In the second part of her series on The Food Chain, Nika Jazaee follows the fish she saw bought at Billingsgate Market into the kitchen of the Crystal Palace Market restaurant.
Things in the kitchen are hotting up. The grill has been lit, and the head chef, one junior chef and three kitchen porters are busily at work.
The fish I saw bought at the market has been sorted and piled in the freezer, with some of it removed ready for tonight’s meals.
The process of getting it onto the plates takes place at different stations. At one end of the first station, the fish is gutted and prepared, while salad leaves are washed at the other.
The fish is then passed across to the second station, and so on, until it is ready for the head chef Rami, to cook in the flaming grill. Rami is a quiet but forceful presence. Making sure the fish has that grilled quality without being burned takes skill and care.
In the film below you can see the concentration on his face as he bends low to place what he has grilled gently on the plate. Rami is the last person to touch the fish before it is delivered over the counter to the customers.
The kitchen is large enough to prepare meals for up to 80 diners, but only just. Every inch of is productively used, which makes it difficult for me and my camera operator not to get in the way. Everything here has to happen quickly. We must not slow it down.
In most restaurants the kitchen is hidden from the diners. Everything takes place back stage. But here the stage is the kitchen, on which the diners can watch their meals evolve before their eyes.
From the outside it looks easy, but the pressure on the staff is immense. “You get use to it,” says one of the kitchen porters. “You’re so focused on your job that you don’t have time to reflect on who is watching you.”
Here is the first part of the series:
http://www.thecrystalpalacemarket.com/