11.00 A.M. THE IVY

11.00 A.M. Lunch. Downstairs the kitchen rattles and steams under the neon light. The chefs scurry, heads down, along narrow, slippery gangways between the great burnished iron engines. Staff lunch is a distraction, a diversion, from the main course set for the kitchen, and it looks like it. If you think that food is just fuel to be taken on board so that the body can get on with more important tasks, then staff lunch is probably your sort of meal. Banged down on a counter, bowls of pork chops and baked beans and chips. They moan, but not too loudly - this is not their territory. This is a dangerous, hot workshop, where tempers simmer. They understand that a watched cook often boils, so they don’t watch.