WEEKEND COLUMNISTS At this time of year even the most professionally designed and well-organised restaurant kitchen begins to take on the cluttered air that characterises a domestic kitchen over the festive season. Quite simply, there are nowhere near enough flat surfaces to cope with the joints of meat, the number of plates or the bowls of food or sauces that are being prepared. Life for even the most meticulous chef now gets messy.
The root cause of this is, of course, the numbers round the table. A dining-room table that accommodates no more than six or eight during the rest of the year may be extended by the addition of a sideboard or a trestle table to squeeze in 16-plus, and the same challenge faces every professional chef over the coming three weeks. The kitchen, of course, has not expanded.
