Food deserves better service
What's the point of preparing first-class food if the service that places it on the table is second-rate? None whatsoever. Poor service spoils good food.
That was one of the messages to emerge from the Caterer Chef Conference, held at the Landmark London hotel last week. Keynote speaker Kit Chapman said that the lack of communication and co-operation between chefs and front-of-house staff was having a detrimental effect on the hospitality profession.
What's surprising about this is not that Chapman said what he did, but that he felt obliged to make the point at all. It's such an obvious truth - good service sells - that you would have thought that it wouldn't need saying, not in 2003 at least.
But it obviously does. A show of hands at the conference demonstrated that fewer than 10% of chefs present arranged food tastings for their front-of-house staff - an appalling statistic that would have been unheard-of years ago. The gulf between the two sides of the food operation seems to be widening.
There are, of course, chefs who take customer service seriously. Gordon Ramsay, for example, has set up a school for waiting staff in London; many top chef-proprietors demonstrate a sense of responsibility when it comes to front-of-house service; and organisations such as the Academy of Food & Wine Service work tirelessly to promote this side of the business.
It would seem, however, from the comments of Chapman and others at the Chef Conference, that many restaurants remain negligent in this area. Maybe the message about the importance of service, which was gaining pace five or 10 years ago, has lost ground to the hype surrounding celebrity chefs, food trends and restaurant style. Perhaps the rise of corporate restaurant chains with their system-led training programmes has reduced the need for chefs to be involved in training waiters.
Whatever the reason, it is important that those working in kitchens are reminded that the food on the plate is only one aspect of the dining experience. Good service can hide poor food, but good food won't make up for poor service.
By Forbes Mutch, Editor, Caterer & Hotelkeeper
