A sous chef with an impressive El Bulli credential walked out hours before opening night Monday at Allegretti. “It’s too tough for me,” he told owner Alain Allegretti, a son of Nice who worked at Michelin two star Le Chantecler and

Chef-patron Alain Allegrett

three-star Alain Chapel before coming to Le Cirque 2000 as co-executive chef in 2001.  “But you just come from a year at El Bulli,” his boss protested. “They had a kitchen full of cooks,” responded the whiney slacker as he left. “I can’t afford a cook just to glaze the lamb all night and brush the lamb and tell the lamb how pretty it is,” the chef-patron told me. “In this kitchen a cook has to keep three or four things going at once,” Allegretti said as he put out an S.O.S for a hard-working second. He identified the cook only as "David" just in case he can find a cushier spot.

 

 

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