experience those flavours. That wonderfully evolved, intense and fragrant nose of cedar, black fruits, smoked meat, leather spice. So full of fruit and soft tannins, but still elegant in its complexity.”
Enzo felt saliva filling his mouth again. It was almost as if Guy were tormenting him on purpose, tantalising him with the promise of something he would never deliver. The Frenchman slipped the bottle back into its resting place, and set off again at pace. Enzo struggled to keep up.
“So many wines to choose from. You could debate with yourself all day which one to have.” He stopped at the end of a row. “I do understand, you know, that the cellar is ostensibly for the pleasure of our diners, that we offer them possibly one of the best wine lists in the world. But they are like my children, these bottles. Every last one of them. I hate to see them opened at the table of strangers. It’s like a little part of me dies each time one is drunk.”
He turned to his left and drew out a bottle at chest height. “Now this…” he swivelled, beaming, toward Enzo, “…is something you are only ever likely to see once in a lifetime. And most people never will. I have all the best vintages here from Bordeaux and Burgundy, from ‘59 to 2005. Cheval Blanc, Ausone, Haut Brion, Lafite, Margaux, Petrus…” He paused, eyes wide and shining with excitement at the recital of these unsurpassable vintages and labels, as if in owning the bottles he owned everything else about them, too. “But this… this is special.”
He turned the label toward Enzo with reverential hands.
Enzo’s eyes opened wide. “Chateau Latour, 1863,” he read. The label was only barely legible.
Guy almost trembled with the excitement of holding it. “Here. Take it.” He held it out toward Enzo, but the Scotsman shook his head.
“I couldn’t. What if I dropped it?”
Guy laughed heartily. “I would dispatch you in swift order to join my brother, wherever he might be.” He almost thrust it at Enzo. “Go on, take it!”
Enzo tensed as he grasped the bottle firmly, the glass cool on the skin of his palms, the smell of age rising from its label, and it felt like holding history in his hands. Such a bottle would never even appear on a wine list. No one could put a price on it. And yet Guy had acquired it, probably at auction. So he had put a price on it then. He wondered what it was, but knew Guy would never tell.
Guy watched him intently, knowing exactly how Enzo must be feeling, enjoying it, even second-hand. He took the bottle back, and Enzo breathed a sigh of relief, which Guy detected immediately. He grinned. “Like I said. There are some bottles that will never be drunk, simply treasured by their owners. Sometimes the joy of collecting is almost better than drinking.” He fed it gingerly back into its cradle and turned to Enzo, the tension of the moment evaporating into the cool air. He smiled. “Let’s show you the kitchen.”
Chapter Four
Sliding glass doors parted to usher Guy and Enzo into the kitchen. Enzo had been unsure what to expect, never having been in the kitchen of a three-star restaurant before, but this surpassed anything he might have imagined. It was vast. A huge rectangular space divided in two halves. One half was shared by a servers’ station where the cheese trolleys were loaded and the coffees made, and by the boulangerie-patisserie which baked the bread and prepared the desserts. The other half was where the serious cooking was done. There were hotplates and gas rings, ovens, freezers, larders, and a charcoal grill. A dazzling array of shiny, stainless steel surfaces.
The whole kitchen was alive with activity. Extractors hummed and timers pinged, and an extraordinary number of men and women in white, sporting long green aprons and tall white hats, moved among the preparation and cooking areas with all the sure-footedness of a well-choreographed ballet company. Evening service was imminent.
“There are anything up to twenty chefs working here at any one time,” Guy said. “Although the bulk of them are stagiaires. Most trainees spend a season here, learning from the bottom up. But we have short term trainees, too, who normally come to us on release from college courses. The stagiaires get all the donkey work to do. Chopping vegetables, preparing stocks, jointing the birds, trimming the meat, washing the floor.” He wandered across the space that divided the two halves of the kitchen, where a long, low, marble table was laid out with three place settings. Beyond it, floor to ceiling glass windows gave on to what Enzo assumed must have been Marc’s office.
Servers in loose black tops and pants glided in and out bearing large silver trays loaded with amuse bouches prepared in the patisserie to serve guests in the lounge. Enzo was aware of curious eyes flickering in his direction, then away again. There couldn’t have been anyone in the kitchen who did not know why he was here.
“The organisation of the kitchen is fairly simple,” Guy said. “It is divided into four. The larder, or gare manger; the vegetable section; fish and meat; and the boulangerie-patisserie. There is a chef in charge of each, the chef de partie. Then there is the sous chef, or second, the chef de cuisine, and, of course, the chef himself. Le patron.”
“And who is le patron now?”
“Let me introduce you.”
Guy led Enzo across to where a work station was being set up with wooden chopping board, knives, and condiments below a blindingly bright heat lamp. The chef behind it, dressed all in white, was nearly extinguished by the light. A man in his early forties with a neatly trimmed ginger moustache and amber-flecked green eyes, he was almost painfully thin. Enzo wondered how anyone who enjoyed his food could be so emaciated.
“This is Georges Crozes. He was Marc’s second, promoted to chef when Marc died.”
Georges wiped a bony hand on a clean torchon dangling from his apron strings and reached over stainless steel to shake Enzo’s hand. He had unsmiling, guarded eyes. “ Enchante, monsieur.” But Enzo felt that he was less than enchanted to meet him.
Guy seemed oblivious. “Traditionally, when a three-star chef dies, Michelin takes away a star. They say it is a mark of respect for the deceased chef, since how could someone else immediately fill those three-star shoes? In reality, it usually means huge loss of income for the widow or whoever has inherited the restaurant.” He beamed appreciatively in the direction of Georges Crozes. “However, because of the circumstances of Marc’s death, they made an exception for us. And it is very much down to Georges that we have retained that third star ever since.”
Enzo said, “I understood that Michelin was thought to be on the point of taking away one of Marc’s stars anyway.”
Guy flicked him a glance. “A rumor. Whether it was true, we’ll never know. At any rate, Georges was his protege, schooled in the style Fraysse, and although he has introduced his own individual slant on things, it is still essentially Marc’s cuisine that we serve here. And since we still have those stars…” He shrugged to indicate he believed his point had been made.
“Monsieur Fraysse, your evening meal is ready.”
Enzo turned to find an older man smiling benignly at them. He was tall, a man in his sixties, almost completely bald, with a tightly trimmed silver moustache. He was dressed all in black like the other servers, but had the relaxed demeanour of someone in charge.
Guy nodded. “Thank you, Patrick.”
Patrick waved an open palm toward the marble table and Enzo saw that it was now laden with food. There were a large breadbasket with four different kinds of bread to be broken by hand and eaten with the fingers, bowls of salad and pasta, and a large steaming dish of freshly cooked mussels in a cream and garlic sauce.
Elisabeth Fraysse bustled out of the office as Guy and Enzo took their seats, and she sat opposite them while Patrick placed clean plates in front of each.
“Did you get that bottle I asked for?” Guy asked him.
Patrick made a small bow, for all the world like a well-practised butler, or an old family retainer. “I did, Monsieur Fraysse. I’ve had it breathing for you.”
Guy grinned at Enzo. “A little something to celebrate your arrival.”
As they loaded their plates with salad and pasta, and large scoops of shiny, gaping mussel shells revealing succulent orange moules, Patrick brought a bottle to the table and held it with the label toward Guy, bringing a smile to his employer’s face.
“Perfect.” He turned to Enzo as Patrick poured him a mouthful to taste. “A 1993 DRC Grand Cru, La Tache.
