Mr Rossi looked like he expected the restaurant to be closed whenever he breathed. Which might not be for that much longer.
“How can I help?” I gave him my most charming smile, the one I reserved for customers who I knew were about to be a pain in my arse.
Almost black eyes flared. I probably should’ve been rolling over on my back and asking him to tickle my belly, but the dangerous musician look he had going on was not doing it for me. The man gutting fish in the prep room had stolen far more of my attention, which was something I’d need to deal with later.
“You’re closing the restaurant tonight for a private function, but refused to when my manager rang a few days ago. Why?” The dangerous thing evaporated and I saw confusion instead.
My shoulders relaxed. Confusion I could deal with.
“I need more notice. I had a fully booked restaurant for the date you wanted.” I dropped my arms so they were no longer folded.
“Oh.” He looked round the room. “I’d have paid two or three times what you would’ve taken.”
“I’m sure you would. But I didn’t want the people that booked to be disappointed.”
His expression softened. “Sure. I didn’t think of that.” A large hand pushed through the thick black hair. “Can I have a date where you can give people more notice? And they can have their meal for free if you need to rearrange them.”
I felt daggers being launched into my back. Turning round was impossible. I needed my focus to be on Leif Rossi. Pandering to the rich and famous was always top of my not-to-do list, but this could be a golden opportunity to spread the word about the Mount Street Social a little more.
“With proper notice I think we can work something out. Do you want to have your manager give me a call tomorrow?” I managed a smile despite my back now having two rather large holes in it.
Leif shook his head. “Do you have five minutes now? My manager’s great but I’d still like a little bit of normality – although forgetting that me booking out the whole restaurant would piss people off kind of tells you what life’s like now.”
I nodded, even though I had no clue. I didn’t know if Leif Rossi was a reality TV star or if he’d been spotted busking on the streets. “Sure. Let me check what we’ve got. When were you thinking?” I wanted to ask him why here as well, to know why he’d picked my restaurant. We were doing well, we had a good reputation and the reviews had been consistently good, but London was rammed with fine dining restaurants. I’d figured that when we’d said no to the last minute request, the celebrity behind it would’ve simply opted for somewhere else.
“What’s the earliest you have available?”
I looked up from the computer, surprised. I’d thought that people like Leif Rossi would’ve had their schedule booked out for months in advance. “Any particular day of the week?”
He shook his head. “Any. There will be press invited. I’ll be making an announcement.”
I raised my head and studied him. “How is this announcement going to reflect on my restaurant? I don’t want to become infamous for the setting some Beatles-like split.”
He had the decency to look sheepish. “Not quite. It will be positive. On the whole, anyway.”
“We’ll talk more. I can do a week on Wednesday. There are seventeen tables booked that evening as we’ve taken fewer reservations because of staffing. Are you okay for me to charge you for a voucher for each person as a goodwill gesture?” I named the price.
“That’s fine. Can you keep it anonymous?”
I nodded. “How many people do you want your gig for?” Something wasn’t sitting right with this. Tomorrow I’d start doing my research.
“Around fifty. Maybe sixty. You decide on the menu. Just give me a price.”
“I’ll speak with my chefs and let you know a week before. Do you want the events team here to contact everyone? That way we can check for food allergies at the same time.” I generally used Alice, or one of Alice’s minions. She was a partner in the marketing firm that Vanessa Callaghan ran.
“Sure. Here’s my details.” He took out his phone and proceeded to read out his number and email address rather than his manager’s or PR person.
“Everything okay?”
I turned round to see the person responsible for the holes in my back. Jack was now wearing clean chef’s whites, ready for an evening of entertaining whilst working. Some days that was the upside of the job: if you were in a good mood and all was well in your world then cooking and being observed whilst doing so could be a blast. If your day was already shit and you’d had an argument with one of your team, being the star in the show was a curse.
Jack tended to be the most consistent of all the teams in both restaurants, chefs included. His bad moods didn’t exist; neither did the highly elated moods that some chefs had. But right now he looked grumpy.
“Everything’s fine. All set for tonight?” I forced a smile, surprised that my words weren’t that sharp. The time spent together in the tapas bar in Clapham seemed to have rounded off my edges when it came to him.
“Everything is exactly as it should be.”
I saw him stare at Leif Rossi and I shook my head.
