Chapter 476: Between Art and Cooking (3)
When they heard Min-joon’s angry voice, the kitchen staff looked tense and nervous, thinking the time finally came for him to face the music. As a matter of fact, Downey was too rude to him to be forgiven. Min-joon was patient enough not to openly take issue with his disrespectful att.i.tude until.
Actually, they felt good about it because the continued discord between them would make them uncomfortable. So, they felt that Min-joon would need to face him down on this occasion.
Downey approached him awkwardly. Min-joon didn’t say anything while looking at him. He had mixed feelings at the moment. Actually, he had protected Downey for June and for the other chefs. He did it for everybody, not just him.
To be honest, he hated Downey. How could he like Downey? In fact, Downey had been hostile to him since the first time he saw Min-joon. Min-joon even though he would not feel sorry even if Downey was fired.
“Let me confirm this with you,” Min-joon said, looking at him coldly. Downey stared at him quietly. As if he was not impressed at all, Min-joon said casually, “I am here for you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah because I don’t have anything by having words with you over chefs’ hierarchy in this kitchen. Actually, what I have to do to solve this situation is simple, which is to give you up.”
At that moment, Downey’s expression hardened. Looking at him again, he opened his mouth again, thinking he could not afford to humor him like a child. If Downey could not follow him, Min-joon had to give him up because he was not here as his colleague.
“I want you to think this way. You’re on the verge of dying from an illness, and you can’t guarantee your survival tomorrow without surgery. I’m recommending you to have surgery now, and you’re rejecting it. But I understand you to some extent because you won’t even admit you have a disease, right?”
“Can you get straight to the point? Don’t beat around the bush.”
“Sure, if you want it that way. You don’t recognize me. You’re resisting now. You are turning a deaf ear to the fact that your resistance is harming the atmosphere among the kitchen staff, but you don’t take heed. But let me give you a chance. Try to convince me why you are resisting.”
Min-joon was speaking really fluent English that he couldn’t even feel that he was a foreigner at this moment. Was it because he was getting excited while talking?
He continued even without knowing what he was talking to him now.
“Tell me why you think I am not fit for this kitchen, why you hate me, and why I should not give you up.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well, I just don’t know why I am struggling to deal with an immature guy like you when I’m so busy. So, I don’t want to spend my time and energy arguing with you. Let me know what I should do.”
The kitchen staff fell silent at his words. June, who was watching them from a distance, chuckled to herself. It seemed that he clearly took his cue from her, given the way he dealt with Downey.
As a matter of fact, Min-joon was supposed to be in an unfavorable situation now because it was him who had to persuade Downey.
That was the power of words. It was the power of politics. Now, even if Min-joon gave him up, he would not incur their resentment because it was Downey, not Min-joon who they gave up.
The kitchen staff looked at Downey anxiously. There was no sign of Downey stopping his stubbornness and following him.
“So, you want me to tell you why you don’t fit this restaurant?”
“I doubt if you have challenged me without any good reason. If not, I don’t want to give you a pa.s.s.”
“Okay, no problem. As a chef, I started making real dishes in this restaurant, and it was demi chef Eva, who I relied on more than anybody else. Even when I was a cook, Eva was a demi chef. When I became a demi-chef, she was still a demi chef. So, by the time Mr. Dobby left this restaurant, I thought that Eva would be able to take over his sous chef position. Then you suddenly appeared.”
Min-joon did not respond to his outpouring of resentment against him. He could understand Downey’s feelings, but he was not willing to accept his complaint.
As a matter of fact, Eva was not good enough to be a sous chef. Min-joon didn’t judge her by looking at her cooking level. While working with her, he felt her cooking level was similar to or a bit better than Havier. In a typical restaurant, she was good enough to be a sous chef, but not here because June’s tremendous ambition was as luxurious and high-end as Rose Island’s main restaurant.
Downey said, “I admit that you’re leading the kitchen staff to some extent. But the kitchen is a place where humans like us live. It’s a place where you want to be rewarded for your hard work, and you’re taking care of each other like a family, but you have broken that working atmosphere.”
“You seem to be mistaken for something,” Min-joon replied in a slightly tired voice. “The kitchen isn’t a place where you’re going to play house. You can take care of each other like a family, but it’s not a place where you meet to take care of each other. And the most basic thing is cooking and customers. And I think it’s Eva who is most upset about your anger now.”
When he said that, Downey bit his lips and turned to Eva. Certainly, he couldn’t deny that. Whenever Downey had words with him about things like this, it was Eva who was hurt the most. Why? Why did he bother to pick a fight with Min-joon, knowing Eva would be hurt? Downey asked himself about it. But he could not think of the answer. Actually, he didn’t want to know how an ugly snake was coiling out there behind the veil of truth.
“I don’t want to agree with your logic because I don’t need to. If I dance to your tune, I don’t know if this place is a kitchen or a children’s playground.”
While talking to him, Min-joon was amazed to learn that he was using harsh language. He had never been so upset recently. Of course, he got upset like this before, but he had never used such provocative and childish language to attack his opponent.
“So, give me the next reason. What you just said was not about why I was not fit for the kitchen here, but about why you hated me.”
Downey bit his lips again. No matter how hard he thought about it, he could not find any reason to kick Min-joon out of the kitchen. At that moment, one thing came to his mind, which seemed to be his own shortcoming since he got here.
“Recipe…”
“What did you say?”
“Recipe. Since you came here, you have not been able to make any good recipe, right?”
Min-joon laughed it off. In general, it was not something that he could find fault with. In fact, depending on the restaurant, they didn’t accept the recipes that the sous chef came up with. As a matter of fact, to come up with a new recipe was more like a sous chef’s right rather than his role.
But Downey was right in some respects. After he got here at June’s New York restaurant, he tried to make recipes all the time, but he was not satisfied with any of them. But that wasn’t because he could not come up with any recipes. It was because of one little homework that he was occupied with these days.
Namely, the boundary between art and cooking. More precisely, it was the boundary between Rose Island’s main restaurant and its New York branch. The New York branch paid more attention to making money and doing politics. In other words, it was different from a typical restaurant, and its business focus was also different from general restaurants. Rose Island’s New York branch was a high-end restaurant in New York that only the upper cla.s.s could visit.
As a result, June expressed each dish like a work of art and tried to make a typical dish special by changing its general taste somehow. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but because of that, the restaurant’s cuisine tended to avoid its original taste.
In other words, cuisines at the New York branch were more artistic than in commercial ones. Not only general artists but also chefs could not help but be stunned at the status of the cuisine served there, but that was a fact. Min-joon wanted to create a dish that struck a balance between the two. In the process, he produced a number of recipes with perfect cooking points of 10, but he didn’t promote his achievement because what he wanted right now wasn’t the cooking score. He needed to make the type of taste that would encompa.s.s all of these things.
“Do you know you’re now trying to find fault with me without any good reason?” Min-joon asked in a low voice. As if he also realized it, Downey couldn’t even answer.
Min-joon said, nodding at him with a smile.
“Okay, let me settle your grievances, then. But promise me one thing.”
“What promise?”
“If I come up with a recipe that can mesmerize you, you have to apologize to me first for what you had done wrong to me. Got it? It’s up to you. Just follow me or get out of this restaurant.”
Min-joon gave Downey a last chance to survive in this restaurant. Of course, Downey would feel pretty much pressured right now.
Downey looked at him nervously and asked, “What if you can’t make it?”
“Then I’ll leave this place.”
“Are you that confident?”
Downey asked with a ridiculous expression.
He felt that even though Min-joon was a great chef, he might not be fast in coming up with a recipe, given that he could not make recipes well. Or he wondered if Min-joon hit a slump these days.
However, Min-joon was dumbfounded to hear him asking that. In fact, it wasn’t that difficult for him to come up with a recipe. It would be a little difficult to develop one that could impress all the people around the world without any exception, but he was actually done developing several recipes after thinking hard until now.
“Did you ask me if I was confident?” asked Min-joon.
Then he looked around the kitchen and rested his eyes on the potato on the cutting board.
After staring at them for some time, he approached and grabbed the potato.
“Well, cooking this potato here is enough for me to convince you.”