The hearth is lit at 14:00. For the first hour it is only flame, which is no use to a cook. Flame colors the outside of things and leaves the inside cold.
By 15:30 the oak has fallen into a bed of embers and the kitchen starts sorting heat into zones: embers under the grate for the duck, the back of the hearth for the celeriac, a ledge at 70°C where plates wait thirty seconds and no longer.
Cherry goes on last, for smoke. The dashi for the second course hangs above it for twelve minutes, and the cream for dessert for most of an hour.
- Embers
- about 480°C
- Grate
- about 300°C
- Plate ledge
- 70°C
- Oak per week
- two-thirds of a cord