6:34PM

Meet Cole, the kitchen stage

At the dumpling station, Kachka’s stage Cole is watching prep cook Jon running dough through the vertical dough roller. He then hunches over the trays and pipes meat filling into each indentation. When he’s done, he lays a sheet of dough on top. Cole tries his hand for a while; Jon inspects Cole's work and completes the dumplings as Cole heads upstairs to chat with Olga about his background and his future. Cole, a Wisconsin native, is a student at Le Cordon Bleu and already has a job at a local brewery, but hopes to be hired on at Kachka.

Back downstairs, Jon seals the dumplings and cuts their edges, then shakes the tray to release them. He arranges Cole’s work in neat rows on the sheet, removing any that look overfilled or broken, placing them in a pile. The pile is bigger than he'd like it to be. “That’s what happens with a new guy,” he says. “They get a little overzealous.” The restaurant will use the imperfect dumplings for staff meal.

Cole will check in a half-hour later to see how the dumplings turned out (“One tray was too big, but other than that…” Jon trails off), then sits down at the Kachka bar with prep cook Neal, who’s talking him through the extensive menu. Cole orders a Moscow Mule as Neal describes the differences between the two salo options, then decides on an order that functions as a light snack: salo and pashtet.