I visited The Standard Grill recently, and sat in back at the chef’s counter. Tiny bursts of flames were flaring around extravagant cuts of beef. Layers of winter clothes came off. I ordered a dirty martini and watched the steaks get thumbed and prodded by the expert fingers of the grill cook. He must have a girlfriend, I thought. And at home, late at night, his hands must press her flanks the same way.
We ordered lobster, strip steak, and a ‘good pickle’. One man called the orders out, the others repeated. I tried to guess which steak was mine. Our conversation jumped around, but mostly we talked about the mesmerizing movement in the kitchen — the call and response— the precision of cook times counted down in seconds, the economy of their gestures.
The men began to look like brothers. At some point the sous-chef called a huddle and the kitchen congregated before a dish. He pointed to the meat, the garnish, the plating. There was nodding, chins held in hand, hands placed on hips. And then they clapped, broke, chucked the steak and started over.
Our food arrived. I was supposed to have tasted the meat and felt full, but somewhere in the course of this theater I forgot my vegetarianism. If the kitchen’s role was to produce amazing flavor, my role seemed to be devouring it. I wolfed down my half of the lobster and then polished off more than my share of steak.
After dinner we skated. The storm had come and was snowing hard. A pretty girl in a grey ski-suit pushed a shovel around the ice continuously. I was full of martini and fearless. The snow seemed to soften the idea of falling. When I could go forward well enough, my friend pushed me backwards blindly as fast as possible. This was fun for a long time. Around me, the wind howling through the High Line, the café tables becoming indistinct beneath the snow, registered only vaguely.
There were other people on the rink, and then there were fewer. More and more, my skates were stalled in growing drifts. At last, the thought occurred that we should stop. We left the ice and realized we were exhausted and soaked. I don’t smoke, but felt right then like it was the perfect time for one.
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Catherine Despont is a friend of The Standard. She is a writer/artist with a strong lineage of design aesthetic. Currently, she is completing a novel and residing in New York. Today she write a guest post about her sojourn into The Standard Grill with it’s new adjacent pop up rink.
