La Taverne is located on a corner of a four way intersection in a trendy part of town. The muted lighting reflecting off the burnished mahoghany tables give it a warm inviting glow as I approach. Passing the two-story high pane glass windows towards the entrance I can see that it's crowded. Standing room only. The black clad servers carrying trays of hors d'oeuvres and champagne glide through the throngs of people in their little knots of conversation. A guitarist and someone playing an upright bass are sending out waves of smooth jazz that mix with the constant murmur of conversation. It's a gala. I've never been to a gala before, or rather, not anything that I could accurately describe as a gala. They're pretty claustrophobic affairs, and already I'm not liking it. I walk up the short flight of stairs, weaving between people and make my way to the main floor and try to track down anyone that looks like they are there in some sort of official capacity. It's hopeless. There are just too many people. I eventually manage to catch the attention of the bartender.
"Hey, where can I find Chef C? I'm supposed to be helping out tonight."
"Head down the stairs and hang a left by the entrance, through the swinging doors."
"Thanks."
I make my way back down to the entrance and turn left into a a small private dining room where I finally see it. The swinging door. It looks exactly as you see it in movies and on television. Faded, beige with a scratched round plastic inset window at head height and that strip of rubber flap on the bottom that leaves an impossible to clean streaky dirt cone on the laminate flooring. I peep through the window into a waiter prep area stacked high with spotless gleaming dishes, cutlery, towels and half full mobile racks of bussed tables. Across a counter is the pass from the kitchen lit with heat lamps, and a chef swiping a wet towel on the edge of a plate before handing it off to a server who sweeps up a set of back stairs to the dining area.
Stepping through the doorway is crossing the line into a new experience. Something that I've been timid of before, but as with anything new, is a breathe of excitement and anxiety mixed all in one.
The first thing I notice going from dining room to kitchen is the sudden increase in noise level. Take any movie scene where you have convicts in a prison cafeteria in line for chow and all the assorted clinking, dunking, splorching and gooping, then jack up the volume three times. It is loud. People are shouting, there are flashes of steel at the ends of appendages in a seemingly cartoonish parody of frenzied activity, and standing there like a rock in the middle of a tossing ocean is chef C. He's surprisingly short with a shaved head that gleams like a polished bronze railing, and a five o'clock shadow of a goatee.
"Yes?"
"Hey there, I'm the guy that called you about apprenticing, you said t o come in tonight."
"Oh right, you've never worked in a kitchen before, right? No experience?"
"That's me."
"Ok, get changed into some whites and then come back and see me. The changing room is down the hall on the right."
I walk down the hall and the start of a new adventure.
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