The Madness of Chef Gabriel
In The Kitchen, Monica Ali, 2009
The latest novel by the author of Brick Lane (and movie of the same name) has an English chef, Gabriel, as its main character. Gabriel grew up in a Northern mill town where his father introduced him to the latest technology and techniques in looms and weaving. The mills are now shuttered and one is being converted to a museum, his father has terminal cancer, and Gabriel, now a French trained chef, is about to launch his own London restaurants with his business and political partners. As a final preparation and as a test to satisfy his other investors, Gabriel is spending a year as executive chef at the Imperial Hotel, a Victorian era relic that has been refurbished everywhere but his kitchens. Gabriel has previously served in restaurants in Lyon and a two star restaurant in Paris. His new restaurant will be located near government offices and will serve classic French cuisine.
Thistle Royal Horeseguards Hotel London
Gabriel’s staff at the Imperial are all immigrant foreigners (Ali’s theme subject) of unknown legality. Some of his staff is highly educated (accountants, lawyers, one surgeon) just trying to survive in London. There is much detail about the day to day activities and human interactions in a large busy kitchen. One day Gabriel descends into the labyrinth under the kitchen (used for storage) and finds the body of Yuri, a Ukrainian worker naked and dead on the floor. The police conclude the death was accidental (Yuri slipped on the floor after a shower), that Yuri was secretly living in the labyrinth, and the case is closed.
Victorian Kitchen
Gabriel returns later to the labyrinth and this time encounters a Belorussian girl, Lena, who has been missing from work. She claims to be looking for money she has stashed in the wall. The money in the wall is gone. Gabriel suspects she has been living in the labyrinth as well and somehow invites her to stay at his place after he learn she is hiding from her pimp. This arrangement doesn’t go over too well with Gabriel’s long time girl friend Charlie, a 39 year old lounge singer, especially when Gabriel naively confesses he is sleeping with Lena. Gabriel started having repeating nightmares about events in the labyrinth and he loses sleep. Gabriel has become suspicious of the hotel’s maître d and now becomes obsessed with finding out what he is up to in an unused hotel room. Gabriel finally gets one of his workers to tell him what is going on which turns out to be human trafficking for the sex trade by convincing hotel chamber maids and kitchen workers that better employment can be found elsewhere. This means of “recruiting” sex workers is easier than smuggling girls across national borders since they are already in England. Gabriel descends, not so slowly, into madness and his behavior becomes increasingly erratic. After uncovering the maître d’s trafficking scheme, Gabriel now inadvertently stumbles into the maître d’s brother’s indentured servitude agriculture labor activity. The brother has purchased an old hotel shuttle bus to transport his labor to his vegetable farms and the mad Gabriel gets on the bus to see what other strange activity is surrounding the hotel.
We learn that Gabiel’s mom had descended into madness and Gabriel seems to be following. In the climax, Gabriel assaults his politician partner believing him to be the john of which Lena is terrified. Gabriel is dumped from the restaurant partnership and he loses his investment. Gabriel’s father dies, Gabriel is unemployed and his life savings are gone, to the restaurant and to Lena. Gabriel is living in his father’s house and ready to start rebuilding his life. Charlie may even give him another chance.
The madness comes off better in this novel than the themes of human trafficking and slavery that Ali is interested in exposing. Worth reading anyway.