‘OK. Fuck it. I’ll apply’
This wasn’t the first time the advert had come up. I’d seen it on a few different sites. But this time I’d lingered over it.
I stood, staring at the plain text and wondering why this listing stood out to me more than the other dozen I’d seen over the past few days. There was nothing about this job posting that spoke to me in particular. Because, I didn’t know the head sommelier nor the celebrity chef in question - and, I couldn’t have found the place on a map. I mean, Christ, I hardly knew anything about London’s restaurant scene. And at this point, I didn’t really want to know anything about the scene. I’d been in London four paltry months and I was already fed up, jaded and exhausted.
See, I’d been surviving as best I could; cobbling together some wine event gigs and working retail under the table, whilst being subjected to the worst nonsense London had to offer; namely the ludicrous housing market, piss-soaked Tubes and a crackhead flatmate whose last guest straddled me butt-naked in an amateur lap dance prior to overdosing and being wheeled out by paramedics before I’d even finished my scrambled eggs.
Gazing out the kitchen window, awash in the cold blue lights of the ambulance, and cupping a lukewarm mug of coffee, I figured it might be about time to make a move.
It was never supposed to be like this. I mean, I honestly thought I’d be back to selling wine, by this point. However, finding a supplier job seemed impossible. I just couldn’t understand it. In Los Angeles, selling wine had been my whole identity. But the missing element In London thus far had been a hiring manager willing to take a chance on me. They all had their doubts.
True, I’d been five years out of the game - and though I viewed myself as a commodity, few others in The Big Smoke agreed. And should I give up on a return to sales - as far as being a buyer, again; well, no takers there, either. My same lack of London experience meant I wasn’t qualified to be a head sommelier, either(apparently). Not that I fit in well on that side of the trade, to be fair. I was quickly learning that the London scene was a gaggle of trendy young gurus who roamed gastropubs in tattooed packs, extolling cloudy wines and casting side-eye at anyone unfamiliar with Occhipinti. Me, at forty, and with a decidedly American accent, was not impressing anyone. Breaking the sales record in Beverly Hills? Oh, please, mate, that was so 2013...
So, yes, the ad came up and with a few substitutions after ‘Dear’ and ‘I’ve heard so much about(fill in the blank), I had my CV and cover letter out in under five minutes. Thirty seconds later, the phone rang. It was Mike, the Head Sommelier at Seedling and he wanted to “discuss my curriculum”. I held the receiver away from my face for a moment, staring at it. My confusion at the quick turnaround must’ve been evident in my voice. Mike made light of the fact – “oh, bugger, I realise you’ve just sent it in a minute ago. Quick turnaround, eh? ha ha”.
Hilarious.
OK, maybe that shoulda been the first red flag. But, I let it go. I chocked it up to an assertive hiring manager. He was strong, confident and assertive. “No bullshit”. Yes, that’s what I told myself.
Mike, he told me to be there at ten a.m. the next morning.
*
Gray stone, pediments, wrought iron, gray stone, pediments, wrought iron...
It was hard for me to believe that a hot new restaurant could be sandwiched somewhere in the tourist melée that is Covent Garden, but I knew it had to be hiding in there, somewhere. November was ideal stomping weather for my Brooks Brothers suit, and I rushed along The Strand, side-stepping pink-faced tourists with the brisk stride and confidence a bit of tailoring can give a man. However, as my navigation skills waned, so did my confidence.
But was it the first entrance past Caffe Nero? Or the second left after Pret? And why the fuck are there so many Prets?!
I had my little Google maps printout but somehow found myself going West when I shoulda gone East and fuck, how could a massive former government building be so impossible to find?!
By the time I fell upon the caligraphy of “Seedling” emblazoned on a marble pillar, I was three minutes late – a fail for my Stateside sensibilities - and I entered a bit anxious and out of breath.
A tiny, but youthfully handsome Italian man was brewing espressos behind the entrance bar; a giant gold-leaf mirrored piece of art stretching above him to the ceiling. Beneath me was plank hardwood as wide as my waist leading to a conservatory, plush with olive trees in massive pewter planters. Chandeliers danced above, but were little more than an afterthought in such a massive, ornate space. The receptionists, to my right, appeared equally as ornamental. Blood red-lips, blonde highlights and those ready smiles that can only be perfected with years of practice.
I suddenly felt not only rushed, but anxious and sweaty. My ace suit was little consolation.
“Hi, I have a ten a.m. appointment with Mike”.
“Absolutely! If you go ahead and have a seat at the bar, I’ll just ring him for you. Would you like a coffee, water...?”
I declined and crossed to the brass-plated bar as the little Italian rushed out with the espressos. The stools were an oddly unwieldy height, and I hesitated about whether or not to even try and take a seat. I pulled at one and the drag across the hardwood elicited an aching moan that echoed through the high-ceilinged space. I froze - that was enough for me. I tried to look natural, deciding that getting half my arse on to the edge of the stool and feigning a casual lean was sufficient, for now.
Mike arrived a few moments later, and it took me a second to get over the shock. He looked all of twenty-two, a wisp of boy with a tangle of dirty-blonde hair that curled back upon itself at doubles and triples like an antique child’s doll. He was smiley and, in spite of his scant sixty kilos, carried a sense of importance. He led me into the dining room and the dizzying confusion continued – it was immense, bright and airy and dripping with cash. Eighteenth Century architecture was overwritten with marble and soft fabric that was part Marie Antoinette and part mid-century Palm Springs. Three immense bay windows faced the three entrances of the conservatory. Each had a banquette and as we slid into the nearest one I found myself arms akimbo, awkward and afraid to touch anything. Mike, however, leaned back casually into the padded banquette, snapped my CV and took a generous moment reviewing my details. Then he looked over to me.
“So, five years in Barcelona. What was that about?”
Interesting start.
I leaned back into the banquette, myself, and looked stealthily around the room, took a beat, exhaled. The sheer magnitude and money of this dining room had me slightly rattled. I needed a moment to remind myself that I could do this. Come marble or high water, I could do this. I ran HR in Los Angeles. I’ve been the hiring manager. I’ve conducted the interviews. So yes, just keep your shit together.
“It was about four and a half years too long, really”.
Mike smiled. “Not great, eh?”
No negativity, no negativity…
“Well, listen – it’s a spectacular place to live with a spectacularly bad economy. I only moved to Spain over England because - and I know it sounds ridiculous - but, I had an old cat that wouldn’t survive quarantine.”
I paused for a moment, trying to gauge if Mike was still on board.
“So, I moved to Spain and for five years she kept kicking and for five years my career kept dying. I knew I needed to be in London, yes, so when she finally keeled over I came up to England, banged out the level three, and planned the move”.
“I see”.
I doubted myself for a moment.
“It’s less complicated than it seems”, I felt I had to add.
“And what about wine certification? I’m confused, you did the Level three, here, but all the time you were working for, what is it? Crestridge Wine Company? You didn’t have any WSET?”
“No, in the US they don’t care about things like the WSET or sommelier certifications. More now, but so long as you could prove you knew what you were doing, that was enough.”
My mind wandered. That’s not entirely true.
Crestridge had started an in-company certification program. Was it WSET? To be honest, I couldn’t remember. Probably wasn’t, because people seemed to be able to fly up to Santa Rosa for one day and come back that afternoon as a certified sommelier, or wine steward or grape groper, or something along those lines. I couldn’t quite remember. My boss, Gabriela - she’d done the one day fly-by and she couldn’t tell a white from a red.
She did have great legs, though.
Oh man, get your head in the game! Suddenly I had a flash from the last SoCal sales meeting where I was behind her in the valet line and her tiny skirt whipped up around her waist while she passed the keys of her blue Prius to a blushing, pimple-faced millennial. Me, I was wearing a neck brace and a sling on my right arm, but that’s another story.
Mike began…
OK, focus..
“So, here is where we stand: clearly you’re overqualified for a sommelier job, so what....“ and here Mike narrowed his eyes into a quizzical stare and made little waves with his hands “...sooo, what are you looking for or what do you ultimately want to do?”
I concentrated, putting myself back in the moment.
“I came to London to return to sales; to the supplier side. But, I know I’m new to the market - I get that. So, I’m not afraid to pay my dues. But ultimately, dream job? Brand manager for a winery or cooperative within the European market and working business to business on sales development”.
Mike didn’t blink.
“We’ve been open five weeks. And, I do have a team - a small team. But these guys, these somms – they’re kids. I need someone to take control of the floor, someone I can trust to run things when I’m not around, because right now I can’t even trust them to do a service by themselves. I can’t be downstairs in the office, I have to be up here, all the time”.
“Right”.
“So I need someone with management experience to take control”. He started to do that quizzical eye/hand movement thingy, again. “Sound like something you might give a go?”.
“Yeah”. I think Mike sensed some hesitation. And that wasn’t wrong because, did I even want this? And more importantly, if this was some stealth managment scenario I could already see existing staff resenting being patrolled by the new guy – if that was what was truly in the offing. And that would very, very much suck.
“What do you say, you give me a year – and I’ll get you the supplier job you want.”
I’d like to say I took a moment, examined all the pluses and minuses of this handshake agreement and how it might factor into my professional development. But, let’s be real. At this point in my nascent London life, I didn’t have a lot of options.
“Sounds fair. We have a deal”.
Mike smiled, shook my hand and then gave a few further details on how this would work. Some talk of salary(painfully low), and benefits. We set up a four hour trial for Thursday lunch.
“Oh, and Paul – I’m trying to change the uniform. I really, really am.”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
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