Watching a chef “think” (about the future)

The day I wrote this I had the extraordinary opportunity to watch a chef think (I know, without a functional scanner, one can’t really see thoughts, but you know what I mean) about his vision for the future. It was in the company of his sous-chef, two Parisian architects and a polyglot international architect-engineer. We were in a space that had been pretty thoroughly bared to the walls and ceiling and I was just a fly on the wall as the group struggled with the issues of the chef’s vision, the architects’ ideas, the rules and regulations and the fiscal and engineering practicalities. One of the issues I had never considered was wheelchair access. A few years ago, when I was reviewing for Time Out, handicap access was an issue we were requested to explore and I recall eating at a place in an old street near the Sorbonne where there was no way a wheelchair could get up the steps, through the narrow door, up to a table; and certainly never to the toilet down a steep set of ancient stairs. So what does one do? Destroy the vision of a clean, open space with a handicapped toilet, construct an enormously expensive elevator, or flout the law/regulations? And then there’s the question of how much of the charming old stone walls, bearing beams and ceiling struts one can or should preserve and how to fit the kitchen equipment in and still have room for storage, dishwashing and plating. One needs a dumbwaiter, ventilation to circulate the air three times an hour whatever the season and air-conditioning and heating and its venting. Oh boy. Then there’s the image to be projected outside; closed or open, special or inviting, glassy or woody. I can remember well a discussion Colette and I had with our eventual architects when we were renovating a brownstone in Manhattan at an early age. The male partner of the architectural couple turned to me and said, you think you’re a psychiatrist, think again, I am that, plus a mind-reader, fortune teller and chameleonesque architect and draftsman. I turn your dream into a reality and I guarantee you we’ll run into obstacles none of us anticipated that will prompt changes and expenses that you won’t like. And by the way, there’ll be a little pot of money set aside for purposes you don’t want to know about. He, his wife-partner and our contractor were geniuses and everything they predicted came true. So here I am, several houses and apartments later listening to these two visionary young chefs talking with two somewhat older, practical French architects with two of us grizzled, hardened, even old survivors of the renovation wars. It was wonderful. What will happen? I don’t know. Maybe this wasn’t “the place” where the vision would materialize, maybe this was a dress rehearsal for the real show and maybe this was just Step 1 in a long process of dreams colliding with reality. On verra. But it was fun being there and I’ll watch with interest what happens next. In a subsequent essay I’ll discuss how I think this business is the toughest there is, but for the moment, Where did our discussion begin? Cavesteve 15, rue de Longchamp, 16th (Metro: Iena) T: 01 47 04 01 45 Closed Saturdays and Sundays and A la carte from 30-50 €, wines at price plus 10 €, corkage from the racks. Blog: John Talbott’s Paris at http://johntalbottsparis.typepad.com/john_talbotts_paris/ © John Talbott 2008