From torts to tarts

CAREER CHANGE:Waving farewell to the prestigious legal career she slogged her way into, Angela Ruttledgetakes on her family's Phibsboro restaurant

AT AGE 16, I remember being woken at 6am on chilly Sunday mornings to go to work in Phibsboro with my mother – a sullen teenager opening the canopies in black jeans and T-shirt, both faded from too much washing. I remember the shoes with the canvas uppers and thick rubber soles. They sold them by the bucketload in Penneys, £5 a pair.

The restaurant was the source of our bread and butter. Mum’s work ethic could be summed up in three words: hot, sudsy water. So we scrubbed and she kept her fingers crossed about the rest. Invaluable lessons were learnt, like, how to deal with customers who insist on telling you “you’re a great girl, aren’t ya?” Or, how to give chase to a customer who has just lifted half a cooked turkey off the carvery and put it in their shopping bag.

I’d find myself counting down the 12 hours each Sunday until I’d swiftly put the chairs up on the tables, willing the car to go faster on the way home, with the stench of dirty tea-towels wafting from the boot.

I’d race into the shower to scrub the smell of grease away before the boyfriend arrived to hang out with me for a couple of hours in our back room. The Love Nest, my brother called it, on account of the lack of any furniture other than cushions and a massive bean bag. Mum ignored him (my brother), she didn’t mind as long as she knew we weren’t hanging around on street corners.

The restaurant was my other brother’s idea, and he was duly rewarded – it was there he met the woman he later married. Before that she was the cool girl I made sandwiches with – she was 21 and had her own flat off Whitworth Road. We had issues with the smug Sunday morning couples. We had a code if we spotted a hot fella come in. “I need back up,” she’d shout, and I’d say, “I’ll get that for you straight away” (meaning he is so cute!). Or, “I think you are alright for the moment” (meaning you are on your own there sister!).

Actually, I asked one of the waiters to my debs, a long-haired journo type. He may have felt a bit obligated owing to being employed by my mother, but he made for great photos.

I worked there summers and weekends until I was 21. I was encouraged to put my education to good use and so began the plodding and, fairly difficult, transformation to standard-model (wound-up) solicitor. It’s amazing how 10 years will go by trying to answer an unending supply of legal questions for clients who don’t understand what takes you so long. And looking at the successful women ahead of you wondering if you’ve saved enough energy to get to where they are.

I hadn’t, as it turns out. I knew I was in trouble when I wound up alone at Empty Pockets for lunch on consecutive Fridays, hoovering up cheese fries and filter coffee, staring into space, not even pretending to read. Idle. While dawdling back up Grafton Street one day, my sister called – probably her fifth high-speed check-in of the day. She and her husband had taken over the restaurant from Mum a few years previously, and now they had opened another one of their own. She spilled out the list of problems involved in trying to manage two restaurants. Then, not to be rude, she said, “and how are you?”

Hmm. Quarter life crisis kicked hard again: “What am I going to do with myself?”

“Eh, manage Phibsboro before the workload kills me?”

“Okay then.”

Bit of a snap decision. But, if I didn’t do something I might be convincingly good at, I was going to crack up. I decided to give in my notice quicker than I would decide on a pair of shoes.

People’s attitudes were very positive – even envious sounding. (This is always a sign you’ve made the right choice. But were they faking? Of course, they wouldn’t think about the daily tangibles – the tea-towels, the greasetraps and stuffed chickens and what not, so maybe they were really envious).

The only exception was a lady who burst out, “I’m sorry, but honestly, I don’t understand why someone would leave a secure job, in this day and age, with people . . . you know?”

“Trying to keep a roof over their heads?” I suggested.

“Yes. A secure job, in order to run a . . . a restaurant.”

I didn’t point out that as a solicitor, I had as much job security as a turkey in November.

At least I wouldn’t be starving now, would I?

TWO MONTHS IN . . .

My sister texted me: “I’ve been thinking about you and your writing . . . you could be the next Domini Kemp.” Ha. This food business has sucked every ounce of creativity out of me. I close my eyes and I see . . . possibilities for a different scone recipe; cottage pies with their tops a little too crusty; cold room shelves full of sauces and potions for the next day’s lunch. I can think of nothing else.

There are days when I think I’ll just have a scream and dance in front of the dessert fridge and all I want to do when the day is done is get home and elevate my feet.

But let’s be honest – if the extent of my “food experience” can be measured out in how much time I spend thinking about it, then I’m very experienced. Otherwise – not counting a penchant for throwing dinner parties that began before I did the Leaving Cert, when Frascati and tacos were haute gourmand – not so much.

So, a few months in and I am still struggling to learn how a professional kitchen works, still flailing, often failing to produce dishes I’d find easy to make at home.

It’s not as if tasty food is all important in the overall context of the business. I need to be thinking about rotas, waste disposal, employee rights and safety. I’ve had two heart-stopping visits from a very nice lady from environmental health, who met my panicked gaze with friendly reassurance. The second time she arrived at the counter I really wanted her to come into the kitchen for an inspection (I need testing! Give me marks out of 10) but she was on a record-checking buzz. There are temperature checks for when the food arrives, when it’s cooked, when it’s cooled and when it’s on display.

Of course the product has to sell, too, and, as in a legal practice, you have some dodgy clients. There are those who have to be ejected for inappropriate behaviour (yes, that would include falling asleep in their fry-up). Other customers can be only mildly frustrating. They say, for example, “can we have one pot of tea. And two cups. And can we have an extra teabag in the pot. And a pot of hot water. That’s great, thanks dear.”

I say nothing, I suffer in silence. But most customers are overwhelmingly lovely and I’m grateful for them, for their loyal and lengthy custom. They should probably have an equity stake in the place, and some of them think they already do. I’m doing a bit of redecoration and one man says, every time he sees me, “it’s horrible, horrible cold, much nicer the way it was before”. So, one day, I said back to him, “for God sake, it’s not finished, give it a chance!” And he said: “Don’t worry love, you didn’t pick it.”

It gave me a queer, hurt satisfaction to tell him I did. But I know they’ll love it when I’m finished. I’ve had my mother in to advise on painting variations on white from her Farrow Ball colour chart.

On bad days, my decision is earmarked “foolish and rash”. What have I done to the career I was building, kicking it to bits as if it were nothing but a carefully built sandcastle? I’m a fraud. I’m envious, imagining my friends in high heels and work dresses, buying their winter coats while I buy a pair of safety clogs.

We meet up for dinner and I amuse them with tales from my restaurant-running lifestyle. There is a definite perception of glamour, even if it’s just a cafe in Phibsboro. But I worry that, without The Law – all the private practice gossip, rants about due diligence and the unreasonable negotiating tactics of the Other Side – I will run out of things to catch up on with my legal buddies.

I miss the prestige of being “a solicitor”, although my friends tell me I should know better. I’m still reluctant to let go, tempted to slip in my profession at every opportunity. Would you like some advice on the prohibition on financial assistance with your pudding?

The question my friends ask most often is, “what hours do you work?” But I don’t have a routine. I can come home to catch my cat with a mouse in its mouth at three in the afternoon, before retreating to the spare room where all the filing lives (so much filing, I’ve considered asking my secretary from the old job to do a nixer for me). I can stay in bed all day without being scolded. Or I can stay in the restaurant from 6am until late at night, poking my way into the routines of various staff members.

Have I found something I can be convincingly good at? I don’t know yet. I have found a job where I can bring my Mum to work on the tough days. One where I can get my hair done in the middle of a quiet day, without pretending to go to a client meeting. What’s more, I found myself in the cold room the other day, and the tutting in my head stopped for a minute as I nodded to the baked cheesecake and admired the neatly stacked tupperware – finally everything in its appointed place – and I realised I was humming.

So, goodbye high heels, targets, conference calls and my heart in my mouth every time the phone rings. Hello health inspectors, rotas and roast beef. Oh, and my heart in my mouth, permanently.