Officina della Cucina Popolare

Greg's Officina

Working at Officina Della Cucina Popolare was an amazing experience which changed the way I look at myself as a cook as well as how I think a restaurant and, more specifically, a kitchen should run. After just a few short hours in the Officina kitchen I saw that nothing ever went to waste. Every little scrap of meat, every part of every vegetable had found its place somewhere on the menu or on in our delicious family meals. Egg shells, bones, and scraps from dishes became compost that would be used to grow more beautiful fruits and vegetables for the kitchen to use. Furthermore, I learned that both Chefs treated the recipes as guidelines and not as written law. After being told that sometimes one batch of flour is “more thirsty” then the last or that one lemon can taste stronger than another, I learned to change the way I cook. I learned to judge pasta dough by the sound it makes when you slap it; to recognize the correct time to add pasta water to the oil and pepper by watching the pepper dance; when to deglaze a pan of lamb or rabbit based on the change in sound. By relying less on constantly watching one or two pans and allowing myself to trust my other senses I learned that I could do more and could move more freely in the kitchen. Also by working with two different chefs I got to see every aspect of every dish, from preparation to garnish, I had a hand in every element of every dish. The greatest lessons I learned at Officina have formed the ideal of what I look for in a restaurant now. At Officina everyone worked as a team, if you didn’t have a project at the moment, you looked up and down the line and found something to do. When we would have large parties the kitchen became like a production line with one person lining up plates for someone else to build the dish while a third followed and garnished or touched up the presentation. We all jumped between stations and covered for each other to make sure everything ran as smoothly as possible. I specifically enjoyed the feeling of togetherness between the kitchen staff and the dining room staff. It felt like there wasn’t a separation between the front of house and back of house team. It was a common sight to see servers in the kitchen early in the morning peeling onions and carrots for sauce before they set up the dining room for that day’s service. It was not unheard of for the chefs to take orders from tables or run food if the night got busy enough. We ate our family meals together, we drank wine together, we laughed together and once or twice we even cried together. I don’t think of the staff of Officina as former co-workers, I think of them as family members. Greg Cerretani U.S.A intern at Officina from August to September 2011

Officina della Cucina Popolare - Ristorante / Osteria a Colle di Val d'Elsa

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giovedì 13 dicembre 2012

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