Arthur Hailey - Hotel

As well as the house count and telephone messages, there was a fresh pile of mail and memos. Peter skimmed through them all, deciding that there was nothing which could not be left until tomorrow. Beneath the memos was a Manila folder which he opened. It was the proposed master catering plan which the sous-chef, Andre Lemieux, had given him yesterday. Peter had begun studying the plan this morning.

Glancing at his watch, he decided to continue his reading before making an evening tour of the hotel. He settled down, the precisely handwritten pages and carefully drawn charts spread out before him.

As he read on, his admiration for the young sous-chef grew. The presentation appeared masterly, revealing a broad grasp both of the hotel's problems and the potentialities of its restaurant business. It angered Peter that the chef de cuisine, M. Herbrand, had - according to Lemieux - dismissed the proposals entirely.

True, some conclusions were arguable, and Peter disagreed himself with a few of Lemieux's ideas. At first glance, too, a number of estimated costs seemed optimistic. But these were minor. The important thing was that a fresh and clearly competent brain had brooded over present deficiencies in food management and come up with suggested remedies.

Equally obvious was that unless the St. Gregory made better use of Andre Lemieux's considerable talents, he would soon take them elsewhere.

Peter returned the plan and charts to their folder with a sense of pleasure that someone in the hotel should possess the kind of enthusiasm for his work which Lemieux had shown. He decided that he would like to tell Andre Lemieux his impressions even though - with the hotel in its present uncertain state - there seemed nothing more that Peter could do.

A telephone call elicited the information that, this evening, the chef de cuisine was absent through continued sickness, and that the sous-chef, M. Lemieux, was in charge. Preserving protocol, Peter left a message that he was coming down to the kitchen now.

Andre Lemieux was waiting at the doorway from the main dining room.

"Come in, monsieur! You are welcome." Leading the way into the noisy, steaming kitchen, the young sous-chef shouted close to Peter's ear, "You find us, as the musicians say, near the crescendo."

In contrast to the comparative quietness of yesterday afternoon, the atmosphere now, in early evening, was pandemonic. With a full shift on duty, chefs in starched whites, their assistant cooks, and juniors, seemed to have sprouted like daisies in a field. Around them, through gusts of steam and waves of heat, sweating kitchen helpers noisily hefted trays, pans, and cauldrons, while others thrust trolleys recklessly, all dodging each other as well as hurrying waiters and waitresses, the latter's serving trays held high. On steam tables the day's dinner menu dishes were being portioned and served for delivery to dining rooms. Special orders - from la carte menus and for room service - were being prepared by fast-moving cooks whose arms and hands seemed everywhere at once. Waiters hovered, questioning progress of their orders as cooks barked back. Other waiters, with loaded trays, moved quickly past the two austere women checkers at elevated billing registers. From the soup section, vapor rose swirling as giant cauldrons bubbled. Not far away two specialist cooks arranged, with dextrous fingers, canapes and hot hors-d'oeuvres. Beyond them, an anxious pastry chef supervised desserts. Occasionally, as oven doors clanged open, a reflection of flames flashed over concentrating faces, with the ovens' interiors like a glimpse of hell. Over all, assailing ears and nostrils, was the clatter of plates, the inviting odor of food and the sweet, fresh fragrance of brewing coffee.

"When we are busiest, monsieur, we are the proudest. Or should be, if one did not look beneath the cabbage leaf."

"I've read your report." Peter returned the folder to the sous-chef, then followed him into the glass-paneled office where the noise was muted. "I like your ideas. I'd argue a few points, but not many."

"It would be good to argue if, at the end, the action was to follow."

"It won't yet. At least, not the kind you have in mind." Ahead of any reorganization, Peter pointed out, the larger issue of the hotel's ownership would have to be settled.

"Per'aps my plan and I must go elsewhere. No matter." Andre Lemieux gave a Gallic shrug, then added, "Monsieur, I am about to visit the convention floor. Would you care to accompany me?"

Peter had intended to include the convention dinners, scheduled for tonight, in his evening rounds of the hotel. It would be just as effective to begin his inspection from the convention floor kitchen.

"Thank you. I'll come."

They rode a service elevator two floors up, stepping out into what, in most respects, was a duplicate of the main kitchen below. From here some two thousand meals could be served at a single sitting to the St. Gregory's three convention halls and dozen private dining rooms. The tempo at the moment seemed as frenetic as downstairs.

"As you know, monsieur, it is two big banquets that we have tonight. In the Grand Ballroom and the Bienville hall."

Peter nodded. "Yes, the Dentists' Congress and Gold Crown Cola." From the flow of meals toward opposite ends of the long kitchen, he observed that the dentists' main course was roast turkey, the cola salesmen's, flounder saute. Teams of cooks and helpers were serving both, apportioning vegetables with machine-like rhythm, then, in a single motion, slapping metal covers on the filled plates and loading the whole onto waiters' trays.

Nine plates to a tray - the number of conventioneers at a single table. Two tables per waiter. Four courses to the meal, plus extra rolls, butter, coffee, and petits fours. Peter calculated: there would be twelve heavily loaded trips, at least, for every waiter; most likely more if diners were demanding or, as sometimes happened under pressure, extra tables were assigned. No wonder some waiters looked weary at an evening's end.

Less weary, perhaps, would be the maitre d'hotel, poised and immaculate in white tie and tails. At the moment, like a police chief on point duty, he was stationed centrally in the kitchen directing the flow of waiters in both directions. Seeing Andre Lemieux and Peter, he moved toward them.

"Good evening, Chef, Mr. McDermott." Though in hotel precedence Peter outranked the other two, in the kitchen the meitre d'hotel deferred, correctly, to the senior chef on duty.

Andre Lemieux asked, "What are our numbers for dinner, Mr. Dominic?"

The maitre d' consulted a slip of paper. "The Gold Crown people estimated two hundred and forty and we've seated that many. It looks as if they're mostly in."

"They're salesmen on salary," Peter said. "They have to be there. The dentists please themselves. They'll probably straggle and a lot won't show."

The maitre d' nodded agreement. "I heard there was a good deal of drinking in rooms. Ice consumption is heavy, and room service had a run on mixes. We thought it might cut the meal figure down."

The conundrum was how many convention meals to prepare at any time. It represented a familiar headache to all three men. Convention organizers gave the hotel a minimum guarantee, but in practice the figure was liable to vary a hundred or two either way. A reason was uncertainty about how many delegates would break up into smaller parties and pass up official banquets or, alternatively, might arrive en masse in a last-minute surge.

The final minutes before a big convention banquet were inevitably tense in any hotel kitchen. It was a moment of truth, since all involved were aware that reaction to a crisis would show just how good or bad their organization was.

Peter asked the maitre d'hotel, "What was the original estimate?"