Worth waiting?
For Marian Scrutton, a happy and sunny personality is a far more important trait to have in a waiter than sound technical skills. "Natural charm and the ability to treat people well are the things I look for when interviewing," she says. "It doesn't matter one jot that they don't know how to carry a plate properly - you can always teach them how to do that. Charm can't be taught, though, it is something you are born with."
Scrutton, a self-described waitress at heart, and director of Moving Image Restaurants, the company which owns five London restaurants including the Avenue and Kensington Place, says that her priorities in restaurant service were highlighted at a recent industry competition in which she helped in the judging. "Everyone else was concentrating on whether or not a knife had been laid in the right manner or whether a dish had been served from the correct side, whereas my main concern was whether or not we'd had a good time in the hands of this person," she says. "As far as I'm concerned, if a plate arrives from what is technically the ‘wrong' side because the waiter can see that I'm engrossed in conversation with the person sitting on my ‘correct' side, then that waiter goes up in my estimation because he or she has read the situation and worked around it.
"The most important thing that a waiter has to do is to look at the whole picture and consider the experience from the customer's point of view. If they don't, they lose the plot and miss something."
Scrutton's views reflect an enormous shift in restaurant culture in the past 20 years - away from the highbrow eateries of the past, where one often felt belittled by an over-effusive maître d' strutting his stuff and clicking his heels, into a culture where things are far more democratic and conducive to simply having a good time.
"I tell staff that their main aim during service is to ensure that customers leave the restaurant feeling better than when they came in," says Scrutton. "I don't care what they do to make it happen, just as long as they do."
Restaurant purists of the old school might be horrified that Scrutton should put so little emphasis on following rigid rules of restaurant service, but there is no doubting that her way is one to which the public has now become accustomed and enjoys. Restaurants she is responsible for, such as the 180-seat Avenue and 130-seat Circus, are constantly busy, as are other similar operations offering efficient, friendly service.
The growth of such eateries has resulted in less importance being put on the traditional restaurant skills of carving and guéridon work. How important, therefore, is it to continue to teach these skills, particularly when there is such a shortage of waiting staff?
In the opinion of James Brown, chief executive of the Academy of Food and Wine Service, the professional body for food, wine and bar service, it is vital that these skills are preserved forever. "History repeats itself in every sector of our lives," he says, "and, while plate service may be fashionable at the moment, there is no reason why there will not be a return in some form to a more traditional form of service. Of course, in some places, it has never gone away. You've only got to look at the Savoy Grill and Le Gavroche to see that there is still a place for these skills."
Even though the majority of restaurants these days no longer carve joints of meat at the table, or prepare an omelette in front of a customer, Brown believes that the teaching of these skills to young waiters and waitresses helps them become more proficient and adept in the tasks that they are expected to execute. "Someone who is fully trained in all the skills will have the confidence to provide plate service with more panache and style than someone who does not have the training," he says.
Unsurprisingly, the food and beverage co-ordinator at Birmingham College of Food, Tourism and Creative Studies, Rob Smith, is equally supportive of the need to continue teaching traditional skills. "A waiter who can fillet a fish or make crêpes Suzette at the table will be able to communicate so much better with his customers," he says.
Demand for learning such skills, though, is extremely low. While there are 180 student chefs at Birmingham College, there are only 25 trainees on what is believed to be one of only a handful of specialist front-of-house courses available in the UK. Lack of support for such training is largely due to the age-old perception that working in restaurant service provides no career prospects.
"But this is simply not true any more," says Smith, pointing to the increasing opportunities to travel, earn good money, have swift promotion prospects, and work in a wider variety of establishments than ever.
Despite carving a successful career for himself in restaurant service, Andrew Wood, sommelier at the Oxo Tower Restaurant in London, says that he can understand only too well why a poor image of his profession continues to persist. Many of the brightest and most promising young people he started working with in the industry nearly 15 years ago are now pursuing alternative careers in recruitment, information technology and the like. "Many felt they were not getting the support from their employers to develop in their careers," he says.
Wood, who is also working on an HND in wine studies at Brighton University, believes that only by training and developing staff will the industry be able to recruit and retain more staff. However, while he recognises that skills are essential, it is a positive demeanour among waiting staff that is the key to successful service in today's restaurants. "You need personality to carry the skills through," he says.
Perhaps the most influential maître d' of recent times is Silvano Giraldin, now director at Le Gavroche and winner of this year's Caterer & Hotelkeeper Special Award. When asked what makes a good waiter, the technical skills are not the attributes on which he focuses. "It is what a waiter doesn't do that is important," he says. "He doesn't disturb or interrupt the customers - he stays in the shadows. A good waiter will bring the bread, the wine, the water, at just the right moment. Service is bad when you don't get these things at the right time. Customers often don't realise when they've had good service, but they certainly know when service is bad."
Giraldin, though, is also an advocate of traditional skills, and is chairman of the service panel for the Master of Culinary Arts.
At a time when the industry is short of any kind of waiting staff, it is important that employers recognise the potential of any candidate who comes forward.
"Good management will capitalise on the strengths of the person," says Brown. "If you take on someone who is shy and diligent, they might be better suited to working on the till or drawing up rotas, while the person who can converse well will be the one to place in the restaurant."
Stuart Bennett
Stuart Bennett, featured on the cover of this edition of Caterer, is one of the small group of students currently learning front of house skills at the Birmingham College of Food, Tourism and Creative Studies.
The 20-year-old has just finished a year-long work placement at Brown's hotel in London, an experience that, while daunting, has left him enthused with the principles of waiting skills.
"It was nerve-racking at first," he says. "But I've really enjoyed it. It's the difference between just putting a plate down in front of somebody to preparing a dish in front of them."
But with so few young people studying these skills, what made him pick the subject?
"I enjoy the job more than anything," he explains. "And this is an essential part of that job. Guests love the show aspect of it, and I like putting on that show. It is such an important part of the profession to learn."
The next term in Birmingham starts in September and after that Bennett is off to work in France. "I want to learn French, mainly," he says. "But they're also supposed to be the experts in service, so we'll have to see what else I can learn."
Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 13-19 July 2000
