There was still some time before Mosyul would visit the restaurant,
so I decided to make a quick trip to the royal capital.
“Ah, Manager~ Are you going out?”
“Yeah.”
“Should I come with you?”
“Stay here and watch the restaurant.”
“Uu……”
Where does a ghost think she’s following me to?
If I brought that girl to the royal capital, she’d draw far too much attention.
I piled a heap of tasks onto Aris, who looked like she’d be bored,
and left the restaurant just like that.
* * *
It had been quite a while since I’d come to the royal capital.
Normally, even when I went out, it was only to buy ingredients in a nearby village.
The royal capital, Elgraph, was an enormous city, as though dozens of ordinary towns had been gathered into one.
It was protected by sturdy outer walls,
and within Elgraph’s inner castle lived the king, the pinnacle of power on the continent.
Gourmet Restaurant Slow was located far enough away that even by carriage, it would take a full day of nonstop travel to barely arrive.
So if I wanted to make a trip to the royal capital, I had to set aside at least three days for the round trip.
There were several reasons I’d gone out of my way to come to the royal capital before Mosyul’s visit.
One of those reasons was to taste the food at other restaurants.
A truly excellent chef shouldn’t only cook his own food.
Sometimes, one had to eat food made by others,
analyze its flavor, learn what there was to learn, and confirm what was lacking.
That was one way to maintain one’s cooking skills.
There were quite a variety of restaurants in the royal capital.
Without choosing any particular destination,
I simply walked wherever my feet took me and looked over the restaurants that caught my eye.
A small stew specialty shop tucked away inside an alley.
The signboard was old, but the smell wafting from inside wasn’t bad.
I went in, took a seat, and ordered the menu of the day.
It was a stew of beef and root vegetables simmered for a long time.
I scooped up a spoonful and tasted it.
The broth was rich and deep.
Thanks to the long simmering, the meat fell apart tenderly.
However, the seasoning was a little on the strong side,
and the root vegetables had softened too much, making the texture disappointing.
Well, it wasn’t a bad restaurant.
It had the sort of taste that likely had quite a few regulars.
After emptying the bowl cleanly, I found the shop owner and spoke to him.
“Thank you for the meal. It was a very delicious stew. There’s one thing I’d like to ask, if you don’t mind.”
The shop owner, whose pointed mustache curled upward, answered kindly.
“Yes, sir. What would you like to know?”
“Do you happen to know a man named Mosyul?”
The second reason I had come to the royal capital.
It was to gather information about Mosyul.
His visit to the restaurant had been confirmed,
but I still knew nothing about the gourmet Mosyul except that he was particular.
Any guest who visited my restaurant was an equal guest, regardless of status,
but still, when I thought of him not as a guest coming to enjoy my food, but as a gourmet coming to evaluate it, I couldn’t help being concerned.
At my question, the shop owner wiped the business smile from his face and opened his mouth.
“Mosyul…… You mean that famous gourmet gentleman, don’t you? I know him very well.”
“Is he that famous?”
“To those of us in the restaurant business, he’s like a nightmare. He finds the most dreadful faults in every dish…… Before I opened this shop, there was another restaurant I worked at. It was a restaurant that had a certain reputation in the royal capital.”
The shop owner continued, as though the memory still made his teeth chatter.
“One day, Mosyul came to that restaurant and ordered every single item on the menu. We did our very best to serve the food. We paid far more attention than usual, checking it over in the kitchen again and again before sending it out. But Mosyul took exactly one bite of each of those many dishes, then left with an empty cup turned upside down.”
“It didn’t suit his taste?”
“Apparently not. The problem was that afterward, he left our restaurant a terrible review. That review was so scathing that even customers who had been eating our food without issue began to be conscious of Mosyul’s evaluation and started filing complaints. Perception is a frightening thing like that. In the end, when a rival restaurant opened next door, the place went under.”
Famous…… Or perhaps it would be better to call him infamous.
A restaurant had gone under because of a harsh review from a well-known gourmet……
But on the other hand, I couldn’t quite understand it.
If the restaurant had truly had no problems and the food had been good,
then it wouldn’t have gone under just because of one gourmet’s bad review.
What sustained a restaurant wasn’t the evaluations of one or two gourmets,
but whether or not it could capture the palates of countless customers.
I felt sorry for the shop owner,
but the greater possibility was that the restaurant had lost to its rival in terms of taste and price.
Mosyul’s bad review had probably only added a bit of seasoning on top.
In a word, the timing had been bad.
“I see…… I was curious because I heard in the paper recently that Mosyul was starting a column introducing good restaurants.”
“Ah, that thing called Today’s Gourmet or whatever, right? Good grief…… I wonder if there’s even a restaurant that’ll get introduced there. From what I hear, Mosyul’s tastes have become far harder to satisfy than before. At that point, he’s just being spiteful.”
“Still, if a place gets introduced there, wouldn’t it become famous in an instant?”
The restaurant owner let out a small sigh.
“Well, that may be true. But that’s a dream dreamed by people who haven’t seen Mosyul in person. That gentleman is nothing more than a pervert whose hobby is wandering around crushing chefs’ pride.”
Watching the shop owner shake his head as though he was sick of even thinking about it,
I said, “In any case, thank you for the meal,” and left the shop.
* * *
I made another circuit around the royal capital and stopped by a few more places.
I ate a meat pie at a small pie shop,
and drank a cup of tea at a café at the end of the main street.
Everywhere I went, I casually asked about Mosyul.
The stories were all similar.
He was fussy.
He enjoyed insulting chefs.
And once he changed his mind about you, it was over.
The café owner said this about Mosyul.
“I can still understand when that gentleman says something tastes bad. Tastes can differ, after all. But he doesn’t simply say it tastes bad. He talks as if he’s denying the very existence of the chef. Things like, ‘You have no right to call yourself a chef.’”
“Did you hear that directly?”
The café owner nodded.
“He came to a bakery run by a friend of mine. He ordered one piece of bread, took a bite, then set the bread down right there and asked if my friend had made it himself. When my friend said yes, he told him to apologize to the barley and wheat.”
“With just that one sentence?”
“Yes. And then he just left.”
The café owner shook his head as he wiped a teacup.
“That friend of mine has been making bread for over ten years. That one sentence wounded him terribly. The bakery is still running, but…… he doesn’t seem as motivated as he used to be.”
I took a sip of tea.
Words that denied the very existence of a chef.
It wasn’t simply a matter of the food not suiting his taste.
It was a method that aimed precisely at the other person’s pride.
It didn’t end with the food; it placed even the person who made it on the harsh scales of judgment.
“Has that man ever acknowledged something as delicious?”
The café owner thought for a moment, then spoke bitterly.
“In the past, there were a few restaurants known as places Mosyul had approved of, but that was long ago. Recently, I don’t think there have been any.”
None recently……
I set down the empty teacup and left the café.
* * *
Deep inside the royal capital’s high-class residential district.
Sitting alone in a spacious study,
Mosyul was staring at a single document spread across the table.
Gourmet Restaurant Slow.
Among thousands of applications, it was the one and only sheet he had personally chosen.
It had already been sitting on his table for several days.
It wasn’t because there was anything in particular to reread.
He had already memorized all of its contents.
We will make any dish the guest desires.
We are confident that we can satisfy the guest without fail.
That was all.
Mosyul rose from his seat and walked to the study window.
The royal capital’s night streets looked down below.
In every alley beneath him, restaurants were lighting their lamps.
The restaurants he had visited until now.
Skimming the menu, receiving the food, taking one bite.
And then turning away, over and over again.
Mosyul placed a hand on the window and thought.
We will make any dish.
When he first read those words,
he had been about to sneer, but stopped.
People who boasted usually rambled on at greater length.
About how remarkable they were, about how much they could do.
But that application was different.
It was as though it were saying, If you want to come, then come.
Whether you come or not is none of my concern.
But if you do come, I’ll satisfy you regardless.
That was the impression he received.
Mosyul turned away from the window and looked again at the document on the table.
He had no expectations.
Once he actually went there, it would surely be no different from any other restaurant.
He had seen countless restaurants like that.
This time would be the same.
And yet, strangely, it bothered him.
With that sort of operating style, a restaurant could never make money.
Unless it had made up its mind to go bankrupt……
From the application itself, it showed not the slightest intention of flattering him, a famous gourmet,
a strange restaurant, challenging and running against the times.
“It may be run by someone I can actually talk to……”
He muttered to himself, then slid the document into a drawer.
The gourmet Mosyul was counting the days
until he would visit Gourmet Restaurant Slow.
* * *