"We have not been able to check for allergies……."

Jang Daehyeon, Managing Director and executive chef of the Signiel hotel, let his regret show.

Not knowing the list of visitors, he had not been able to check their tastes in food or whether anybody had an allergy.

"Cooking that is natural matters more than cooking that is showy."

The people of chaebol houses are mostly gourmets.

Their children too take what they eat seriously, and the manners of it, inside the house and out.

Young as they are, satisfying their palates takes a good many elements.

The taste of a dish and the skill in it matter, but so do the air of the room, the flavour, the look of the plating, and the rest of it.

"The serving team?"

"They are standing by at each section now."

Gi Seohun, Jang Daehyeon's personal secretary and his pupil, made the report.

"They will all do well enough."

The Korean is a given. For the Chinese, where the flavour of the fire matters, Chef Lin Hao does not make it up in advance but cooks it immediately before serving.

For the Japanese too, Chef Sakai Haruto will be standing by with the sashimi knife in his hand.

For the Italian, Chef Matteo Rossi will be standing in front of water at a rolling boil.

The service team are counting the time in seconds.

"Master. There is one thing, though……."

Gi Seohun opened his mouth carefully.

"Why? Is something wrong?"

"The dessert section, I mean. He is not used to Korean ways yet……."

At the end of what Gi Seohun said, a deep line came into Jang Daehyeon's brow.

Julien Lefebvre, head of the dessert section, descendant of a distinguished noble house.

From the start his pride in French cooking and French dessert has been enormous.

That he quietly looks down on the chefs who head the other sections is known as well.

Take pride away from a cook and you have a corpse, but the level of it is past what is proper.

And on top of that he is out of…