Emile

Emile is the chef de cuisine at the Metropol’s Boyarsky Restaurant, a formidable cook whose work becomes more inventive as the ingredients available to him become more meager. His skill is measured not by the abundance of his kitchen but by what he can make from scarcity; beyond the stove, his meals and gestures of hospitality help preserve the fellowship he shares with Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov and Andrey.

Identity and Craft

Emile arrived at the Metropol in 1912, lured there to lead a seasoned staff in a sizable kitchen. Its larder was then described as the most celebrated east of Vienna: the spice shelves gathered the world’s tastes, while birds and beasts hung in the cooler. Such plenty could make a chef look talented, the narrative observes, because abundance makes it easy to please a palate. Emile’s deeper distinction emerges when the kitchen loses that advantage.

His temperament is less polished than his cooking. Some call him a curmudgeon; others describe him as abrupt, short in stature and shorter in temper. Those judgments coexist with an undisputed reputation for genius. The contrast is important: Emile is not presented as a genial craftsman whose good nature makes every task easy. His brusqueness belongs to the same vivid, forceful character as his command of ingredients and his exacting attention to flavor.

Ingenuity Under Scarcity

After the Russian Revolution, economic decline, failed crops, and interrupted trade make refined ingredients scarce in Moscow. The Metropol’s larder is depleted bushel by bushel, pound by pound, and dash by dash. Emile must cook for an audience accustomed to the restaurant’s standards using cornmeal, cauliflower, cabbage, and whatever else he can obtain. The period is a practical test of his art: the question is no longer how well he can cook with an ample store, but how much of that standard he can preserve when the store is disappearing.

A saltimbocca the Count is finishing offers a precise measure of that adaptation. Emile replaces the veal cutlet with a flattened chicken breast and Parma prosciutto with shaved Ukrainian ham. For sage, he chooses another herb with a similarly soft, aromatic character but a more bitter taste. The Count cannot identify it as basil or oregano, though he recognizes that he has encountered it before. The dish therefore carries both Emile’s resourcefulness and the limits of substitution: it recalls a familiar culinary form without pretending that scarcity has left the original ingredients untouched.

The scarcity has a political as well as culinary setting. In 1920, after the borders have been sealed, the Bolsheviks prohibit rubles in fine restaurants, effectively excluding most of the population. Against that background, the Boyarsky’s service belongs to a changed and restricted world. Emile’s achievement is not that he restores the former abundance, but that he continues to make considered food from what remains available.

The Kitchen and the Triumvirate

Emile’s kitchen is also a place where friendship takes material form. At half past midnight, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov finds him slicing fennel beside four neatly arranged celery stalks; haddock fillets and a basket of mussels await, and a large copper pot steams on the stove. Emile appears cheerfully confident that things will work out. Rather than pause for a formal greeting, he indicates the little table that has been moved from his office into the kitchen and is waiting to be set. The scene places work and fellowship side by side: Emile continues preparing food while making room for his friends.

For a long-awaited bouillabaisse, the Count tests a small amount of absinthe by dipping in his little finger. Emile tastes the same liquid from his pinkie and declares it perfect. The Count lays a tablecloth and sets the places; Emile whistles the song about the absence of bananas that the Count had heard at Shalyapin. Andrey arrives from the back stair with oranges piled in his arms and spills them onto the counter. These small details make the meal a collaboration rather than a performance by the chef alone: Emile cooks, the Count prepares the table, and Andrey supplies the fruit.

At one in the morning, the three members of the Triumvirate take their places before a single candle, a loaf of bread, a bottle of rosé, and three bowls of bouillabaisse. Emile watches the other men taste before lifting his own spoon, studying their first expressions. The Count closes his eyes to attend to the flavor, then praises the dish; Andrey answers with silent applause. Only then does Emile bow and join the meal. Over the next two hours, each man eats three bowls and drinks a bottle of wine. Their conversation ranges from childhoods in St. Petersburg, Minsk, and Lyon to first and second loves, Andrey’s young son, and Emile’s lumbago. Food gives their talk a setting and duration: the meal becomes an occasion for old friends to speak openly across the past and present.

Hospitality and Character

Emile’s temper can flare when the carefully bounded space of the kitchen is disturbed. During another gathering of the Triumvirate, his apprentice points through the office window toward a raggedly dressed stranger near the back stair. Emile turns crimson and demands to know who let the man in. The answer is Andrey. Yet Emile’s first anger does not determine what follows. Once the visitor is identified as Mishka, one of Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov’s old friends, Andrey offers the use of Emile’s office, and Emile agrees that Mishka may have it.

Emile’s welcome is expressed through concrete provisions. Andrey leads Mishka to a chair with its back to the kitchen; Emile places bread and salt on the table, an ancient Russian sign of hospitality, then returns with potatoes and veal cutlets. He and Andrey withdraw and close the door so the two old friends can speak undisturbed. The movement from indignation to accommodation gives Emile’s abruptness a counterweight: he may react sharply to an intrusion, but he participates in making the visitor welcome and protecting the privacy of the conversation.

Friendship and Narrative Significance

Emile’s place in the story extends beyond his work as a chef. He is one of the friends included in the Count’s later reflection on the relationships that have sustained him. When Mishka dies, the Count grieves not only for his friend but because Mishka was the last person who had known him as a younger man. The account names the Count’s friendships with Marina, Andrey, and Emile among the bonds that remain, even as it distinguishes them from the particular loss of a companion from his earlier life. It does not describe Emile’s response to Mishka’s death; its emphasis is the Count’s recognition that friendship can preserve a person’s past even when those who shared it are disappearing.

Across these scenes, Emile’s cooking and hospitality answer different forms of deprivation. He makes a recognizable dish from substitutes when trade and harvest have failed, and he offers bread, salt, and a meal when a ragged visitor arrives unexpectedly. The kitchen is therefore more than his workplace: it is where skill, appetite, and friendship meet. Emile’s defining resourcefulness lies both in what he can make from diminished supplies and in his willingness to make room at the table.