Hola ! Work Experience in Pizzaros !

Back in October we treated our friend Alex to a birthday Lunch at José  Pizarro in Broadgate Circle which was part of a special American Express sponsored event called “Desert Island Meals” where numerous Chefs were asked to Host and present their favourite meals at a special lunchtime service.

Therefore José was present at a very pleasant lunch where he served some of his favourite meals. This enabled me to meet with him and also approach him with the possibility of gaining some work experience at one of his restaurants. He said that of course he would help and gave me his personal e mail address. It was not until March that I followed up, but José answered with 24 hours and cutting a long story short I was offered 3 days work experience at his main restaurant in Bermondsey Street., all being organised via his Deputy Chef  –  Adri.

So I found myself at 8am on Saturday at the restaurant to complete an 8 hour shift and was greeted by Carlos and another Jose as Adri would not be present on the day. They showed me around , gave me a Pizzaro Chefs jacket and apron and set me to work. Basically I was prepping along with the other staff various bits and pieces including :

– dicing a few bags of pears as uniformly as possible for a pear compote

– being given a large chunk of pig skin and having to cut off as much of the remaining meat and gristle etc as possible to create a very thin layer of skin for being roasted into pork scratching – much more difficult than you could imagine

One day I will be a Chicharon !

– prepping a large tub of chicken livers to ensure no sinew or greenish bits which can taste bitter

Also I was given the job of making the marinade for their roasted cauliflowers that consists of picking the leaves of loads of Thyme,Oregano And Rosemary. Cutting up shallots and then blitzing them with Olive Oil and Salt, before sieving and then coating each cauliflower with the sauce and bagging them up in Vacuum bags for use later.

It was a fairly varied day and quite interesting. The team were great fun albeit I had language difficulties as Carlos is Peruvian, Jose Spanish, their English not perfect and both have very strong accents. This meant me insisting they repeated themselves on numerous occasions and they probably felt I was deaf or stupid !

Sunday was a totally different experience as I was working from 2pm  to 11pm and found myself working at the Pass and the front of the kitchen for the whole shift. The restaurant has an open kitchen where people can even sit at the bar running along the length of the kitchen so you are visible to the customers from every angle. Adri was working on Sunday and paired me with Alex (who is English) who was working alongside Carmen (Spanish and great fun) , the two of them basically running the kitchen for most of the day/evening.

They got me involved in many tasks and I was helping to plate up desserts and prepare other simple cold things like the anchovies for service, Cannelloni and the charcuterie. Indeed we were running short on the charcuterie so I was taught how to use the butchers slicer and was tasked with slicing up loads of chorizo, Lomo and Salami. When I was told I had to wear a chainmail glove I realised how dangerous this machine could be but thank good no injuries to report !

It was amazing watching Carmen work as she had so many pans on the go at the same time whilst also preparing various fish and Meat on the plancha – everything she plated up looked amazing and her timing and organisation were a sight to behold. When she had a spare minute to talk I established she had been training in Spain for 4 years including experience in Michelin starred Restaurants in San Sebastian. This compared to Alex who is an ex Art dealer and only joined the team 3 months ago without any formal training. They however worked well as a team with Carmen explaining her skills to Alex, who in turn was helping her improve her English. Their dynamics were quite fun and I really enjoyed my time spent in their company. I could imagine learning a lot from Carmen in a short time should I have the opportunity. She also got me preparing more of the pig skin, and actually said my first 2 pieces were amazing, albeit me third let me down, but I was stupidly happy to receive a compliment from someone with her abilities !

The kitchen was fairly busy during the course of the day as the London Marathon was on and there were a lot of people milling about in the area. When the kitchen closed at 9.45 people were still streaming in hoping for a meal but Carmen refused them in her very direct Spanish style!

At around 10.30 we started clearing down and transferring all of the unused garnishes and foods etc to new storage boxes , clingfilming and returning them to fridges, before a massive cleaning operation ensued involving every millimetre of every surface being scrubbed and disinfected which was somewhat time consuming.

Adri released me just before 11pm advising that it would still be another hour before he inspected all and the team would be going home, showing again the long hours involved for the staff. Adri told me that he is very thankful for the way Carmen runs the kitchen and he could not do it without her. He was very pleased with the support I gave and said I could return any time to help – they always need an extra pair of hands. I joked with him that of course he was happy with free labour but I knew that many of the staff there were working for only £7.50 an hour, so rewards are not so high even if you are not working as slave labour disguised as work experience.

I enjoyed my weekend at a Pizzaros and in many ways it was more educational, and I felt more useful, than down in Padstow due to it being a smaller environment where all hands on deck was more appreciated. I also enjoyed seeing the customers enjoying the fruits of our labour- it gave me a weird sense of satisfaction that they were appreciating something we were responsible for producing.

So a big thanks to all of the team at Pizzaros and to the man himself – Jose – for allowing this experience to happen. Good luck in the future chicos and chicas  !