Page 9 of The Signature Dish of the Underworld

Heading back to the kitchen, Garth clapped his hands together and everyone snapped to attention.

“Listen up, team. I know you’re putting your finishing touches on your preparations for tonight, but seeing as we have a new team member joining us for the evening, I want to remind everyone of how tonight is going to go.”

Rae gulped. She hoped it was inaudible.

“It’s going to be a slower night than usual. The festival kicks off tomorrow, so everyone is saving themselves for that. Slower does not mean sloppy, you hear me? You send a sloppy dish up to my pass and I will gut you myself, am I clear?” Garth smiled as he said it.

“Yes, Chef.” They all chorused.

“Now, because she doesn’t know how this is going to go, Rae here is going to be on the pass, plating for me. Help her out. Don’t waste her time letting her plate something that you know isn’t up to the standard I’d expect. Don’t let me down, and don’t think you can let it slide just because she’s a newbie. Got it?”

“Yes, Chef.”

“Well, then. Let’s have some fun.”

CHAPTER FIVE: A helping hand

If this was Garth’s idea of slow, Rae was definitely out of her depth. This was why he’d recruited her, she realised. To prove she couldn’t compete with him.

Sure, a few tickets had trickled in at the beginning, but the minute it hit seven o’clock – BAM – it was like everyone and their dog wanted to come in here.

“Don’t worry,” Garth chuckled as he saw Rae stare wide-eyed at the ticket machine as it spat out a flurry of three more tickets.

“We only have one seating tonight. Tomorrow it will be double this, maybe even triple if Nika can flip the tables like she usually does. You just have to ride the wave for the next hour and a half. You think you can do that?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Garth chuckled again. “No, you don’t.”

With his sleeves rolled up, Garth took the time to show her how he wanted each dish plated at the pass. One run through was all she got. Then Rae had to commit it to memory and replicate it to perfection for every other ticket. Essentially, it was copying and replicating how a dish was put together – something anyone could do if they were good with precision and paying attention. You didn’t need professional training to do it, which was good, because Rae didn’t have any qualifications beyond her own experience.

Side by side, they worked together in silence while surrounded by a crashing symphony of a kitchen team stretching its legs. Occasionally, Garth would yell out a ticket, the team would chorus “Yes, Chef!” and then he’d shout instructions or timings when he needed certain things sent up to Rae on the pass. Pots and pans whizzed and clattered overhead, while plates came back carried by the lanky waiter, Tomas, who Rae learnt was on his first training shift too.

“Here,” Garth said quietly to her, as Rae hesitated to place a crab claw between the three oysters that finished off the Styx seafood chowder. His hand covered hers as he guided her to pinch the tongs – that squealed in protest – and placed the claw directly in the centre.

“Oh hush – you like it,” Garth said to the tongs, before going back to his place on the pass and turning to Rae. “You have to do it with confidence, like you do for the dishes at Geras’. Don’t worry, you’re not going to mess it up.”

“In theory, I know that. In reality, these aren’t my dishes. It’s nerve wracking,” Rae muttered as she attempted to try again with the next chowder on the ticket.

Garth quirked an eyebrow at her as he realised what she meant. “You made all those dishes at the bistro? No one else helps you back in the kitchen?”

“Nope. I’ve never had help in my life. Not sure what to do with it if I was offered it,” Rae laughed.

The laughter quickly died when she caught Garth looking at her like she was a lost little deity, unsure of her place in the world.

“You’re doing great. Just … trust yourself.”

Rae nodded and focused on the new plate that had slid into place, her jaw still clenched. A ticket waved its corner at Rae to remind her what dish she was supposed to be focusing on next.

“Right. Trust myself.”

It was hard, though. While Rae was used to sandwiches and baked goods, taking decadent ingredients and turning them into mouthwatering home comforts, Garth’s food was just … Decadent, deserving of the capital D.

The Styx seafood chowder was made with squid ink, and managed to mix the smoky illusion of the river with the fresh seawater flavours, as Rae discovered when Garth asked her to sample its salt levels. It was served alongside warm loaves of bread that were so soft, Rae just wanted to dunk her head on them like a pillow. Those loaves came with self-buttering knives, but in place of butter was a saffron rouille that made Rae actually moan out loud.

Garth had grinned again at her for that reaction.

It was hard to choose a favourite main dish that Rae saw come and go from the pass. The goat’s curry invoked feelings of rainy days in the meadow. Plus, it was one of the easiest dishes to plate in a deep bowl that had a large, rounded, white edge. Though there was something to be said for the fish that was the length of a table for six and stuffed with lemons, bunches of herbs and vegetables, bright red cherry tomatoes, and delightfully sharp capers, all drizzled over with warmed olive oil.

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