Let's hear it for the Maitre d'
In another of his regular columns, Peter Hancock, chief executive of luxury hotel marketing consortium Pride of Britain Hotels, explains why front-of-house staff deserve more recognition for their hard work.
"Are you beginning to tire of celebrity chefs? Forgive me if you are one, or have embarked on a career with the intention of becoming one, but for me their appeal started to dim some time ago.
I used to enjoy watching Robert Carrier's Food, Wine & Friends in the break between split shifts circa 1980 and can even remember sitting with my parents to see The Galloping Gourmet who, for some reason, achieved considerably more respect in our household than Fanny Cradock.
Today there are as many millionaire TV cooks as there are politicians riding the gravy train. Some have incredible skill and a great personality to go with it so their success is fully justified. But am I alone in wishing we could see just a little less of them and rather more of the consummate head waiters and restaurant managers who perform their quiet magic in dining rooms all over Britain?
We often hear the hospitality industry being compared with the world of showbusiness and there are indeed lots of similarities. In the theatre, however, it is the performers on stage who receive most of the glory rather than the writers, stage managers, costume designers and technicians behind the scenes, vital though they are.
In our trade we seem to have the reverse, with those who deliver the goods operating in the shadow of their creative colleagues round the back.
When you consider all the demanding customers, delayed dishes, sold-out wines and countless other obstacles to overcome you begin to appreciate the towering achievement of the person who calmly deals with it all, in front of the paying "audience". The good ones are revered, of course, but are barely known to the general public. Why should this be?
Silvano Giraldin once said: "Good service means the customer never notices". It's as simple as that. The better the job is done, the less we are aware of the person doing it.
So the ultimate professionals have managed to disguise the effort completely. Perhaps we should all take greater notice of them - if to do so is not an insult!"
