Hotcakes in Hell

It is a fact that I have never made a decent pancake.

My children could tell you this. For years, when they’d have friends sleep over and I’d offer—in the morning—to whip up my special whole wheat-and-yogurt pancakes, I’d get an urgent “No! That’s alright. We’re not hungry.” Then they’d sneak off to devour a box of cereal in the basement. Yet when I arrived at Hell’s Kitchen for my first day of work—because as a restaurant critic, I felt I should know what it’s like on the other side—I was put on griddle duty. I think Steve Meyer, lead cook and co-owner, believed I would do the least damage there.

I was stationed between Meyer and his second-in-command, Pepé Yupa. A forty-five-year-old Ecuadorean national and former roofer, Yupa started at Hell’s Kitchen six years ago as a dishwasher and rose quickly to become a line cook. He speaks little English, but he reads the order tickets lined up in front of the heat lamps in a flash. All day, he and Meyer communicate in a hybrid Spanglish mixed with metaphor, a private language I had no hope of deciphering.

Besides making pancakes and lemon-ricotta hotcakes, my tasks included finishing the huevos rancheros—a favorite at Hell’s Kitchen—with cheese, heat, salsa, and sour cream (in that order), and calling out orders to the kitchen crew as they came off the printer. This last job entailed scanning each ticket, compiling the various items in my head, and reciting them in a particular order, which, despite multiple reminders, I could never recall.

I did pretty well at the second job: topping the huevos rancheros with a handful of shredded cheddar and sliding the plates under the coils of a huge Salamander oven. The problem was I would become distracted: New orders flowed in ceaselessly, guys kept edging behind me yelling, “Benedict WALKING!,” and a constant scroll of soap operas played on the television overhead. Once or twice, I noticed the rancheros I’d started beginning to smoke.

When it came to pancakes, I’d toss a little melted butter on the griddle, then ladle on the batter. But I consistently poured either too much or too little, so my pancakes were thick and lumpy or weirdly long and thin. Finally, Yupa took over. “Like this, honey,” he said, scooping, dumping, flipping, and producing a perfect stack. “See?”

And I nodded, though I didn’t see at all. My hands were sticky, which I hate; sweat was running in a steady stream down my back; and there was no pattern I could discern to this work: It would be screaming busy for twenty minutes, then preternaturally dead for ten. I always chose the wrong time to use the bathroom.

At five-foot-three, I might have complained about working in a kitchen where everything is overhead. Except that Yupa is the same size, and he managed somehow—moving, stretching, reaching, lifting, and catching with a Kirby Puckett-style grace.

Only very good friends with great humor and sky-high risk tolerance would let me attempt to cook in their restaurant. I became a food critic not because I’m a frustrated weekend chef but because left to my own devices, I would prepare nothing but plain yogurt with fruit, peanut butter sandwiches, and popcorn. But Meyer and majority partner Mitch Omer not only allowed me to stay that day, they asked me to return the next.

“You come back?” Yupa said when I arrived. He looked stunned. It was Saturday, the day Hell’s Kitchen routinely serves five hundred people by noon.

“I want to learn,” I said. “Pancakes mejor.” I’d spent the night before practicing several phrases in Spanish with my husband, who lived in Barcelona for years. But at 7:30 a.m., after a single cup of coffee, the only word I could recall was the one for “better.”

By nine o’clock, it was clear my pancakes would not be mejor. And the orders were coming in so fast Yupa finally nudged me gently out of the way.

I spent the rest of the shift melting cheese over huevos rancheros and stepping to the side when the real cooks needed to sail through unimpeded. Then I would watch, and this, I must admit, was the best part. Communicating in a language I was beginning to understand, they danced and wove amongst each other and tossed things through the air.

When I left Hell’s Kitchen at two p.m., more tired than I’ve been since the last time I gave birth, Yupa asked, “You come back tomorrow?” I shook my head and he grinned, then stuck out his hand and said, “Bye, honey.” Despite his best effort, I still cannot make a decent pancake.