For Best Chefs America
Though they may want to, chefs are not allowed to play their favorite Metallica song at brunch. It's only when the doors are locked and the ticket board is cleared that kitchen folk can exercise free range to listen to whatever they want as they work. Behind the scenes, when it's time to clean, your favorite restaurant transforms from the calm, even elegant, eatery you've come to know and love into the makings of a late night disco. All the pieces of the puzzle - the tables and chairs, kitchen equiptment, sixth pans on the hot and cold line - are taken apart to be put back together, and music always accompanies the process. Soundsystems blast as oil is dumped out deep fryers and floors are swept.
Chefs around the country sent us their favorite songs on their closing playlists. Plug in your iPod. Start a dance party.
1) Denise Mazal of Little Gretel Restaurant - a Czech restaurant in San Antonio, TX plays Michael Jackson.
2. Bill Atwood, chef at Cape Cod's Red Pheasant Inn jams out to The Allman Brothers' Jessica.
3. Chef Geoff Johnson sings along to The Piano Man, Billy Joel, especially his hit "Say Goodbye to Hollywood."
4. Joel Mahr of Omaha's restaurant and winebar Lot2 scrubs alongside The Beatles, circa 1970, with "Don't Let Me Down."
5. Janis Karanthis pumps Zeppelin in perpetuum.
