The kitchen I drew, and the table inside it
Every station at L Campo has everything a cook needs, so nobody has to move and nobody has to shout. There is also a table in the kitchen, and on some nights it is yours.
Welcome to my kitchen. I drew it myself, before the walls went up, and it is open by design. I am not afraid of people looking in. I have nothing to hide: not the cleanliness, not the way food is handled, not the way a plate is served. If you want to explore it, you can.
Why it is large
Everything a cook needs is on the station. Every station has its own refrigeration, its own workspace, its own storage and its own cooking equipment, stocked before service. Every station has a screen and a printer, and executes its orders on its own. The stations do not depend on each other, and nobody waits for anybody. Moving is optional, not required.
That is what makes the kitchen quiet. I am not big on talking on the job. I like a room where people can concentrate on the task in front of them, and a kitchen where each station is complete is a kitchen where nobody has to shout.
The table
A kitchen does not normally have a table. This one does: at the back, between the spice shelves and the range, for four to eight people. The cooks work around you. You see the rabbit go on the grill and the paella go on the flame, and you see them come off. We held twelve chef's tables in the last year, and every one of them was a good night, for the guests and for me. I will keep holding them, on some occasions, in autumn, winter and spring.
Why there is a table
I do not admire many chefs. One whose work I have always appreciated is Charlie Trotter, and my wife always knew it. When she learned that he was going to close his restaurant in Chicago, after twenty-five years, she managed to book us the last kitchen table: Thursday, 30 August 2012. Charlie Trotter's closed the next night, and that final dinner was cooked by the chefs he had trained, with Trotter sitting as a guest. So the evening we had was the last one he cooked. She is amazing.
She did most of the talking with him that night. I spoke with him only a little. He was retiring, he said, to study philosophy. Not many years later he was gone. It was an evening I will not forget, and I still have the menu, in a frame.
He called it the kitchen table. The one in my kitchen is in honour of that evening, and of him, and I will keep the tradition alive for as long as I can.
An aperitif, six courses written for your table, a wine tasting with each, and the chef at the table all night. Everything you need to know, and the form to book it, is here.
Salud.