Chapter 200: The Courtship of 36 People (4)
Chapter 200: The Courtship of 36 People (4)
……It’s not something we need to think about just yet.
Dave calmed himself. Although Jo Minjoon was putting on a flawless performance that seemed far beyond the level expected of a demi chef, that alone was not enough to determine what kind of chef he would become in the future.
“Minjoon. Rafael mentioned that you were reluctant about taking charge of the molecular gastronomy section at first.”
“It wasn’t that I disliked it…… I was just hesitant.”
“Sounds about the same to me.”
“I never disliked molecular gastronomy itself. I thought it was fun and fresh from the beginning. But back then…… I wondered whether my foundations were solid enough for me to start working with it.”
“So after trying it, did you decide your foundations were solid enough? Or did you conclude that the foundations weren’t as important as you thought?”
Jo Minjoon did not turn to look at Dave. He wiped a smear of cream from the plate with a cloth as he answered in a calm, serious voice.
“My skills kept improving even while I was learning molecular gastronomy. More specifically, my intuition for cooking. In the end, everything is connected.”
“Do you have no regrets? I’m sure there are ingredients you especially enjoy working with. Fish, meat…… Don’t you ever feel like you want to spend more time with something else?”
“What I like most is sauces. And if I had to narrow that down even further…… I like drawing out the natural flavour of fruit without losing anything.”
He had only become more certain of that recently.
Jo Minjoon now had a clearer idea of what his personal style would be. It was not exactly naturalism, but he wanted to preserve and bring out the full flavour of fruit as completely as possible.
Of course, that did not mean he disliked meat-based preparations such as demi-glace. Soy sauce, gochujang, fish sauce, vegetables, nuts—he enjoyed working with all kinds of ingredients. But the richness and sweetness that could be drawn from fruit was what Jo Minjoon found most fascinating and refreshing.
Dave continued, almost as though playing devil’s advocate.
“It sounds as though you’ve already decided on your path. There are plenty of people who still don’t know what kind of style they want even after becoming sous chefs. Don’t you think you may have made up your mind too early?”
“In my opinion, knowing what you want early isn’t a problem.”
“You haven’t had the chance to experience every aspect of cooking yet. Wouldn’t your decision be more accurate if you tried more things first?”
“Deciding on my style doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore everything else. I intend to look at all of it. But whatever I learn, I’ll put my own touch on it. I think that if you want to move forward as a chef, you need a speciality of your own. A weapon.”
Dave smiled instead of answering.
Truthfully, he did not think there was anything wrong with Jo Minjoon already having a cooking philosophy.
He simply wanted to know whether Minjoon had genuinely thought his way towards it, or whether he had merely settled on the section he happened to enjoy and decided to call that his path.
After hearing his answer, Dave no longer felt the need to probe any further.
Once he returned to the dining room and sat down, Debra, who had just finished speaking with Janet, came over and took the seat beside him.
Dave smiled at her.
“What do you think of Teacher’s new demi chefs?”
“They’re not bad.”
“That’s all?”
“To be honest, they’re good. We’ll know more once we actually taste their food, but from what I saw in there, they were close to perfect. You could probably call them the elite among demi chefs. The prep cooks are the same. It was surprisingly difficult to find anything worth criticising.”
Debra shrugged.
But that was hardly unusual.
Rose Island’s demi chefs had always been among the best. The restaurant’s reputation drew talented chefs from everywhere, and among those talented people, only the best were selected to stand in a Rose Island kitchen. When everyone was skilled from the bottom up, the food reaching the customers had no choice but to approach perfection.
If even the branch restaurants functioned that way, how could the main branch be any different?
“It looked like you spent quite a bit of time with that female demi chef.”
“I couldn’t help it. As a woman, when I see another woman trying to survive in a professional kitchen, I get emotional. I’ve been through it myself. I know how difficult it can be.”
“Only women have it hard? Men struggle too.”
“I’m not saying men have it easy. This isn’t about who has things better. Men and women are different, and it’s not easy to find someone who can teach you how to navigate those differences. ……Of course, with Teacher Rachel here, maybe it wasn’t necessary for me to interfere at all.”
“But it’s still a good thing. You used to struggle with that problem yourself. Now you’re in a position where you can give advice to someone else.”
Dave smiled gently.
Debra merely shrugged again.
At that moment, the strange sound of an engine came from outside the restaurant.
They looked through the window and saw a yellow kindergarten bus stopping in front.
Debra frowned slightly.
“Was there a kindergarten nearby?”
“Only one child got off. She probably lives around here.”
“……She seems to be coming here.”
A brown-haired girl in a water-drop-patterned one-piece dress was walking towards the restaurant.
Ella.
A moment later, her small hands pushed open the door.
The instant she saw thirty-six unfamiliar faces filling the dining room and kitchen, she gasped and immediately began to hiccup.
“Th-this is the right place……”
Clearly frightened by the unexpected sight, Ella stepped backwards and looked at the building from outside, then back into the restaurant with tears beginning to gather in her eyes.
The exterior was the same.
The interior was the same.
Even the furniture was the same.
But the people were different.
Ella bit her lip.
She was scared, but she did not want to cry.
Unfortunately, she could not stop the tears forming in her eyes.
At that moment—
“Ella. What are you doing over there? Hurry up and come inside.”
“Uncle!”
Relief flooded Ella’s face as she ran straight over and hugged Minjoon.
Watching him pat the sniffling child’s back, Dave asked in confusion.
“What exactly…… Who is this child?”
“Ah, she’s our pâtissière’s daughter. The princess of Rose Island. She comes by the restaurant every so often.”
Jo Minjoon smiled as he calmed Ella down. He picked up a tissue from the table and held it beneath her nose.
“All right. Blow.”
“Pfffffff!”
Ella blew her nose as hard as she could, then looked up at Minjoon with tears still clinging to her eyes.
“There were so many people that I thought I got lost.”
“What did we say you should do if you get lost?”
“Mm…… I have to call Mummy.”
“And if you can’t remember the number?”
“I call 911!”
“Our Ella is so clever.”
At Minjoon’s praise, Ella immediately began smiling as though she had never been frightened in the first place.
Debra stared in amazement and silently applauded.
“Wow. I really want to learn that skill. I have absolutely no idea what to do when my nieces or nephews start crying.”
“He’s good with people, just like he’s good at handling his assistant.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
Jo Minjoon smiled and nodded.
Debra glanced behind him.
The moment Minjoon had stepped out of the kitchen, nearly a third of the head chefs inside had followed him into the dining room.
Were they really that conscious of this junior chef whom Rachel might be grooming?
Then I suppose I should satisfy some of their curiosity.
Dave spoke.
“Minjoon. I heard the restaurant is planning to change its menu every fifteen days, just like before.”
“Yes. More precisely, the ingredients will change rather than the basic structure of the menu. We’ll always use seasonal ingredients. Of course, all of you head chefs know far more about that than I do.”
“Even changing only the ingredients means you have to account for differences in preparation. Are you prepared to keep adjusting properly every time? No…… I suppose the only answer you can give to that is that you’re confident. So let me ask something else. How do you plan to adjust to those changes? Am I prying too deeply?”
“No. You said earlier that the main branch of Rose Island is something all of you take pride in. Since I’ll be carrying part of that pride, it’s only natural that you’d want to know.”
That was not actually what Dave meant.
From the beginning, none of them seriously believed Rachel would allow her demi chefs to damage Rose Island’s reputation.
They were not worried about the restaurant.
This was Rachel Rose they were talking about.
Among the thirty-six head chefs gathered there, not one could confidently claim to be better than her.
She was their mentor.
Their teacher.
And, more importantly than either of those things, their goal as chefs.
What they were curious about was Jo Minjoon himself.
The first person in the world known to possess Absolute Taste.
The first person Rachel had personally scouted and shown such obvious interest in.
They wanted to know the limits of his potential.
They wanted to know what kind of chef Rachel intended to shape him into.
Of course they were curious.
……Is he pretending not to understand?
Dave continued smiling gently as he studied Jo Minjoon’s expression.
It did not look like false modesty.
Which meant he probably truly had no idea what people were saying about him—or what kind of future they were imagining for him.
Alan did say that Minjoon doesn’t think of himself as a genius.
Was that modesty?
Or was he simply incapable of accurately judging his own talent?
From what Dave had seen, Jo Minjoon possessed remarkable abilities.
And not only because of his tongue.
The way he ran his section……
He said earlier that sauces were what he liked most.
Realistically, chefs who eventually managed large kitchens often ended up placing significant emphasis on sauces.
There was a reason for that.
Someone might love grilling steaks or making pasta, and they might even master those skills completely. But once they became a head chef, they would no longer be personally cooking every steak or rolling every portion of pasta. Their involvement became indirect.
That was why even an extraordinarily skilled cook could become a head chef and suddenly produce food of disappointing quality.
It happened more often than people liked to admit.
Sauces were different.
A head chef who specialised in sauces did not need to personally control every degree of doneness in a piece of meat or every second of a pasta’s al dente texture.
The sauce could be standardised far more reliably.
As long as the recipe was followed correctly, the result was much less likely to go wrong.
It’s a smart choice.
That was why younger chefs aiming for fine-dining head-chef positions were increasingly advised to devote serious effort to sauces.
But doing that while working as a demi chef was not easy.
Whether someone was stationed on pasta, appetisers, or mains, it was difficult to devote all of their energy to sauce work alone.
In that sense, Jo Minjoon ending up in the molecular gastronomy section was an excellent opportunity.
Molecular gastronomy involved many preparations that were either sauce-based or centred around sauce-like elements. Combining ingredients, transforming textures, and studying how flavours changed under different techniques would allow Minjoon to explore exactly the kind of work he seemed drawn to.
Did he end up in molecular gastronomy by coincidence…… or was this intentional?
If he had planned it, he really was a sly fox.
While Dave was lost in thought, some of the production staff approached him. Perhaps because he had spent so much time speaking with Jo Minjoon, they had decided he would make a good interview subject.
Dave had no reason to refuse.
In one corner of the dining room, PD Pabo stood waiting with a professional smile.
“It’s an honour to meet you, Dave.”
“There’s no need for that kind of praise. I’m only one ordinary chef among many.”
“If a three-star head chef counts as ordinary, then our country’s culinary scene must already dominate the world.”
The formalities did not last long.
Pabo soon moved on to the real questions.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the rumours circulating through the culinary world that Chef Rachel may be considering Chef Minjoon as her successor. Your own name has always been mentioned among Chef Rachel’s potential successors. What do you think about that?”
“……I suppose the way I answer this could either save or destroy my public image.”
“Then please think carefully before answering.”
Dave smiled bitterly.
Although he had devoted his life to cooking, even he could not completely free himself from something as human as ambition.
Rachel had no children.
Because of that, many Rose Island head chefs had secretly hoped that someday she might entrust Rose Island to one of them.
Not everyone thought that way, but it was one of the reasons so many of them were extremely conscious of Minjoon.
If Jo Minjoon really did become Rachel’s successor, none of them knew whether that meant he would inherit only full control of the Venice main branch……
Or control over the entire Rose Island brand and every branch around the world.
Truthfully, Dave did not care much about money.
If money had been his priority, he would never have spent his life at Rose Island.
He would have become a hotel chef instead.
There was only one thing he wanted.
“Rose Island has been my entire life. And I have never regretted making that choice.”
“Yes. You’ve had an extraordinary career.”
“I’m sure many of the others feel something similar to what I do. Talking about this when Teacher Rachel herself hasn’t said anything may sound petty…… but since you asked, I can’t simply refuse to answer.” Dave paused before continuing frankly. “Yes. If I’m being completely honest, if Minjoon became her successor right now, I would not accept it. He is unquestionably talented, and I believe he’ll become an extraordinary chef. But he isn’t there yet. He’s still a demi chef. He still needs to grow. Depending on how far he grows, the attitudes of the other chefs will change as well.”
“When you say their attitudes…… do you mean whether they would accept him having full control over the Rose Island brand?”
“Something along those lines. If he grows into an ordinary chef, nobody will approve of him. But if he can display extraordinary talent and create dishes on the level of Teacher Rachel or Teacher Daniel……”
Dave shrugged.
“Who in their right mind wouldn’t try to court him?”