In all honesty, he doesn’t look the part. His entire being contradicts the cliché of the young chef who has passed his CAP: the white apron, pink cheeks, bushy hair cut short at the back and sides; the portly, jovial type. Nor does he fit with the stereotype of the trendy young urbanite who’s all the rage in the fooding scene. He is lean, wiry, his triceps twitching—you need muscles in this business: cooking is athletic; it requires endurance, sprinting power, hurdling agility. What strikes you about him is his singular aura: the lightness and precision of his movements, the intense calm that makes him seem almost wise. He’s fairly tall, with slender legs, narrow hips, and a flat chest, not an ounce of fat on him (just because he’s young?); he has broad shoulders, it’s true, but in profile he’s like a stick figure. His face, too, is slim, with thin lips and soft, medium-length chestnut hair, round metal-framed glasses (a pseudo-intellectual? a young Trotskyite?) that give his eyes a gentle look. His skin is dark, his voice even. He has none of the expansive largesse characteristic of gastronomes—the wide smile, the laid-back hospitality, those people whose tongues love to taste and to talk, those show-offs with their smooth spiel, their gift of gab, their poetic speeches. He has none of their authoritarian presence, either, their tendency to rant, to bark orders. He is youthful, calm, saturnine, furtive. A cat. A Perrier with a slice of lemon. But what I need to describe are his hands. They work, work all the time; they are high-caliber tools, sensitive instruments that create, touch, test—sensors. The fingers in particular are impressive: elongated and powerful like the fingers of a pianist capable of reaching three octaves for the right note, capable of unfolding in three movements, of dislocating themselves, capable of combining several gestures at once. A worker’s hands and an artist’s hands. Unusual hands.

7

La Belle Saison

GNOCCHI IN BUTTER AND SAGE

Four hundred thirty square feet carved in an old passageway in Faubourg Saint-Antoine: La Belle Saison consists of a single room, with a bar and regulation bathrooms. Mauro stands on the threshold, stamping his sneakers. His gaze slowly sweeps across the interior, the exposed beams and the tiled floor, the chairs stacked upside down on the tables. He assesses the place and nods, then turns back to Jacques, who is chatting with the owner: It works for me! Mauro’s voice echoes in the passageway.