Verification Process

Verification Process
Liora's POV

"Are they starting anytime soon?" I asked the girl beside me while looking at my wristwatch.

The girl turned to look at me, eyeing me from head to toe and turned to look away.

I frowned. A little bit of an answer would be well appreciated. Whats she being saucy for?

I bit my lip, nervous, and looked around the hall.

There were more than ten people in the room. Maybe fifteen. All of them carrying that same energy– prepared, but trying not to show it. Straight backs. Still hands. Eyes that moved, then settled like nothing had caught their attention.

Chefs. Every single one of them.

I could tell by the way they stood near the counters without leaning, the way their fingers flexed instead of fidgeting. Habit. Years of working at a station.

Unlike me.

The hall wasn’t what I expected. No grand entrance. No velvet ropes. No signs trying to prove how important it was. Just a converted industrial space somewhere off the grid in lower Manhattan. Exposed pipes. Harsh overhead lighting. Long stainless steel counters lined across the room like a kitchen stripped down to only what mattered.
Cold. Intentional.

The kind of place that didn’t care about impressing anyone.

If anything, it made one thing clear, you were here to prove yourself.

I smoothed the front of my blouse and checked my watch again. Six fifty-three.

Seven minutes.

Eight o'clock was Nathan's grandmother.

I pushed that thought down and kept it there.

A door opened at the far end of the hall. No announcement. No buildup. Just a man in a dark jacket stepping through and stopping at the front of the room, holding a single sheet of paper.

He was maybe fifty. Grey at his temples, sharp jaw, the kind of face that had spent decades deciding things.

He didn't smile nor did he care to introduce himself.

He just looked out at the room until it went quiet — which it did, immediately.

"Sixteen candidates," he said. His voice carried without effort. "There are five spots and just one round. No repeats." He looked down at the sheet once, then back up. "You were invited because someone in this industry believed you belonged here. That belief is not a guarantee. Tonight is."

Someone to my left exhaled slowly. I kept on looking as if I was a deer caught in headlights. I had not prepared to cook. I thought this was a verification process?

I gulped down air.

"The brief is simple." He set the paper down on the counter in front of him. "You have forty minutes to make one dish. The panel will evaluate on technique, originality, and execution. Before coming in here, you had dropped your documents now, you need to prove yourself that you can actually…cook. We do not need your presentation or sob story. What we need is…" His eyes moved across the room without warmth. "What's on the plate."

I looked down at my palms which were now sweaty I instantly rubbed them against my trousers .

I had done more with less. I had cooked in a kitchen with two working burners and a broken timer for a girl who inspected everything I made before deciding whether it was good enough to claim as her own.

I could do forty minutes.

"Stations are assigned," the man continued. "Your number is on the counter. Find it, do not move from it, and do not speak to the panel unless spoken to." He picked up the sheet. "You have two minutes."

The room moved.

I moved with it, scanning the numbers taped to the edge of each station. Seven. Twelve. Three. I walked the length of the counter, weaving through shoulders and elbows, until I found it

Eleven.

I stopped in front of it and looked down at the station. Standard setup — two burners, a cutting board, a knife roll already laid out. Small bowls of base ingredients lined up along the back edge. Salt, oil, a few aromatics. Everything else would come from the central supply counter in the middle of the room.

The girl who had ignored me earlier was at station twelve.

Of course she was.

She didn't look at me. She was already running her fingers over the knife roll, checking blades with the quiet confidence of someone who had been here before or at least wanted everyone to think so.

I looked away.

Focus.

The man at the front said something else. I caught the tail end of it — "panel will enter in sixty seconds" — and then the door at the far end opened again and three people walked in.

Two men and a woman. All older. All carrying the specific stillness of people who had spent long enough in professional kitchens to be completely unbothered by the tension in the room.

The woman sat in the center.

She had silver hair pulled back severely, dark eyes behind narrow glasses, and the expression of someone who had tasted ten thousand dishes and remembered every single one she'd found disappointing.

My stomach tightened.

I picked up a knife. Turned it once in my hand. Set it back down.

"Candidates." The man with the sheet looked up one last time. "You may begin."