Hell's Kitchen -An Experience

Back in the safety of my own home at last. I have spent the last four days slaving for about fifteen hours a day in a horribly hot kitchen.

Finally, the HK people rang at about 8.30 on Saturday evening. They said they would give me an alarm call at 6.30 the following day and pick me up at 7.45. In the event the alarm call did not come until 7, and the pick up arrived at 7.15. Fortunately I was slightly ahead of their trickery and woke up at 6.30 and rushed to get ready in time. I was taken to the Marriott Hotel in docklands and relieved of my mobile, my hairdryer and my purse and jewellery and driven on to the studio at Three Mills. I thought we would be taken to our rooms and change into chef whites but no, our suitcases were removed and we were dumped straight into the kitchen to meet MPW and start working, all in completely unsuitable clothes and one in high heels.


Eventually we were released into the Hell House and provided with pizzas before going to bed. The Hell House had obviously been hastily constructed: the beds were IKEA's cheapest with those horrible bits of wood around the outside and mattresses as hard as boards - two of the beds collapsed under people because they had been so hastily assembled. On the first day or two there was no tea or coffee, no rubbish bin in the kitchen, the only electric things which worked there were the microwave, kettle and toaster. Lots of other machines: hobs, cookers, coffee machines etc were not functional, but looked smart.

My fellow competitors were all young and good looking, equal numbers of boys and girls in their early twenties, except for one older guy of forty, a great lad from North London. There was a really nice boy, Jon from Swansea who turned out to be a porn star, a chef who taught cooking from the North, and two others: Charlie, a nice guy training to be a stockbroker, and another guy from London. The girls were Maz, a charity worker and event organiser, Liz, a new graduate working in PR, Abena, a young black girl working in retail, and Fiona, a fiesty young Irish girl, who kept us laughing.

On the second day we changed into our chef whites, had a miserable breakfast with no coffee or tea, some dreadful supermarket pastries and some milk and one carton of juice between the ten of us. Marco told us that the competition would be two teams: red and blue, girls against the boys. We were then allocated our tasks: starters and fish mains, meat mains, and pastries ( i.e. puddings and any pastries required for other courses such as the toppings for soup etc). The fairly hopeless cooks, i.e. myself and Jon,who we christened fast food man as he only ate burgers from MacDonalds at home, were given the pastry task. For the starters and mains there was a head chef in each kitchen, but for the pastries there was only one head chef, a lovely guy named Roger, who had to dash from kitchen to kitchen helping the hopeless.

It had become fairly apparent to me on the first day that I was physically completely incapable of all the standing and rushing around required, so Marco found me a stool - my dubious claim to fame is that I am the only chef he has ever allowed to sit on a stool - but not in the service period as it would be a physical hazard for everyone else. Because of my age and general complete unfitness I was able to skive off for the odd ten minutes and sit outside, but nevertheless the work was very full on, and I discovered afterwards that the kitchen was much hotter than a normal commercial kitchen - Roger told me this, and the fridge breaking down on the fourth day was apparently a symptom of the heat.

We managed to feed sixty people on the second night, but apparently the restaurant closed early, and though we were equipped to carry on, this was not permitted for some reason, so Marco flounced out angrily. That evening none of us were hungry, I went to bed while the youngies stayed up drinking and bonding, some until 3am, winding down from all the hard work.

The next day, Marco was in a vile mood in the morning, but gave a demonstration of plaice Nicoise, which we then had to make ourselves. Then on to preparation for dinner, again about fifty or sixty covers. Lunch provided for the half hour lunch break was absolutely revolting in the Hell House: cocktail sausages, supermarket cheap ham and chicken roll, mini Scotch eggs and a few tomatoes - most of us did not eat much. That evening the kitchen seemed even hotter. We all drank prodigious amounts of water and rushed around. Not many desserts were ordered in my kitchen. A few of us stayed up until 2am, drinking the wine and beer which Marco obtained for us, since there was nothing in the Hell House. However, by this time a rubbish bin had been provided, also some cheap tea bags and instant coffee. I fell into bed, even more exhausted.

On the fourth and final day, I slept about five hours before getting up and showering and washing my hair at about 7am.Breakfast was tea, and bread and butter and marmalade (bread had made a sudden appearance in the Hell House). On this, our last day, Marco was a bit more cheerful (the prospect of getting rid of the amateurs, no doubt), and demonstrated how to cook breakfast with saddle of venison and some wild mushrooms. There were trompettes de mort, morels, and a couple of other wild mushrooms. I told him about the shaggy caps or lawyer's wigs which grow in the grass verges by roads, and how they were used to make ink years ago. He said he had not known that, but loved those mushrooms. The demonstration was quite good for me, in that I was the only one on the 'girls' team who produced the dish in time. The boys did very well.

Marco is rather old fashioned and called us 'birds' and 'girls' . I, of course was 'the old bird'! He kept on telling me how much respect he had for me coming on the programme at my age. I think possibly that they had deliberately chosen me to try and provoke Marco into bad behaviour but it didn't work.

We were told that there was going to be an eviction - Marco had 'saved' the weaker girls team from eviction. The girls team was weakened by my presence, and further by a kitchen injury where Liz had badly cut her thumb on the first day, necessitating several visits to Casualty where she was told that the wound would take eight weeks to heal. Meantime she had to rest earlier on, but carried on later for the rest of the time. Also, there were a couple of chefs in the boys team, so this was definitely the stronger one. The evictee was going to be decided by the diners in the restaurant that night, and in the event they chose Charlie, but since we were leaving that night, the thing was a bit pointless, but may have fitted in with the programming.

That evening, we worked very hard and managed to serve 74 people in, I think, under three hours. I got the chance to do a bit more, since more desserts were ordered. Everyone worked well together. At the end of the evening, Marco presented us with his new HK recipe book and a book about his life, and signed these for us.

Throughout we were summoned at least twice a day to the so-called confessional, where we were asked if we thought we were letting the side down, who we thought were the weakest links, and if we thought Marco was very difficult etc. etc. I was summoned at midnight after the second night when I had gone to bed, so the others said I wouldn't go. My friends, I subsequently found out had all sent messages which were never given to me.

After being there for four days and making indiscreet (and probably actionable) comments, swearing like a trooper, looking appalling (make up was a waste of time) - you also forget about the camera, when I finally left I was asked to sign a release form. On reading this I was apparently agreeing for the footage to be shown in part or in full, worldwide, for the princely sum of £200. Since my reason for doing the stand-in role was on the absolute understanding that it would never be shown, I refused the money and to sign the release form and was very happy to get home again.

Although physically virtually impossibly demanding for me, it was super to meet such a nice group of people, to get an insight into a TV reality programme, to learn how to cook some dishes from Marco - who was really nice to me (surprisingly), and to meet Marco himself. Strangely, I felt a bit sorry for Marco for some reason - at least he must be earning masses of money for his performances, and boy, does he like to perform! Maybe because he had to put up with so many people who could not cook - and from next Sunday it will be the real celebrities who will be shown on telly for a couple of weeks from Monday.