by Cleo Coyle
Getting the appointment with the man had been remarkably easy. The moment I’d dropped David Mintzer’s name, Solange’s maître d’ couldn’t have been more accommodating.
“Name-dropping only matters when it serves an end,” Madame liked to remind me. “Use it stupidly, and you’ll be seen as an unctuous idiot. Use it judiciously, and you’ll go far.”
Well, so far, it had worked like a charm to get me in this restaurant’s door. But then New York was the sort of town that thrived on networking and connections. I hadn’t come to this burg with a pedigree or e-Rolodex, but over the years I’d gotten to know the customers of the Blend, and the natural relationships that developed were often very helpful.
David Mintzer, for instance, was well-known in New York as a successful and influential entrepreneur. Lucky for me, he maintained a town house in the Village and loved my espressos. That connection led to an offer to spend last summer in the Hamptons, setting up the coffee service for his newest restaurant—an experience that couldn’t have come in more handy at the moment.
“Let’s start with a Kenyan,” I told the maître d’ as he settled into a chair. Dornier was one of the city’s most accomplished and respected wine stewards, so the Kenyan Single Lot medium roast was a natural choice. I’d already coarsely ground the beans and steeped them for four minutes in the press. Now I pushed the plunger down and poured Dornier his very first sample of Village Blend coffee.
“Please take in the aroma first, monsieur. And then taste it as you would a fine wine. Slurp it with some air so that you can spray the coffee on your entire palate.”
Behind his amber cat glasses, Dornier appeared skeptical but curious as he brought the cup to his nose and then his lips. With one slurping sip, an eyebrow rose.
“Hmmmm,” he said as if he couldn’t trust his own taste buds. He tried another sip. “It’s quite good, Ms. Cosi. I must say, I’m favorably surprised.”
I noticed that, out of his maître d’ uniform, Dornier’s French accent was barely detectable, but then he wouldn’t have been the first front-of-house worker in a French restaurant to pump up the Gallic show for his customers.
“Now close your eyes,” I told him. “Sip again and tell me what you taste.”
Dornier nodded, clearly game for the experience. He dropped his eyelids and sipped once, twice, three times. “There’s a striking fruitiness in this coffee. I’m tasting notes of raspberry and lemon. Very nice. But I think the strongest flavor is black currant…”
“Anything else?”
Dornier took a few more slurping hits. “There are most definitely umami characteristics here…”
I smiled at his use of the term. It was a popular adjective in culinary circles, describing one of the basic tastes sensed by the receptor cells on the tongue: sweet, salty, sour, bitter…and umami, the Japanese word for a savory or meaty flavor.
“I detect a hint of sun-dried tomato. Yes…and an earthy steak flavor in the finish.” Dornier’s eyes snapped open. “My goodness, Ms. Cosi. I’m absolutely flabbergasted. This coffee is reminiscent of a Grand Cru!”
“Exactly, monsieur. Quality coffee beans, if processed, roasted, brewed, and served correctly, will show off as much complexity as a fine wine.”
The sound of one person clapping echoed across the empty dining room. I looked up to find Chef Tommy Keitel himself doing the honors. He was leaning near the doorway to his kitchen. There was a hint of superior amusement in his expression. Apparently, he’d been standing there awhile, watching me conduct the tasting.
“Tommy!” Dornier waved him over. “You must come here and sample this.”
It was difficult not to remember how I’d first met Keitel—at the Beekman Hotel, with one of his heavily muscled forearms around my daughter’s young waist. But I forced the image from my mind. I had to sell Dornier on my services, and I wasn’t going to score any points by being hostile to the restaurant’s executive chef. For my own daughter’s well-being, my issues with Keitel had to be put on hold.
The larger-than-life chef pushed himself off his leaning position and moved across the dining room. He was wearing black slacks and running shoes, a plain gray T-shirt beneath the chef’s white jacket, which he buttoned up as he strode toward me.
“I heard you were coming, Clare. How are you?” He extended his hand.
“Fine, Chef Keitel.” I placed my hand in his. “And you?”
“I’ve had better days.” His large hand shook mine and held it, his piercing blue eyes staring into me. “You’ve heard about Vincent Buccelli?”
I nodded, stepping back, tugging my hand free of his hold. “Joy and I found out last night. Did the police come by this morning to talk to you and your staff?”
“Yeah, they did. They questioned everyone.”
“For hours,” Dornier sniffed unhappily. “I’m terribly sorry for young Vincent, but no one here knew a thing about what happened to him or why. I believe the police were wasting their time. They should have been spending it in Queens searching for the crazed thug who murdered him.”
Dead silence ensued after that little speech.
I nearly started grilling Dornier at that moment, asking him where he’d gone after he’d left Solange last night—and, more importantly, where Brigitte Rouille had gone, and where the woman was now. Was she back there in the kitchen? I’d been let into the restaurant through the front door, and Dornier instructed me to set up in the dining room. He hadn’t allowed me into Keitel’s kitchen.
That was a bad break to start. Joy was due to begin her shift in two hours. More than anything, I wanted answers. But I wasn’t a member of the NYPD, I didn’t have a PI license, and unless I could convince these men to sign a contract with me, I was going to be out on my ear in the next five minutes.
Keitel cleared his throat. “So, Clare, what have you brought here that’s got Nappy so excited?”
“This Kenyan coffee to start.” I poured Chef Keitel a cup.
He sipped, paused, and drank more.
“You’re sampling the legendary SL-28,” I informed him, “probably the most respected coffee varietal in the world.”
“Is that so?” Keitel exchanged glances with Dornier. “And how did you get hold of it?”
“Well, most coffee farms in Kenya are small. They form cooperatives and auction their lots on a weekly basis, primarily to big exporters, which is why most Kenyan coffee ends up in blends. But Matteo, our buyer, doesn’t rely on a big exporter. He goes directly to the bidders at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange to score pure, uncut lots for our coffeehouse business.”
I refilled the men’s cups. “Matt samples the lots personally to make sure we’re getting the crème de la crème of the Kenyan coffee experience. The green beans are shipped to New York, and I personally roast them in our basement. The moment a bean is roasted, it begins to lose flavor, so I roast regularly to ensure superior quality with every cup.”
Chef Keitel exchanged another glance with his maître d’. The chef’s expression remained neutral, but from the single nod and arching of one eyebrow, I got the idea he was favorably impressed.
“I brought four other wonderful coffees for you to sample today.” I forced a smile. “Shall I prepare them?”
“I don’t think so.” Keitel folded his arms and regarded me. “Look, this Kenyan coffee is good enough, and I appreciate the trouble you’ve gone to, but—as I understand it—this little presentation came about as a result of your own coffee experience here last evening?”
Dornier visibly tensed. “Please, Tommy. Let’s not go there.”
“No,” he said. “I want Clare to understand why she was given whatever swill she was served last night.”
Dornier let out a tortured sigh and waved his hand. “You explain.”
“Nappy here has trained his waiters to provide the highest-quality service possible. So when a customer asks for something that’s not on the menu, his server—in your case, René—will attempt to supply it so that the dining ex
perience is not a disappointment.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t,” said Keitel. “Coffee is not on our menu. And it never was. Since you ordered it, René took it upon himself to brew you some from our employee coffeemaker.”
Dornier appeared to sink down farther in his chair.
“Let me guess,” I said. “The machine’s old. It’s dirty. And the coffee that’s brewed inside it comes in preground aluminum packets with unspecified expiration dates.”
“I had no idea this was going on,” Keitel said. “Now—thanks to you, Clare—I do.”
“And now you can do something about it,” I countered.
“Yes. I can.” Keitel’s blue gaze speared Dornier. “I can make sure we never serve employee coffee to our paying customers again.”
“Or you can put quality specialty coffees on your menu,” I pressed.
Keitel shook his head. “Why would I want to go to the trouble?”
“For profit, of course.”
“My customers don’t order coffee.”
“If it’s not on your menu, how can they order it?”
“You’re arguing an unsubstantiated point.”
“I can substantiate it in two seconds flat. Do you know what your customers are doing after they leave your restaurant?”
Keitel frowned. “What does that have to do with—”
“They drive to Long Island and north Jersey. They check the overseas markets. They head downtown to party into the wee hours. I grant you that a portion of your clientele would be only too happy to continue drinking port, ice wine, or cognac on top of the substantial amount of vino they’ve already consumed with their food, but this is New York. The night is just beginning at nine or ten o’clock when they leave your dining room. Offering coffee is a way to wake up for the drive home, the ongoing business deal, even the lovemaking that goes on, after dinner is concluded.”
Keitel stared at me for so long, I thought perhaps he’d been flash frozen. Did the man think I was completely nuts? I glanced at Dornier. He was still sipping the Kenyan, apparently waiting for his chef de cuisine to make the decision.
“Look…” I pressed, “why not at least try a dessert pairings menu with my coffee? Give it one week. I promise you’ll not only sell my coffee at premium prices to people who would have declined more alcohol anyway, you’ll sell more desserts.”
Dornier sat up a little straighter. “Did you hear that, Tommy?”
Keitel grunted once. He stared for another few silent moments, then without any discernable articulation of words, turned and stalked back toward his kitchen.
Crap.
I figured that was it. I was dismissed. Time to pack in my French presses and go—until I realized Keitel hadn’t disappeared through the swinging gateway to his domain. Instead, he was holding one door open and sticking his head through it.
“Janelle!” he bellowed into the busy kitchen. “Come out here!”
An attractive, full-figured, African American woman answered the command. She wore a burgundy chef’s jacket and a flat, burgundy baker’s cap. Beneath the cap, her shoulder-length ebony hair was styled in rows of beautiful tight braids. Her skin was mocha, and her roundish thirtyish face displayed Creole features.
“What is it, Chef?” she called, wiping her hands on the white towel that was thrown over her shoulder.
Keitel held the door open for her. “Come with me, please,” he said, his voice softer and much more polite as she moved toward him.
“Janelle, this is Ms. Clare Cosi,” he said, leading her to our table. “Ms. Cosi is Joy Allegro’s mother. She also happens to manage a coffeehouse downtown, and she’s proposing a contract with us to supply gourmet coffee.”
Janelle’s face immediately brightened. “Are you asking my opinion, Chef?”
“I am.”
“By all means, let’s taste what she’s brought!”
He speared me with his gaze. “Clare, I’d like you to meet Janelle Babcock, our pastry chef. If you’re proposing a dessert pairings menu with your coffee, you’d better win her over.”
I held out my hand. Janelle shook it with surprising fervor. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Ms. Cosi—”
“Please call me Clare.” I smiled at the woman, realizing this was the Janelle that Joy had mentioned to me weeks ago. She was a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and had come to Solange not from France but from the pâtissier position in a New Orleans restaurant that had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
According to Joy, Janelle had been the kindest to her of all the line cooks in Tommy’s kitchen. The woman had lost everything in the storm: her job, her home, her dream of opening her own bakery. Apparently, when Tommy Keitel had heard about her plight from a colleague, he’d gone out of his way to make a place for her on his staff. She’d started as an assistant to the existing pastry chef but quickly assumed the lead position when that chef moved along.
According to Joy, Janelle was saving up her money to move back down to Louisiana and start again. But she was beginning to get nervous, because the desserts at Solange weren’t moving—the very reason her predecessor had left.
From my own sampling of her cuisine the previous evening, I knew the quality of her confections wasn’t the issue. Her desserts were being sabotaged, it seemed to me, by the lousy, palate-poisoning coffee that the waiters had been permitted to serve with those amazing creations.
I pressed another pot of the Kenyan for Janelle. Then I pressed the Yirgacheffe as a single-origin. The brightness, floral aroma, and citrus finish blew her away. But she hadn’t tasted anything yet. Next came the Colombian, a micro-lot produced by the indigenous Guarapamba tribe.
“They live on a reservation high in the Colombian Andes,” I explained.
Janelle sampled the coffee. Dornier did, as well.
“I taste layers of vanilla in this one,” Janelle remarked, her voice betraying only the slightest traces of that syncopated New Orleans lilt. “Sweet cherry and raisin…”
“There’s a dark chocolate in the finish, as well,” Dornier added. “Very nice, Ms. Cosi.”
“The coffee’s grown from older plant varieties,” I explained, “and the tribe of fifty families that grows it uses traditional agricultural methods, planting and harvesting by the phases of the moon.”
Janelle’s long-lashed eyes widened. She faced Keitel, who’d been watching in silence, declining to taste anything more. “Chef, we have to serve this.”
Keitel rolled his eyes toward the dining room’s laughing gargoyles. “Don’t get yourself sweet-talked by some tale of ritual harvesting. The proof is in the pudding.”
“But you haven’t tasted the pudding,” Janelle pointed out.
I cleared my throat. “Chef Keitel, I’ll make you a deal,” I said, summoning the bravado of a serious salesperson. “At least try this next coffee. If it doesn’t impress you, even a little bit, I’ll pack up my things and leave you in peace.”
Keitel folded his arms. “Bring it on.”
I ground the beans coarsely and measured them into the bottom of a clean press (two tablespoons of coffee for every six ounces of water). Then I poured in the hot water (just off the boil) from my electric pot, stirred the grounds to begin the brewing process, and set my digital timer to four minutes.
“Mmmmm,” Janelle said. “I already smell something floral…”
“It’s lavender,” Keitel said.
I nodded. “You’re right.”
“Of course I’m right, Ms. Cosi. Who do you think you’re dealing with?”
A man with an ego the size of New Jersey?
I cleared my throat. “This coffee comes from a family farm in the mountains of Honduras called Finca el Puente—”
“The Bridge Farm,” Keitel abruptly translated.
“A colleague in the trade, Peter Giuliano of Counter Culture Coffee roasters, calls this coffee the Purple Princess, and it’s the perfect moniker. This coffee is elegant enough to be served to a
princess, and it’s greatly desired at coffee auctions.”
My timer went off, and I pushed down the plunger, forcing the spent grounds to the bottom of the glass press. Then I began to pour out the sample cups. “It’s a testament to the savvy of our own Village Blend buyer that he’s been able to secure lots of the Purple Princess for us year after year.”
Keitel grunted. “Quite a speech. But let’s sample it, shall we?”
I nodded and zipped my lips, knowing the taste of this coffee alone would sell it for me.
“Oh, my goodness,” Janelle said after a few sips. “I didn’t know there were coffees like this.”
“It’s full-bodied, and there’s a juiciness to the finish,” Dornier described, his voice quick and excited. “But I’m especially impressed with the level of lavender aroma and flavor. It’s absolutely bursting with it…and there are other fruit flavors here, too.”
“Plum,” said Keitel. He sipped again. “And grape…”
“With a note of something else, I think,” Janelle said.
“Raspberry,” Keitel added flatly.
I shouldn’t have been surprised by Chef Keitel’s spot-on description of the underlying flavor characteristics. You don’t get to be a world-class chef without a world-class palate—and, apparently, a world-class ego.
“Coffee gets its character from thousands of aromatic chemicals,” I pointed out. “This Purple Princess is probably the best illustration I’ve ever come across for that particular notion.”
“It’s a remarkable coffee,” Janelle said. She glanced hopefully at Keitel. “Don’t you think so, Chef?”
Keitel sipped more of his coffee, said nothing.
Damn. The man was one tough sell. But I refused to go down in flames.
“These and other Village Blend coffees can be paired beautifully with items on your dessert menu,” I pointed out. “The Guarapamba tribe’s Colombian, for instance, would have paired very nicely with Janelle’s modern take on the tarte Tatin that I enjoyed last night. My dinner companion ordered the profiteroles; the Kenyan would have been delightful paired with that. Its note of black currant would have resonated magnificently with the blackberry sorbet inside the pastry and black currant flavor in the casis coulis. And, of course, you can also offer a tasting of cheese and coffee pairings. If you sold an entire table on the idea, you could move as many as four presses of coffee to go with your cheeses.”