trattoria tosca

“Dinner Rush”

It’s 5:45 on a beautiful, late spring Saturday afternoon and the hungry are beginning to stream into Trattoria Tosca, the newest dining jewel in the Linden Hills area. Joined at the hip with The Turtle Bread Company - a bakery and the first of Harvey McLain’s expanding culinary empire - Tosca has been a hit since its doors opened in mid-April. The tables outside are the first to fill, followed by the long narrow dining room that separates Tosca from its parent. Things are moving along smoothly as diners are escorted to their tables. But upstairs, preparations are underway to survive the restaurant equivalent of a perfect storm.

C’mon up and I’ll show you.

. . .

Chef Adam Vickerman is calmly reducing garlic cloves to thin slices with a Japanese mandolin. Five tickets hang above the counter where he works. Joining Vickerman in the kitchen are three additional cooks: sous chef Dan Stepaniak is tending to two of the orders, already on the fire; line cook Dan Klein is making a spring green soup; and Dan Schmit, in charge of desserts and salads, is putting together a local farm salad.

Vickerman is 24 and came over to Tosca from Café Levain with Stepaniak, 30. Klein is 26 and previously worked at Craft in New York under Tom Colicchio, the head judge on Top Chef. Schmit, 22, is working his first job in a restaurant. Young they might be, but after two months, Adam and the Three Dans know what the night has in store for them.

At 6:30, the pace and the noise begin to pick up, with nine tickets hanging above the workstation. At 7:10, the tickets number 17 and the pace becomes urgent: all 10 burners are going, along with the grill plate and the warming oven. Thank God for air-conditioning. The noise is incessant: the hum of the dishwasher, the clatter of pots and pans, the sizzling of food on the fire.

“Coming in, third course, two pork, one steak rare, one chicken,” declares Vickerman. “Hot, hot, hot,” mutters Jorge, the eighty-pounds-when-soaking-wet employee who runs dirty pots and pans to the dishwasher and brings them back, steaming, along with plates and bowls - in his bare hands, you’ll notice. “Hot, hot, hot,” indeed. At 7:15, the tickets number 21, everyone seems to have four hands, and the din hat hit a new high (“Hot, hot, hot.”). Klein has two dishes going, a risotto and a gnocchi; Stepaniak is back and forth with steaks between the fire and a warming oven (465 to 500 degrees). He is also tossing bucatini in a tomato sauce while watching over a sizzling halibut; Schmit mounds red leaf and romaine lettuces, radishes, arugula, mizuna, ramps and spring vegetables on a plate along with olive puree and breadcrumbs for the farm salad. (“OW!” Jorge crouches down to place pans under a bank of burners, and hits his head on a hot skillet. “You okay, man?” asks Vickerman, a hand consoling Jorge, “You okay?” Jorge scrambles up, crab-like, hand to his head, and makes his way back to the dishwasher. Moments later he’s back, saying “Hot, hot, hot.”).

Seventeen tickets at 7:45 and it’s still crazy. McLain shows up at the rear of the kitchen, looks things over and mutters, “We’re in the weeds.” Vickerman, a tranquil figure in an otherwise stormy sea, begins to prepare the featured chicken dish that includes polenta, watercress, brown butter, lemon and herbs. He wipes a large plate, spoons on the snow-white polenta, and top its with a chicken breast and watercress. Once finished, Vickerman looks up and intones, “Two chickens, two fish, two pork, large buke (bucatini).”

The pace slows momentarily until 8:25, when two parties of four arrive and it’s back to the races. Hot, hot, hot!