At the Pass
Cara Cara oranges are supreme-style cut, and the juice from the pith is squeezed on top to keep them moist. The marigold petals on top of the tuna crudo all face the same direction. The bouquet garni are trimmed so they look like a scroll that flavors the consomme.
This is some of what I saw as a stagiere at Lutèce, who opened their doors (and walk-in) and shared a table and time with me at family meal.
Setting the Stage
The practice of staging (pronounced “staaj”), referring to working in a restaurant without pay to learn, has recently sliced through the popular zeitgeist thanks to its portrayal in The Bear, where Sydney, Richie, and Marcus all spend time in other kitchens. In the episode “Forks,” Richie’s first task is to polish forks all day–a seemingly frustrating drudge that teaches attention to excellence and a respect for standards.
But its roots can be traced as far back as early 20th century Europe. “Staging” (from the French stagiaire, meaning trainee or intern) was a very organic part of Auguste Escoffier brigade de cuisine idea–a kitchen where everyone had an institutionalized role in a hierarchy that one worked one’s way through. Young cooks would work days, and sometimes months, in fine dining kitchens to gain exposure. The goal wasn’t employment, or at least not employment in the kitchens where they staged, but in times where prestige mattered a great deal, having a famous chef on one’s résumé opened doors–and that hasn’t changed in the present either.
Staging became the norm at world-renowned restaurants like noma and elBulli. elBulli, the culinary temple of Ferran Adrià, would regularly have 3000 staging applicants. The final 32 apprentices would travel to the town of Roses on Spain’s Costa Brava and often work 14 hour days for 6 months doing such repetitive yet precise tasks like squeezing the germ out of corn kernels or trimming the slime from anemones or (steel yourself) extracting rabbit brains out of skulls. Over the years of elBulli, hundreds of stages worked there–so many, in fact, that their stories are featured in Lisa Abend’s 2011 book The Sorcerer’s Apprentices. Adrià called them his greatest “technology,”–the humans who materialized a spectacular vision with their handiwork.
If this smells of exploitation far too much for your taste, the restaurant industry hears you and has certainly changed its reliance on unpaid labor. Questions about fairness, access, and the cost of culinary ambition have made staging what it is in the present–a very short engagement or a job interview. Month-long stages simply do not exist anymore–maybe not even week-long ones.
There are several reasons why cooks want to stage and why restaurants take them on, in turn. Most often, staging is a part of a job interview and one not even necessarily for a job at the restaurant where one stages. Lutèce is part of the Popal family hospitality group, so a chef may stage at Lutèce but work at Maison or one of the other restaurants down the line. You can learn a lot about “how a chef moves in the kitchen,” in one day, says Chef Anthony Laclair. And the stages can, too–deciding if a job is a good fit for them also.
Anatomy of a Dish
A tarte Tatin is an upside-down caramelized apple tart. Its (potentially apocryphal) origin story is that one particularly rushed day at their inn (an inn busier than the one on Gilmore Girls, clearly), the Tatin sisters, made an apple pie but forgot to put the crust on the bottom. After flipping it over, they discovered apples caramelized so exquisitely, the guests flipped over it, in turn. A classic was born.
At Lutèce, the shallot tatin, halved, is served alongside the Wagyu steak. Making the tarts is…predictable enough that Chef Bruno trusted me to make them on my second staging day. But, again, it is the small touches that make this dish spec-tart-cular.
Let’s start with the caramel–the sugar, salt, and glucose syrup (the secret ingredient!) are weighed out. I don’t know if you have ever attempted to weigh out glucose syrup, but let’s just say it is a very sticky situation. The syrup comes as a clear tub of goop–attempting to so much as scoop it out is…a mood. But Chef Bruno says it gives the caramel a “nice sheen.”
As the caramel was sitting on a low burner, I prepped the shallots–peel any “grimy” outer layers, halve them, so they have a “face.” Those “faces” form the gorgeous layers once the tart is flipped over. Chop the rosemary, but make firm measured chops, no more than two passes, so you don’t bruise it.
When the caramel is ready, measure out on a scale the correct amount for each cast iron pan. Pepper and rosemary on top, and then strategically smoosh the shallots. I say strategically smoosh because when the tart is baked, there should be “no negative space,” Chef Bruno underlined. A culinary game of Tetris ensures that just the right shape of shallots are fitted into the pan. Lutèce, as most other places, buys frozen puff pastry and cuts the right shape using a stencil. When the puff pastry coats the shallots, one must lovingly swaddle the shallots like a sweet onion bebe, or else they fall out when the pan is flipped. Here comes the fun part–scoring the dough so it doesn’t puff up, despite its deceptive moniker. This can only be done with a tool expressly created for this purpose–an oyster shucker (this is a joke, btw).
The pans have to be flipped with great alacrity or else the shallots come flying out of their shells, and their beautiful faces are no more. Chef didn’t trust me with that part, thankfully.
Little Things
So what do stages get out of the experience? Well, I came to learn, it’s seemingly small but significant things. And not all of them are culinarily uber serious.
Remember that oyster shucker turned puff pastry piercer? I saw another tool with an alternative purpose–a pastry sifter usually used to sift powdered sugar on top of desserts makes an excellent stock foam remover. The duck skin has to be “needled” by something that looks like a a torture device but perforates the skin so that the meat can cook evenly. I am going with the duck stapler for that one.
The Maldon salt at the pastry station has a sign, “No boys allowed!” because Chef Anna noticed that herb pieces and black pepper would make their way into the salt–thanks, boys!
It’s seeing that the scallop and oyster shells are saved to be used as serve ware. It’s finding out which things get ordered and which get made in-house. One day, I was peeling 2 pounds of black garlic–a job that can’t be done by a machine because the soft molassy cloves have to be gently coaxed out of the paper skins.
It’s also sitting for the family meal and seeing how the rice is made. Readers, restaurants don’t measure out the water when making big pots of rice–they cook and then drain out the water. They also season the rice after it is cooked–don’t worry, I contested this technique vocally!
Exit Stage
Staging lets you become a part of a crew that works in very tight submarine-like quarters. It lets you become part of a cadence. Before the doors open, everyone is working on something. The only sound is the French hip hop from the speakers, and the occasional “hot pan.” Everyone calls each other “Chef.” Everyone sits down for the family meal, and eats it on real place settings, not standing up. You find out if you share the same sense of humor as the crew. And you get to see people savoring the fruits of your work, in a small way. It’s pure magic.