You risk a glance over your shoulder, looking at the digital clock behind you. Twenty-one minutes to open. You turn around again to focus on your tasks, trying to ignore the tightness in your chest and internal monologue (“fuck, fuck, fuck!”) and remembering the things still left to do, rearranging the order of priority at a minute’s interval.

What’s not to find attractive?

They’re passionate about their work. They’re good with their hands. Maybe there’s something about the chef whites. The ability to multitask. They can feed you and thus satisfy a basic human need. And if they can fulfil that, then surely they can help out with other needs too.

Ideally, at this time of the day, there’s a little dip in orders to allow for a calm handover between the morning and evening teams, but the weekend crowd had different plans. Likely sleeping off their hangovers until midday, by 3 p.m., the East London crowd descends on our restaurant like a wake of hungry vultures.