Run for covers

A Chef methodically sharpens a knife in a blue-tiled prep area of the Grosvenor House hotel's banqueting kitchens. He is waiting, along with a growing gaggle of his colleagues, for Charles Mercier, the hotel's executive chef for conference and banqueting.

It is 6pm on 1 July. The Caterer & Hotelkeeper awards banquet is only one-and-a-half hours away and Mercier's brigade of 26 chefs is gathering for a final briefing. When he arrives, the softly spoken, Evian-born Frenchman runs rapidly through the evening's menu and demonstrates how he wants the dishes to be plated up.

The appetiser, a spiced chicken cappuccino, is to be served in coffee cups and dusted with dried cäpes; the starter of sea bass on a bed of stir-fry vegetables must comprise two fillets, coriander garnish, sauce a ronde and one spoon of julienne. Satisfied that his team are on his wavelength, Mercier rattles through requirements for the main course and dessert before allowing his audience to disappear for a quick smoke and bite to eat before starter's orders at 7pm.

Mercier is remarkably calm about feeding 860 people, but prep work has been completed over the past 24 hours. "All the mis-en-place is ready and we are just waiting for the service," he says.

The fact that this is his fifth Cateys dinner helps, of course. Mercier joined the Grosvenor House in 1992 after seven years as executive chef at the Café Royal. He also has supreme confidence in his brigade, particularly in the culinary and managerial skills of his two aides-de-camp, senior sous chef Adrian Evans and sous chef Steve Wright, who have been at the Grosvenor House for eight and six years respectively.

All three, who have been working since 7.30am, were involved in drawing up this year's menu, which has a contemporary Oriental twist - lemongrass, pak choi, rice and ginger all make an appearance in various dishes. The chefs are particularly pleased to be using beef supplied by Buccleuch Scotch Beef for the main course.

Evans says: "We're anticipating that there may be a higher proportion of guests requesting the vegetarian option during service tonight because of the beef - we've got 20 pre-booked and normally we'd count on having another 8% out of the 860 covers on top of that. But the beef is organic and there are a lot of professionals out there who aren't going to be as worried as non-industry guests."

With that, Evans saunters off to check that everything is ready in "kitchen one", a satellite station for cooking off and plating, which is his domain for the evening. This is adjacent to the Great Room, where the Cateys ceremony is held. Meanwhile, Mercier and Wright head off for another satellite station, "kitchen two", located on the opposite side of the function venue.

By 7.30pm, the laid-back air prevalent all afternoon throughout the kitchens has disappeared. Scores of trolleys stacked with endless trays of rice timbales, vegetable spaghetti portions, shiitake mushrooms, beef and fish fillets (all 1,700 fillets had been prepped and sealed by Wright in the morning) are transported to the cook-off kitchens and lined up to be pushed into ovens at the right time.

In kitchen two, Mercier is busy helping to decant the cappuccino from a huge, steaming plastic butt on wheels into stainless steel jugs, ready for pouring into a stream of coffee cups that are being transferred onto a stainless steel plating table. The temperature is rising, metaphorically and physically, and it is no surprise when an irritated Mercier bellows out, after three prior requests, for a door to be shut.

At last Mercier gives the order to start service and a well-oiled routine bursts into life. Everybody has an allotted task, be it pouring the soup, topping the soup with cream or sprinkling the cream with powdered cèpes. Mercier himself, with lightning speed, is on pouring duty. With a five-course meal to be served by 9.30pm there can be no time-wasting.

Across the way in kitchen one is a similar scenario, and in both stations a flood of waiters pass through, collecting the cups of soup with deft movements before speeding on to the Great Room. "How long before the fish course?" shouts Evans. "Any minute now," comes the reply from one of the front-of-house team marshalling the waiting staff.

On the back of that advice, Evans hurries to wheel out the fish trolleys from the ovens and sets in motion the plating-up of the function's starter. It is 8.10pm and so far all is going to plan.

Back in the narrow confines of kitchen two, Wright is issuing a reminder ("put the fish in the centre, please!") to a fellow chef, while he drizzles hoi-sin sauce around the sea-bass fillets which pass in front of him conveyor-belt style.

"How many more fish?" calls out Mercier. A reply of "10" comes winging back but, minutes later, after Mercier has rushed a trolley of unused fish out of the way, it turns out that he has been fed duff information and there is a panic on to plate up some extra sea bass.

The crisis is past almost before it has struck. At 8.20pm it is time to start serving the beef, and Mercier, sweat pouring off his face, is already impatiently shoving aside empty trolleys to gain access to others laden with heated plates.

Back in kitchen one, the throng of waiters is posing some problems for a member of Evans's team. "Mind your backs," he yells, nearly decapitating a few who are not quick enough to get out the way of his carefully balanced tray of steak fillets. A moment later, a shout of "180" floats above the crescendo of noise - the number of beef fillets already sent out.

Evans, like many others in the brigade who are turning a shiny shade of pink, is pleased to see no sign of any returning plates of beef. However, at 8.45pm he does despatch two of his team to help at the vegetable station back in the main kitchen. The station is under pressure, having received an extra 25 requests for its starter of bamboo-filled parcels of yellow peppers, and is on course to send out an extra 36 main course covers.

Despite this rush, there is an almost visible lightening of tension at around 9pm when Evans and Wright, in their respective kitchens, are watching the departure of hundreds of cobalt-blue dessert plates artfully arranged with fruit and a nectarine sorbet-filled baba. The team is on the final lap.

"I've never sweated so much in my whole life," says Debbie Nichols, carefully spooning the sorbet on to a plate as it flashes by on the arms of a disappearing waiter. As a conference and banqueting organiser, Nichols, 24, is more used to arranging functions than working in the kitchens but she is currently on a cross-training course in the kitchen. She is amazed at the hours that chefs work. "These guys have hardly taken a break all day," she reveals.

Half-an-hour later, with service over and the award ceremony under way, Nichols and the rest of Mercier's brigade decamp into his office for a much-appreciated glass of Champagne. It's Mercier's way of thanking his team for their efforts and support for an event which Evans says is "the best Cateys yet". This is endorsed by a congratulatory visit from the Savoy's Anton Edelmann.

Mercier, like the rest his team, is glad to be able to chalk up another successful evening and, cigarette in hand, is busy daydreaming of a holiday in Evian. "I have a house there, on top of the mountain overlooking the lake," he says, pointing to a view of his home town hanging above his desk. But for the moment, he says his goodbyes and makes his way home for a well-earned night's rest.