Chef's Day Off

I hold up two fingers when the hostess turns her attention to me. “For lunch, if you’ve got space.” It’s 2 pm on a Thursday afternoon and the American Bar in London’s Stafford Hotel is unsurprisingly buzzing with men in suits. The hostess nods her head and ushers us to the back, leading us to a table with a small sofa pushed up against the green-painted wall and a rust-coloured velvet armchair. We sit beside each other—I in the armchair and Grace in the sofa. Grace’s eyes glance around the room, observing the parties sitting near us before landing upon me and giving a slight smile. Her eyes convey a subtle feminist confidence; we’re the only women in this ‘old boys’ club’ of an establishment.

Grace is no stranger to the restaurant scene. After graduating college and spending a year living in Vail, Colorado, she turned down a prestigious graduate program in business and subsequently moved to Paris to study at Le Cordon Bleu. True to form, Grace graduated at the top of her class and was invited to work in some of Paris’ finest restaurants. While the dining may be glamorous, the kitchens are grueling on the minds and bodies of those who work in them—the kitchens are small and unimaginably hot and the hours long. Nonetheless, it’s hard to not romanticize the life of a young chef living in Paris. When one shift ends, another one begins—the latter of which extends into the wee hours of the morning.

I didn’t know Grace when she was living in Paris, but the London restaurant scene doesn’t sound much different. I’m amazed by her energy and spirit despite having worked 30 of the last 48 hours and choosing to spend her hard-earned day off out of bed and in pearls, lunching with me on the other side of town. She flips through the wine list and decides on a South African Chenin Blanc. “I’ll have the same,” I say to the waiter. Best to follow Grace’s lead given that she’s on track to obtain her Level 4 Master Sommelier distinction in the next year, I think to myself with a smile. When the wine arrives I ask her to share her tasting notes with me. With a single sip I realize that she’s nailed it to a tee.

We order a Caesar salad, grilled prawns, and triple-cooked chips which exceed both of our expectations. There’s nothing better than a well-friend potato, I conclude, as I reach for another.

Between bites of food, our conversation moves through several topics; the notion of hard work, friendships, relationships, family, endeavour, and the responsibility we owe to ourselves and to others. For the sake of cohesion, this makes the process of diluting our conversation into a single theme challenging. But I’ve come to realize that this is the essence of Grace. It’s impossible to confine her heart, soul, and mind into a single frame. There’s a certain multi-dimensionality to her being—unlike that of anyone I’ve ever met. She’s the smartest woman in the room, the kindest friend, the bravest activist, and the hardest working.

And yet, there’s a subtly to her ambition that’s both awe-inspiring and enviable at the same time. I just recently learned that Grace climbed Mount Denali a few years ago. While sitting out on the deck overlooking the Santa Barbara coastline last summer, Grace comically pulled a pair of eyeglasses that looked like a cross between sun and ski goggles.

“Do you like my mountaineering glasses,” she said with a half-suppressed laugh.

Mountaineering glasses, I thought to myself with a slight chuckle. I thought she was joking.

She wasn’t.

The waiter cleared our table leaving only our wine glasses. As if perfectly timed, J waltzed into the Bar with a smile beaming across his face as he caught eyes with his sister and me sitting at the back of the American Bar. Did I mention that they are siblings?

He took a seat across from Grace and began to connect the dots between now and their last visit. As they shared stories, I took a brief moment to pause and gaze around at my surroundings. At 4pm, the restaurant felt noticeably smaller than it seemed when we arrived two hours earlier—not smaller in a suffocating way but smaller in a comforting way. Whether it was the dark green walls, the low ceilings adorned with maritime flags from around the world, the company with whom I sat, or the warm buzz of alcohol, I found myself realising that what once appeared like a stiff old-boys-club of an establishment had perceptively softened over the last two hours. I wondered then, and I still wonder now, if this could have been Grace's doing. After all, there are few women who can be both enviably positive, unprecedentedly gentle, and undeniably comfortable with taking up space in a room full of either strangers or familiar faces. Perhaps that is the magic of Grace.