Obtrusive waiting staff
By Nicholas Lander
Published: September 12 2009 02:47 | Last updated: September 12 2009 02:47
My heart began to sink as I listened to the waitress at Spruce in San Francisco go through a two-minute, slice-by-slice description of the charcuterie plate she had just set before me. My wife and I were there to catch up with an American friend we hadn’t seen for several years. Why, I wondered, couldn’t she just deliver the food and let us get on with our conversation?
The rest of the meal was punctuated by similar intrusions, to such an extent that, as we walked out on to the windy pavement after the meal, our guest felt he had to apologise.
Waiting staff in the US have always believed that they have to put on an act, because they know only too well that their tips depend on their performance. “But I do think that this habit has got worse since the recession,” our friend told us. “They are trying harder, to compensate for the fact that their customers may leave less than they used to.”
The practice may be at its worst in the US but it has, sadly, spread. The most ridiculous, invasive, over the top – and, therefore, unforgettable for all the wrong reasons – service we ever suffered was at an overly ambitious restaurant in a small village in the Lake District, in the north of England.
Yet, when I asked restaurateurs on both sides of the Atlantic to tell me what a waiter should say when delivering a plate of food they all say “as little as possible”. Unobtrusiveness is a positive attribute. As Gavin Rankin at Bellamy’s in Mayfair, says: “A waiter’s job is to answer questions not to pose them. They should never say ‘Bon appétit,’ or ‘Enjoy.’ And they should never ask if everything is alright, as we are going to find out soon enough anyway if it isn’t.”
Chris Corbin of the Wolseley in London and the Monkey Bar in New York elaborates on the principles he teaches his waiting staff. These include saying “Good morning,” or “Good evening,” before the initial greeting; and restricting the description of each main course as it is presented to just a couple of words – “the fillet steak”, for example. The waiter can then return to the table for the vital “check back”, which just requires the phrase: “Is there anything else I can get you?” This is a sensitive approach that minimises the need for further interruptions.
But if such successful restaurateurs have adopted this non-intrusive attitude, why are so many staff still so long-winded?
There are several reasons, the first of which is that few customers appreciate quite how “upfront and personal” waiting staff have to be. Few other professions bring complete strangers into such close physical proximity, and the verbal intimacy can be an extension of this. During a three-course meal, any waiter could come into close contact with a customer on 15 occasions, from the initial greeting to the processing of the bill and the goodbye.
Secondly, as chefs have expanded their culinary horizons, menus have become more intricate, and this increases the potential for waiters to be similarly expansive. In addition, many top restaurants now offer a tasting menu alongside the à la carte. These menus increase the number of times a waiter returns to your table, plus the aim of the multi-course tasting menu is for the kitchen to show what it is capable of, and the chef wants to communicate – via the waiter – the origins of every ingredient and the pleasure each will generate.
Louis Smeby, a highly experienced waiter at the Modern in New York, tells me how he deals with the differences between à la carte and tasting menus: “When I am delivering a dish from our à la carte menu, I usually mention the three main ingredients about 95 per cent of the time. The only reasons I may not are because of a strong language barrier or because I can see from the spreadsheets spread across the table that this is a business lunch and just finding space for the plates is a challenge.
“Multi-course tasting menus are different,” he adds. “Customers come to be dazzled and they present the waiting staff with the opportunity to present a more personalised service.”
In less professional hands, however, the practice of saying too much has spilled over into too many waiters’ automatic and, therefore, insincere vocabulary at every meal. But there are times when we, the customers, need to watch our own behaviour. Waiters respond to cues and when time-pressed diners eat in haste, too many forget to say even the occasional “thank you” when a dish is served.
As well as being rude, failing to say, “Thank you,” denies the waiter the opportunity to respond with the eminently appropriate, “My pleasure,” and to leave the customers to enjoy the meal.
nicholas [email protected]
More columns at www.ft.com/lander
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
Comments