The pastry section at four in the morning

Pastry runs on a different clock to the rest of the kitchen. By the time the grill is lit, the day’s tarts are already cooling and the person who made them is most of the way through their shift.

It has to work that way. Laminated dough needs a cold room and a quiet one, and neither exists once service starts. Four in the morning is the only time the kitchen is both.

The trade is that pastry decides what dessert is before anyone has ordered it. If the bakers found good rhubarb, dessert is rhubarb. Nobody downstairs gets a vote.