Cape Town’s wildly creative, beloved chef, patron and force of nature behind the sadly-departed Woodstock eatery ‘The Kitchen’ shares her thoughts on how to build and nurture an effective, engaged kitchen team.
As I arrived at my first Good Food and Wine Show in Durban, shortly after the launch of my first book “A Week in The Kitchen” I was surrounded by the culinary school students assigned to my demo firing questions: “How would you like the carrots sliced, chef? Should we mix the dressing, chef?”
I kept glancing behind me until I realised, that “chef” was me! I had always worn my chef’s whites as protective wear, accustomed to the plastic studs and well-worn clogs. I’d done my endless hours in countless kitchens prepping for events large and small. I’d racked time in kitchens in the U.S. and England. My, then, young shop was still a thrill of daily creation and innovating new veggie-led dishes to seduce, heal and inspire!
I was a cook. Surely? I hadn’t been to cooking school! Me? Chef?
Leading a kitchen evolved so organically for me that I had not recognised that, in fact, I was a chef. Not a traditional one, certainly, but this was the time of challenging all kinds of “norms”. My kitchen was producing scandalous combinations, discovering methods and hacks by trial and error. New ideas that would probably raise eyebrows were delivering winning results.
We were “reaching for the jugular” and my whole team was behind me. I was a “chef” leading a kitchen into flavour and discovery. As we explored, we drew a whole community of customers into deliciousness – food that was fresh, accessible, and GOOOOOD!
In opening The Kitchen in Sir Lowry Road, Cape Town, I exchanged the close quarters of my cramped home kitchen for a Woodstock hole-in-the-wall. Somehow a restaurant space took shape there. I had a plan, some fantastic, loyal customers and a new space for it all to happen. Having come from the intimacy of a home, my core team were accustomed to my shameless pursuit of people-pleasing. We loved the sheer fun of cooking together and had a familiarity with resource-fulness.
It was collaborative from the very beginning. It worked like this: I led the charge with concepts and ideas. Once I’d made a dish, or salad, it became the domain of one of my team. Phumla – slaws, beetroot, and falafel. Pati – bigger salads. Sandra – brassicas and pastry. Margi – meat, fish and baking. We all had to like the dish before it joined our repertoire. The value of The Kitchen; our solid arsenal of recipes, our output and sheer (breath-taking) capacity, lived in the bodies of those cooks.
With that structure in place, I put on my lipstick and gave my attention to looking after my crew.
What makes people happy? Recognition – for effort, sacrifice, good work. Autonomy – once peo-ple know what to do, trust them to get on with it. Responsibility – over the years, my crew have run parties all over the peninsula and the Western Cape. Fairness – front- and back-of-house on equal pay. More pay for more responsibility. Then there was the functional stuff, like basic medical aid for doctor’s visits and staff transport for late nights.
Front of house was vital too. Here, by modelling disarming hospitality, kindness and generosity I trusted my team would do the same. In the safety of the team, each member got to bring some-thing: A knack for presentation? Particular patience? Cleaning wizardry? Effervescent hospitality? My job was to identify that magic and set it free!
Since the food was predicated on joy, delight was our work, queues and a bustling shop our re-ward. Our success reflected how completely my team owned this joy of service and their confi-dence that WE MADE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL, TOGETHER!