Fantasy league
Scott Hessel is days away from an experience few chefs will ever taste. He has been challenged by a group of his big-spending customers to produce a nine-course dinner to match some of the finest wines in the world from their private cellars.
Hessel is reverent when he talks about some of the bottles he has to match with food. "One of the customers invited me round to see his collection; it's stuff you read about."
The event started as a joke while Hessel was listening late one night to a party of customers telling him of the legendary bottles they owned.
"I said I wanted to taste some of them; then we got talking about what food it would need to match the wines and it just grew from that. They said they'd pay for the food, but provide the wine.
"They didn't want to put a price on anything, but these are good customers with loads of brass who like to spend it, so I said if they provided the wine free, I'd provide the food free, but I was going to sit down with them for the meal."
The wine buffs picked the bottles they wanted to drink and in the order they wanted to drink them in, then told Hessel to match food to them.
Hessel hasn't costed the event as if he had been staging it himself, but his guess is that it would not be less than £200 a head.
With such pressure on a young brigade that has only been together for a few weeks, how much rehearsing is planned for the food? "None, we get it right first time here."
Business in the past four weeks has perked up again. Fears that there would be a quiet spell leading up to Christmas were wrong. Turnover is back up to the figures of summer and there are solid bookings over Christmas and New Year. Hessel has been well pleased with the success of the mail-shot to town centre offices which he did through the Post Office. This has attracted new lunchtime customers in particular.
In the past few weeks his new female chef, Sam Lodge, has started, joining with a new restaurant manager Louise Blackburn. With the part-time table staff, women now outnumber men at Mustards & Punch and Hessel likes it that way. "Women work harder, don't grumble and are never late. You always get trouble with men in this business."
Despite being busy, Hessel has kept up his hectic social life. He had promised to stop going to wine tastings, but has just done two in one day. "Hell of a day, that was."
His plan to develop the cellar beneath the travel agent next door has received planning permission, but he's undecided what to do with the space. The original plan was to extend the kitchen, but he's now thinking it might make a private dining room or a grand wine cellar.
With each month that passes Hessel becomes more convinced that wine is a powerful key in selling his food. "People are coming for the wines as well as the food. It's as important as the food in a restaurant."
Hessel has got rid of laminated plastic sheets for his wines and replaced them with A4 loose-leaf folders in which he can insert typewritten sheets.
He has made Italian wines the main feature of the list, convinced they represent some of the best value and quality around. Supporting the strong Italian listing is a section of Australians, divided by regions.
An upmarket wine list has persuaded Hessel to send his piped music up a few rungs. The Beatles and other soft pop has given way to Noel Coward and the Gypsy Kings. The main event of the past month was Hallowe'en night, when Hessel had the staff dress up and play pranks on customers. "Tasteful stuff though, nothing too heavy."
It was a full house, but halfway through the evening there was a disaster. "The bass player in the jazz band went funny, a sort of heart attack. I thought he was going to die on me. That was just what I needed on a party night.
"I got one of the others in the band to take him home. We ended the night with just two musicians, but people didn't seem to notice. I might change to another band next time, though, one a bit younger."
