Calm After The Culinary Storm

As part of her series The Food Chain, Nika Jazaee visits The Crystal Palace Market restaurant to find out what is special about Mondays.

Any restaurant worker will tell you why they don’t like Mondays. It’s because it’s boring.

In the Crystal Palace Market restaurant, after the madness of the weekend everything is now so slow that it feels as if The Food Chain has lost a link. This is the calm after the storm.

The markets were closed on Sunday so there’s no meat to prepare and the butcher has got the day off. Customers are thin on the ground and so instead of rushing to and fro, the floor waiters and supervisors are moving from foot to foot, and making passing jokes between each other.

The barmaid is so busy polishing glasses that you wonder if she has done them all and started all over again. Meanwhile in the kitchen, with nothing much to wash, the kitchen porters are throwing the water at each other instead.

But there is one part of the operation that is busier on Monday than at any other time of the week. It is the one that keeps all the papers, invoices and salaries in order: the accounting department.

Roxanna, the accountant, tells me that she sometimes has to work very late to get everything in order. All the cash flows need to be checked with the managers; all the stock lists have to be scanned; and new orders have to be made for the coming week… and so it goes on… and on.

They say that you should never visit a restaurant on a Monday, in case you get served what’s left over from the weekend.

But I liked the atmosphere of peace, and the lack od crowds. The absence of stress also meant the staff were particularly friendly. So don’t avoid the Monday restaurant. Go in and enjoy the calm – but maybe just with a coffee, rather than the full meal.

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