It’s 10:30 a.m. at Commons and the smell of roasting chicken is in the air. The smell of about 140 roasting chickens, to be precise.
That’s how many birds the rotisserie station typically goes through during lunch at this historic dining hall on the ground floor of Yale Schwarzman Center. First opened in 1901, the since-renovated hall is known for its Hogwarts-like ambience: long wooden tables, elaborate chandeliers, and soaring ceilings.
Today, on the first day of classes after the winter break, David Kuzma, the center’s executive chef, expects the usual lunchtime onslaught of upwards of 2,000 diners, beginning when the doors open at 11 a.m. until they close at 3 p.m. Preparing enough food to feed such a crowd, as they do every Monday through Thursday during the academic term, requires skillful planning and an unflagging team effort.
“We really enjoy cooking for the students,” says executive chef David Kuzma (pictured speaking with a colleague in the kitchen). “There is huge teamwork here.”
The kitchen staff stands in a row before Kuzma for a check-in about how much food is ready to serve at each of the five themed stations. He goes down the line: How many trays of crispy tofu are ready? How many pans of rice? How many racks of pasta?
The menu focuses on contemporary cuisine, with fresh offerings that change with the seasons, many of them drawing on global influences. All menu items (including the pasta) are made in-house, except for the cookies, which are baked at the Culinary Support Center. The prep staff arrives daily at 6 a.m. to start preparing food in the production kitchen, downstairs from the main dining hall. The cooks start putting those ingredients together upstairs at 7:30 and are then joined by the cooks’ helpers 30 minutes later. Altogether, 26 culinary staff prepare, serve, and clean up lunch each day Commons is open.
Today, Kuzma is excited about a new menu item being offered at the wok station. Called KFC Chicken, it is a Korean rice bowl with fried chicken and gochujang and sushi mayo sauces topped with a vegetable slaw. Kuzma thinks the students are going to love it. (Commons, the campus’s largest dining venue, is also open to the public, as well as faculty and staff.)
It’s not his creation, however — that credit goes to Chef Xuewei Chen. In fact, of the current menu options across the five stations, only one is Kuzma’s.
“We have a lot of people that cook from different areas of the world, and we tap into that,” Kuzma said. “While they’re doing their regular work they may say, ‘Hey chef, try this.’ And I’ll be like, ‘Oh, that’s good — how do we get it to work in volume?’ The volume is the issue.”
Meals served daily
Rotisserie chickens prepared daily
Dumplings served daily
Gallons of hot sauce used daily
Sometimes staff creations prove too popular. Take the vegan arepas that Maria Ojeda, a cook’s helper, came up with about a year ago. Students were devouring so many of them — up to 250 a day — that Kuzma had to take them off the menu. “We just couldn’t keep up with the volume,” he said.
This generation of students also loves spice — the spicier the better, Kuzma said. The utensil and condiment stations throughout the dining room offer several varieties of hot sauce; diners consume more than 20 gallons a week.
At 11 a.m., staff members unlock the large wooden doors at the entryways, revealing a crowd already gathered in the foyer. They stream through the doors, leaving their coats and backpacks on the tables of their choice before making for the kitchen. Within a few minutes, it’s obvious that Kuzma’s hunch was right on the money.
Most diners are lining up at the wok station and, just as he predicted, leaving the kitchen with heaping bowls of Korean fried chicken.
“We really enjoy cooking for the students,” Kuzma said. “Everyone works together as a team. If one section fails, everyone fails. So, there is huge teamwork here.”
