Raise your glasses
If a certain London hotel started serving Earl Grey in earthenware mugs, I suspect "tea at the Ritz" would seem something less of an occasion. Similarly, who would want to drink their Latour Pauillac out of a dumpy, fat-rimmed goblet?
Getting the right glassware is crucial and your choice should take into account where and for what it's being used. "It really depends on what you're serving," says Bob Phipps, marketing manager of Steelite, which added a range of glasses by Bavarian manufacturer Spiegelau to its portfolio 18 months ago to complement its china and cutlery ranges and offer customers a complete tabletop setting. "Restaurants with a fine-wine list need a glass that provides the opportunity for customers to enjoy the wine. If you dine at that level, you take time to choose from the menu and from the wine list and it would be most unfortunate if the wine was served in a glass that didn't allow you to enjoy its quality."
Steelite's new range offers a choice of five designs, from the cost-effective Festival glass, priced from £2.50 a stem and the elegant and shapely Authentis at £6 a stem, to the hand-blown Willsberger, at about £20 a stem.
At Arc International, head of catering Chris Ward agrees that the glass needs to echo the quality of the product it carries. "If a restaurant is all about an emphasis on quality of product, then it needs to be presented in the best way for the customer to appreciate the quality," he says. This is one of five principles of choosing glassware that Ward uses to guide his customers into making the right choice.
Of course, not every business can opt for the £30-a-stem Salviati diamant‚ mouth-blown Venetian Champagne flutes that Arc supplied for the chef's table at London's Dorchester hotel. "It wouldn't last five seconds in a normal situation," Ward says. "Everyone aspires to use the best glassware, but not many places can look after it sufficiently."
Durability was the theme running through a recent project at Hilton Hotels for which service innovation manager Chris Hills enlisted the help of Troy Smith, national account manager for tableware supplier John Artis.
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Hills had discovered that several different types of glasses were being used to serve a gin and tonic in a selection of the company's 78 hotels. "Some weren't really suitable for the purpose," he says. "And breakages weren't being replaced like for like, so there were two or three different sorts of glassware being used and the image it portrayed wasn't right for Hilton."
So he invited Smith to suggest which glasses to use for the various operations within the hotels, with a view to each hotel ordering specific glasses for specific areas when restocking, providing consistency throughout the group.
"We went along to the hotels to see how busy the various areas were, what the turnaround time was, and the amount of storage space available," says Smith, who arranged for the glasses to be supplied by Lockhart. "Then Chris came along to the showroom and selected styles he liked, which we then assessed for their suitability to do the job."
For conference and banqueting use, durability was the prime concern because of the risk of causing chips with a staggering 1,500-2,000 glasses to clear and wash quickly. The Perception range, made from one piece of glass and listed at £1.41 per stem, answered the call for something robust yet attractive, and came with a lifetime guarantee against chipping on the rim and foot.
Durability was still an important consideration for the bars but this area had the added requirement for its glasses to be rather stylish. About 10 different styles were chosen, including the traditional Catalina for serving latt‚s.
Catering for a market with different expectations, five-star hotel restaurants required something altogether more elegant but still with strength. "Quality crystal is more suitable here, but we didn't want to be paying £20 a stem," says Hills. Smith's solution was to give the hotels a choice of two designs - Michelangelo, a drawn stem glass heat-treated on the rim to make it more resistant to shock and list priced from £2.10 a stem, or the less expensive L'Esprit du Vin at £1.08. A 250ml blue Michelangelo design was chosen for water.
To make sure Hilton staff would be in no doubt about which glasses to order and how to use them, a manual was compiled showing photos of each glass, designated uses within the hotel, cost and order code, accessed through the group's internal website.
Smith feels the changes at Hilton reflect a general trend to upgrade glassware and switch to larger wine glasses. "Whereas 125ml and 175ml were the norm a few years ago, now the choice is more likely to be 175ml and 250ml," he says. "The market has really moved on. We now have glasses with an oval base and one with two stems for trendy bars. And chefs are using martini glasses for serving things such as sorbets."
The upward shift has also been felt by Sonya Bateman, marketing manager for AFE Online, part of the Aga Foodservice Group, which offers a wide range of glassware from manufacturers such as Schott, Artis and Arcoroc in its Sheer Elegance and Fine Dining brochures.
"Designer names such as John Rocha, Jasper Conran and Versace are leading the way in glassware, and contemporary designs are becoming mainstream in the food service industry," Bateman says. "Until recently, the more unusual designs have been aimed at the top end of the market. But now glasses in an array of shapes, colours and sizes are making their way into more modest pubs, bars and restaurants."
A trend to buy tabletop settings as a whole package - including crockery, cutlery and glassware - has been picked up by Villeroy & Boch, which counts glassware as a growing part of its business. The company supplies crystal ranging in price from under £1 to £12 a stem. The latest addition is Allegorie as used at Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons in Oxfordshire.
The tabletop setting itself is also changing, says national sales manager Simon Kitto. "People are moving away from the three-glass set to just one 350ml glass for a less crowded and more informal setting, with other glasses being brought out as and when needed."
Keep it clean
Tim Bender, product development manager at Hobart UK, offers advice on how caterers can keep their glasses sparkling:
The quality of washed glassware depends on the condition of the wash water, which ideally must be softened or demineralised.
The water supply to your glasswashing machine can be softened by installing a water-softening device to the inlet water supply. Alternatively, choose a machine with a built-in water softener.
It is very important to use good-quality detergents and rinse aids in exactly the right quantities. If the dosage is too small, soiling will not be removed; if too much detergent is applied, streaking and spotting will occur, damaging the glassware.
Glassware must be stored correctly. It is advisable to store washed glasses in a rack with compartments, to protect them from rubbing and cracking.
Look for glasswashers supplied with special angled racks that ensure residual water does not collect on the bases of inverted glasses.
Principles for choosing your glassware
Quality and sophistication
If the beverage offering is high quality, the glass should allow the customer to appreciate that quality. Restaurants at the top end of the market tend to go for crystal. For a restaurant where the wine quality is still important but the choice of glassware needs to meet a lower price point, a fine-quality soda lime will suffice and because it doesn't have the lead content, the cost per glass will be substantially lower.
Commercial reality Restaurants exist to make profit. There may be a focus on quality presentation, but if the business needs to maximise the volume of beverages sold, it should go for a nice shape but with extra capacity.
What is fashionable?
Glassware and crystal follow trends, just like the clothing industry. Ten years ago, stems were shorter because people were concerned with stability, but the current trend is to have a drawn stem, thicker at the top and a continuous, smooth line into the bowl. The idea is to elevate the bowl off the table and closer to the eye and this design also helps refract light into the wine and enhance presentation. The choice of glassware can also harmonise with the design of the room. For instance, the straight lines and angles of beech floors and granite table tops can be complemented by glasses with the same characteristics.
Functionality If you're a very busy restaurant with lots of hard services (and possibly clumsy staff!), then glassware could be a huge cost. If it's crystal you want, go for the toughened type that is heat-treated and cooled rapidly, making it more resistant to breakage. In banqueting where you're serving 800-1,000 covers, the outlay is too great for crystal, so you need something cheaper. If glasses have to endure being washed with other items, such as cutlery, their walls might need to be thicker to endure knocks. Also, if the shelves you're storing glasses on aren't very high, they won't store tall glasses. Work within the dimensions of the glassware already in place.
Prestige value Some restaurants want to use the most expensive glassware possible to emphasise the highest quality and innovative designs associated with a lavish environment.
CONTACTS
AFE Online 0116 281 6000/www.afeonline.net
Arc International 020 7316 0014/www.arc-intl.com
John Artis 020 8391 5544/www.johnartis.co.uk
Lockhart 08701 678678
www.lockharteqpt.com
Steelite 01782 821000/www.steelite.com
Villeroy & Boch 020 8871 0011
www.villeroy-boch.com
