While designing the kitchen at his namesake restaurant on Columbus Circle, Jean-Georges Vongerichten traded American efficiency for Old World tyranny. The five food stations, staffed by six cooks (two on fish) and one floating chef (a chef de tournant) are arranged perpendicular to the pass, which is where the food is handed off to the food runners (seen at the bottom of the page), all under the scrutiny of another chef, who runs the line. Typically, Vongerichten says, “you cook against the wall, turn around, plate it and it goes out.” At Jean-Georges, the staff members cook various elements at their stations and then walk them up to the pass — where they assemble the dishes with monastic precision. When your shrimp appetizer, being plated lower left by two cooks, comes with crispy baby artichokes, crispy mushrooms, smoked paprika gel, lemon fennel purée, microthyme and parsley, a more collaborative and focused effort is required. (Also: tweezers).

During a Thursday dinner service in October, the photographer Brett Beyer shot multiple overhead photographs at the height of the dinner rush, which he stitched together to create this image. (As a result, cooks, pots and ingredients appear multiple times — a reflection of their movement around the kitchen.) That night, Jean-Georges made an average of four plates each for 120 guests, turning over the small dining room twice in the process. The reservationist coordinated the bookings so that guests came in staggered seatings of 25. This helps, but Jean-Georges has an open kitchen — the dining room is on the other side of the wide-open pass — and its transparency with guests comes with hindrances: namely, plastic tasting spoons for sauces and latex gloves. “It’s almost like doing surgery,” Vongerichten says. And it’s nearly as quiet, allowing the different stations to communicate with one another, so that dishes with vastly divergent cooking times go out at the same moment. It might be silent, but according to the chef, “It’s really well choreographed.” Willy Staley