What a Chef Is Thankful For: His Staff
Christian Puglisi, chef and owner of the acclaimed Relæ and Manfreds restaurants in Copenhagen, just published a cookbook called Relæ: A Book of Ideas. Below is an excerpt from the book, in which Puglisi gives thanks to Relæ’s staff.
Photo: Per-Anders Jorgensen
The staff at Relæ and Manfreds are the beating heart of the restaurants. We employ around thirty skilled personnel, including cooks, waiters, sommeliers, office staff, and dishwashers. The work we all perform is physically tough, mentally stressful, and not always that well paid. Still, I have managed to gather a team around me that I am perpetually thankful for and proud of.
You often hear chefs praising produce and other raw materials as the main ingredient in great gastronomy. But they are not; it is the people. Without the fast-moving hands prepping the food, the strong shoulders bringing out the trash, and the patient minds dealing with all my ideas and opinions, we would not be anywhere today.
I drew up Relæ around the idea that I would be able to do everything myself. I had left room for a bit of expanding, a few more chefs in the kitchen and someone to take care of accounting, but to begin with I was able to do everything from putting on the stocks to updating the home page and calling in the deliveries. Maybe curiosity or the will to be independent and to influence every single part of the restaurant made me very controlling. Soon I realized that the life of a chef-proprietor was not what I had expected. I was not only a chef but also a restaurateur, and my perfectionism had me wanting to decide the color of the sign in front of the restaurant as well as how long we would marinate the mackerel for the first course or whether we would dress three or four carrots per person on the second course. I realized that if I had thought that I was busy being a sous chef and taking care of a huge kitchen brigade at Noma, that was nothing compared to my new life. All the details had always mattered to me, and now I felt that they were all up to me to decide and perfect. Luckily my staff was motivated from the beginning. I had prepared them, letting them know this was our chance to do something great and that it would require an enormous amount of work from Day One. None of the guys starting up that first day ever let me down.
Soon my trust grew in my staff and their abilities. We started up with an unclear structure of who was in charge of what, but based on their personalities, the two cooks I had hired at the time, Kristian Baumann and Jonathan Tam, rose to take their own responsibilities. Kristian was in charge of ordering, organization, and staff, and John was more focused on the creative work of the kitchen, working on new dishes and new ideas. Kim Rossen was totally in control of the front of house, and the sommeliers were doing a great job pairing wine with the food. As the days grew shorter and more intense, we were all becoming a part of somethingthat looked successful, and the bond between us grew tighter as we worked shoulder to shoulder. Working for so many hours under so much pressure turned staff food into what is righteously called “family meal.”
The meals for the staff are as crucial for us now, when we cater to about twenty people a day, as they were when we opened up with about a third of the current employees. As soon as the restaurant opened its doors and we went into a working frenzy, I knew that the staff meal would be what I would eat most often during the week. Without necessarily indulging in steaks and truffles daily, I want to eat well. It’s essential to me.
Since we obtained our organic certification, all our family meals are now made of 100 percent organic vegetables and meat. True to my own mantra of eating less meat and more vegetables, we have made Thursday our weekly vegetarian day, which means we get to eat a nice roasted Sødam chicken on Saturdays, when we also always have dessert, a glass of wine, and a bit of cheer. We seat the first guests at 5:30 p.m., so the meal has to be done by 5 p.m.
Since I became a father and my girlfriend started bringing our son, Louis, along for the staff meal as often as she can, we expanded our break to 45 minutes rather than 30. That has created a great culture where we all find ourselves with time to wind down and relax. Other members of the staff with family living close by often bring their kids as well, and the ambiance is incredibly familiar. Nobody is allowed to work during that period, and punctuality at the buffet line is as important as being on time for work. I am often asked what it’s like to raise a kid while dealing with these working hours. I admit it isn’t easy all the time, but I am also proud to offer Louis this rare opportunity to regularly have a meal with up to twenty people at the table. Because this is truly our family. We may not sit at the same table for the next fifteen or twenty years, but for however many years I get to hold on to my staff, I can enjoy sitting next to a handful of the trusted people with whom I share my business, my ideas, and my thoughts every day.
I also sit next to the young ones who are starting their apprenticeship, who hand us the responsibility of making them great workers and precise cooks and who I proudly get to see grow and develop. I also get to sit next to the guests of our kitchen, the stagiares who come to work with us for a week, a month, or even longer. These guys travel the kitchens of the world to learn and be inspired, as I did myself. Stagiares, as they quietly scrub carrots in a corner sink, observe everything going on around them. If you really want to know what is going on in a small culinary city such as Copenhagen, those are the guys to ask, because they pick up all the details, both the good and bad, as they roam the kitchens of a city. The stagiares are also a great reminder of how small a world we live in. There is always someone saying “hi” from In De Wulf in Belgium or Mugaritz in Spain, as careers cross paths constantly. They are the “fresh blood” in our kitchen, and the brightest among them always bring something new to us. One guy had seen a great way to ferment leeks and another one had experimented with preserving unripe plums, a technique we could use with unripe strawberries we wanted to store for the winter. At times they bring a bit of their culture too, such as when Dennis made us extraordinary bulgogi, a spicy dish from his homeland Korea, or when Andrew, a native Texan, made us Southern-style ribs on a Saturday.
I never thought that the staff would be this important to me. But working with people is the most exciting part of my life. To cook based on values that have been handed down to you in a school or inspired by a mentor gives you great satisfaction. But being in a situation where I get to hand down some of my own values and experiences is my greatest responsibility and, as I now understand it, by far my greatest privilege.
More to be thankful for:
Smoked Turkey
Cornbread
Puglisi’s Buttermilk Soup
What are you thankful for this year?
