Peter May: Blowback

“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. Domaine de la Romanee Conti. Most people believe you should only drink white with fish and fruits de mer, but a good pinot noir will go with most seafood and is particularly good with moules.” He put his nose in the wine glass, breathed in, swirled it, breathed in again, then took a small sip to wash around his mouth. “Oh.” His eyes almost closed in ecstasy. “This is going to be so very good.”

Patrick filled Enzo’s glass, then Guy’s, but Enzo noticed that Madame Fraysse was drinking only sparkling mineral water. Guy raised his glass to touch Enzo’s, and they sipped at the pale liquid red. Its wonderful spicy light fruit filled Enzo’s mouth, and he caught Guy watching him for his reaction. “I hope,” Enzo said, “that watching me drink this doesn’t induce you to die a little.”

Guy laughed. “Never, when a bottle is shared with a friend. What do you think?”

“I think it’s an extraordinary wine, Guy.”

“What do you taste?”

It was, it seemed to Enzo, almost like a test. What did he really know about wines. He took another sip to roll around his mouth and said, “It’s light, elegant. But still rich. Full of plum, berry, and a touch of vanilla. Aged long enough, I guess, for most of the tannins to have turned to fruit.”

Guy grinned infectiously. “Spot on. You know your wines, Enzo. Not bad for a Scotsman.”

“Maybe we’ll try a whisky tasting some day, and we’ll see how you get on?”

Guy threw his head back and roared with laughter. “And I’ll bet there’s a thing or two about drinking whisky that you could teach me.”

Enzo smiled. “You would win that bet.”

He turned to the moules, breaking off a piece of bread to dip in their creamy juices, then extracting the first of them with his fork and popping it into his mouth. It was so soft and tender and full of flavour that it seemed to simply melt on his tongue. He used its empty shell as pincers to pick the others from their shells, savouring each one in turn, and cleansing his palate from time to time with some wine and the mildly dressed salad on his plate.

He looked up to find Elisabeth Fraysse watching him. Her smile was a little embarrassed, as if she had been caught spying on him. “I see you enjoy your food, Monsieur Macleod.”

Enzo grinned. “I do.” He patted his middle. “A little too much sometimes.” He mopped up more juices with another piece of bread. “What sort of waiting time is there for reservations at Chez Fraysse?”

“It’s about six months these days,” Madame Fraysse said. Enzo’s hand froze midway to his mouth, juices dripping from his mussel shell.

“You’re kidding? How can anyone know what they will be doing or where they will be in six months’ time.”

Guy said, “People who reserve with us know exactly where they’ll be and what they’ll be doing. They’ll be eating here.”

Enzo nodded thoughtfully. “You spoke earlier about trainees being with you for a ‘season’. What length is a season?”

“April to November,” Madame Fraysse said. “When Marc was alive he insisted we stay open all year round. But it was hopeless in the winter. When the weather was reasonable we could still only half-fill one of the dining rooms, even with three stars. When the weather was unreasonable, we would have cancellations. We get a lot of snow here in the winter months.”

Guy said, “After Marc died we took the decision to close from the end of October to the beginning of April. And we still make more money than most other restaurants do in a whole year.”

“We’re closing for the winter at the end of next week,” Madame Fraysse said, almost pointedly. As if warning him that his time there would be limited.

Enzo found himself momentarily distracted as he met the eye of an attractive young woman working behind the nearest stainless steel counter, where she was squeezing swirls of cream from a dispenser on to the tops of hollowed-out round courgettes filled with a steaming savoury stuffing. She had beautiful brown eyes and long blond hair piled up beneath her tall chef’s hat, accentuating fine cheekbones and the elegant line of a delicate jaw. The hint of a smile played around full lips, and Enzo felt his heart leap. Then her eyes dipped again to the courgettes.

“Shutting down in the winter also means that we stay true to the philosophy of Marc’s cuisine,” Elisabeth Fraysse was saying. “Perhaps even more than he did himself. Because, you see, out of season it was impossible to acquire the fresh herbs and vegetables that he insisted on using. Of course, he had evolved winter menus, but they were never quite the same.”