I hear Jorge exclaim behind me as a brace of Russians arrive with their unfeasibly pneumatic wives/girls on the clock. ‘Your usual table?’

  ‘Of course!’ says Mr Andreyev, giving Jorge a hearty hug and the sort of hefty neck-slap you generally give a prop forward as he charges off a rugby pitch. Jorge practically topples over with such immense physicality. ‘This is my friend from Novosibirsk, Ivan Sergeev.’

  ‘Good evening, sir,’ smiles Jorge, still shaking from the impact. ‘Novosibirsk, you say? Here’s your table, gentlemen.’

  There is something sublimely boring about rich people in that they always want the same thing. They want their same table and they want the same food they ordered last time. I had a friend who used to run one of those extremely expensive resort hotels who said that as your average millionaire checked out of his seaside bungalow on stilts after Christmas, he’d book exactly the same villa for exactly the same two weeks the following year. It is almost as if the richer you are, the less you like being surprised. Perhaps the
ir real lives are so stressful, and they are so preoccupied by having all that lolly, that they find it impossible to eat anything but caviar, lobster and foie gras. I mean, we all know those things are nice enough to eat, but all the time? Surely there are other things to try? So, for some reason Mr Andreyev has practically moved into Le Restaurant by deciding to patronize our place at least a couple of times a week, either for business lunches or a dinner in the evening. He likes the same table and he always orders the same food – beef carpaccio and the steak. He is undoubtedly on something like the Dukan, or DoCan’t, diet, but, sadly for his waistline and probably his nutritionist, he always finds Giovanna’s puddings irresistible.

  I look across at Gina who seems to be settling into the bar well. She is only really mixing the aperitifs – the odd Russian Standard vodka here, a Sipsmith’s gin and tonic there. What can I say? We are a Russian Standard bar here at Le Restaurant. They have the best reps, the best wholesalers and more money than God. The company is owned by a Tatarstani businessman, Roustam Tariko, who also owns the Russian Standard Bank and is worth about £1.1 billion. Their ambition is to make Russian Standard as big as Smirnoff and I am only too happy to help them on their way. Anyway, Gina is looking happy and rather decorative. I smile across at her. This could work.

  I am just about to go over and have a chat with her when out of the corner of my eye I see the weirdest thing happen. Luca is walking towards the Voucher Vultures with two plates in his hand. One is belly pork and the other is the spatchcock chicken. He’s got some momentum going. Then, for some reason he has to swerve around Mikus and suddenly the chicken slips off the plate, along with the couscous and a harissa sauce, and straight into the open handbag belonging to one of the pretty girls. Luca doesn’t miss a beat. He serves the belly pork and heads straight back to the kitchen to order another chicken. Meanwhile I am left standing there, with Jorge next to me, both of us slack jawed.

  ‘Jesus!’ whispers Jorge, finally. ‘Did you see that?’