Actually, it's a great honor, actually, being in front of the house, I don't speak much.
And I can hear all your thumb rumbling, and I'll be very quick, like a good quick service
has always been good when it's quick.
Fifty years ago, when I started my career as a waiter in the restaurant, I mean, I
come from Padua, which is the region of Venice, if you like, that was the Kettering School
of Havana, Terme.
And my mentor was one of the best Metredi that was in the region.
He was a Metredi, which was the battler of one Peron of Argentina, and he was my mentor
of the Kettering School, and they always said service is an art.
And what I want to talk about is the art de la table.
Fifty years ago, when I started, I mean, the master of the house was not the chef, it was
the Metredi.
You never saw the chef, the chef always being on the background.
They were from the kitchen, they were sending big dishes with the meat and the vegetables.
Usually you add two or three vegetables, meat, and you were serving from a geridon, you were
putting the food down into the plate, always, if you like, six o'clock, the fish and meat,
and on top, either 10 o'clock, 12 o'clock, and two o'clock, they were the two or three
vegetables which they were then.
So that's what was the service, and sometimes if the chef, if the customers were ordered,
the same dish, they would send the same dish cooked together, the chef.
So it was the job of the waiter to go in front and the carving them and carve whatever he
was given.
And that's what the meat was then.
And then you add also the other way to serve the service, which was, which we call a service
a langlaise or silver service, the chef would send, again, prepare for whatever they were,
four or five, the food and so on, and you were with the clips going around from the
left hand side and so on, and you were doing that.
And thus was always the majority of the case, and then you had to prepare the beef, carving
a joint of beef, you were disjointing a chicken, I got to choose the word since I heard the
lecture before from the professor, not to use the same, carving a chicken or the section
of a chicken.
So I got to choose the word, and they were deboning a fish and preparing all those sort
of things, and that was the craft which you had to do in front of the customers.
And those are to be skillful, in certain restaurants, also you had the chef coming into the restaurant
at that time, big trolley, silver trolley were coming, big joint of beef or lamb, which
they were changing every day according to the day or the week, and the chef, which you
were called chef-transher, would come and carve in front and you had the service of the trolley.
And those ones were called the czar de la table, that's what were all the czar de la
table.
You know, they're preparing a crepe-sousette, you know, more important was the customer,
more you would put brandy and the flame were going up and the customers were happy, all
the circle of the front of the house, and that's what was little, but little by little
those skills went out of the window, unfortunately, and that coincided with a very fashionable
chef which arrived at that time, those chefs were still of them around, I mean, I've got
my dear friend Mr. Sanderens, which is around there, and that was the region of the middle
of the 70s, the Bocuse, the Trois Gros, like I mentioned before, Girardet, Michel Guerrard,
you know, all those ones were start, and that was the beginning of the Nouvelle Cuisine.
So what they did actually is little by little start plating and preparing plates like that,
and from that has changed completely the nature of service.
The waiter have become, instead of, they lost their skill, they become plate carrier, as
simple as that, you know, which is, was he a good reason or not a reason, because that
arrived at the Nouvelle, was it because there was no more skilled waiter, and was it because
the chef realized that the food would look much better on the plate than it being spoiled
by the waiter in front of the customer, sometimes, you know, sometimes you have to think about
that.
The fact is that the carving, the flambé, and so on, that's went out from, the crepes
that went out from the menus, completely, they disappeared, there is no more, those dishes,
I mean, these very, very unusual, as you find in a restaurant, modern restaurant, now a
day, which you will see carving, few carvings still happen, but I mean, more flambé and
so on, they disappear completely.
That decade changed completely the job description of the waiter, completely, day and night.
That was the, the, the fallacies where those work were done, were done into London, Paris,
Maxime in Paris was the best, actually, those things, but those places, little by little,
disappeared, and they were supplemented by chef patron, you know, that's what command,
and they were, the chef started to be in the restaurant, and that's changed, no more carving,
no more flambé, all that went, you know, out of the world.
So, you know, that's a very, very different change of service, and the service is changing
completely, even now, I mean, you know, if you, if you look at it, what was impressed
me more and more, and I saw that at Noma the other day, there's a lot of chef going in
front of the customers, which is fantastic, I think, you know, there is no better person
to explain what's going on into the dish than the chef who has prepared the dish.
You know, that's, that's for me, is a new generation of service, which is starting.
We'll be stagnating, if you like, for the last 30 years on service, and thus, I welcome
it very artfully, full artfully, because, you know, okay, even for us waiters, which
know about the bit of the kitchen, but we don't know exactly how the plate and the dish
is prepared, so that's, that's a fantastic welcome to see that, you know.
But how do you describe service?
Now, a question, a question for you, you know, can you visualize service?
Can you describe, can you take a picture of service?
You cannot.
You cannot.
For the chef, it's very easy, you can prepare, you see an omelet, you can take a picture,
you can take a bite, you can taste it, you've got the recipe before.
That's fantastic.
But can you take, can you take a picture of a good service?
You know, I don't know, I don't think there is, you know, what, what it is, the most important
is, you can only see the service when he's missing it.
And that's the point you see, the service, exactly the point you see when he's missing.
You know, when you go to a busy restaurant, sometimes you feel frustrated.
You see, you know, the, the waiter is not looking at you, he's maybe looking at the
sky and contemplating, or looking at the floor, or, and then you go to the customer, clipping
his hand, and the waiter says, he's rude, no, he's not rude, he wants attention, he
wants, he wants the waiter to look at him, not to look at the floor, not to look at the
ceiling, he wants, he wants action.
That's what he's got to be service, and you know, that's, that's the, the, also the majority
of what you would call journalists who write about service, and I got to give a little
bit of a go at them, because they're always right when, when, when the service is missing.
They seldom, seldom, you know, they seldom, they write when the service is perfect, because
they don't see it.
You know, the, the, the best service in the restaurant is a service that you don't notice.
That's what should be service.
You know, the, the, the story of the invisible waiter, the waiter should be invisible, you
know, you should, when you go into the restaurant, you should be in ask if you want a drink, say
hello to you, good welcome, fantastic welcome, the best welcome I had was the other day when
I went in at Noma, all the chef, all the waiter were in front of you, welcoming the people,
what a beautiful welcome, thank you again.
You know, that's, that's, that's what, what it is, and you don't see that.
So what, when you go to a restaurant, you know, going through the sequence, you want
to be given a drink, you want to be given the menu, somebody will take in the order,
giving you food and wine to be served and giving the bill when you ask for, and that's it.
What you want is for all that with a fantastic and sincere approach to welcoming the people.
That's what you want.
That's what this service is.
You know, that's, that's what is the craft.
The proper service in a restaurant is the, the, the, the attention, the waiter give
it to you.
The eye attention which you can put, you know, that's, as I mentioned before, that, that's
you should look at the customer, you should, you should not look at the sky and so on.
Those are the, the, the attention which you got to do.
You know, when you need a waiter look at you and you see that you don't have any more bread
in the, bring you the bread even before you ask for it.
When you see your glasses almost empty to go and pray, fill it and not to overfill it
as well because that's about service as well.
If you ever see also the waiter sometime, they don't have anything to do.
So what they come around and filling up your full glass of wine already.
So that, that, that's not service for me, they can't, can you, they stay away.
You know, that's, that's what, that's what you want.
You know, you want the, the, the, the good service which you, which you got.
And you know, that, that's what, what you got.
You know, the waiter will know when, you know, the discretion of the waiter to know when
to start a conversation, when to stop a conversation.
That, that's, that's to stop a conversation is even more important.
You know, it's, you know, it's not to start a conversation.
You want the guy, you know, the, the, you know, you want the guy who says, yes, I want
to talk to the customers, but I got all the customers talking, which need to be served.
So you know, you, you need to have that report.
And sometimes, you know, when you've got a table of two and you've got a waiter going
to talk to them, that's fine.
When they got the table of four, you don't want to talk to the waiter.
You want to talk to your friends.
So, you know, that's it.
That's, can you leave us alone, please?
That's what is a service.
You know, that's, that's what, that's always I said, a silent waiter.
That's what it should be.
You know, that's, that's, that's what is for me the most important.
So they are, those are what you would call the new art of service now.
You are the people carving and so on.
Now you want those silent things which you need.
That's what you've got, the invisible art of service.
You know, that's, that's a good way to show, you know, obviously what the kind of food
is preparing and politely described to the chef.
Yes, that's, that's very important.
The waiter is the, another thing which I always want to say that's the waiter is the chef
ambassador.
The waiter should be the one which conveys the chef philosophy to the customers without
patronizing the customer sometime as well.
Because then you've got the chef which has got big ego and tell the waiter, tell them
that, tell them that.
And the poor people, hey, leave us alone.
I've ordered my food.
I know what I'm ordered.
Don't try to bother me more than that, please.
I know I ordered a steak.
You give me a steak.
Again, chef, is the chef with the steak, you've got the steak, yes, I know I've got the steak.
So what to give it to me, I'm going to eat it.
So, you know, that's, that's what the, what is, that's what it is.
You know, they are now a chef, modern chef, which employ psychologists to talk to the,
to talk to the staff because they're going to approach the customers, which is fantastic.
So, you know, for less now, we got, the waiter got to be a good psychologist as well, actually,
to those things.
So that's, that's moralized.
So what, what, you know, we, we should ask now to do all those powerful chef, which are,
which are the, the, the, the visual point of the cooking now, the all fantastic, beautiful
chef.
What we got to ask them, can they please invest a little bit into the service?
Can the waiter, when they arrive the first week, instead of sending them in front of
the customers, can they take them behind and show them what is the food, what is the poor
people?
They're going in front of the customers in time with the two plates and they're, they're
like that.
They don't even know, and they jump them and say, oh my goodness, I've got bad waiter.
Have you ever thought about training them a bit?
Have you ever thought about giving them a bit of training in the kitchen?
You know, those are, you know, and, you know, and then they say, we don't have any more
waiter.
Yes.
Of course, you, you know, you don't give them a job anymore.
And that's it.
So you don't spend your time to teach them anymore.
And you know, that's, that's what it is.
We got to be, I don't say we got to be patient, but we got to go through those process of
teaching them what is, what is the food, what is the wine, send them to a vineyard to know
how the wine is prepared, to know how the wine look, how it tastes, how it smells, you
know, so they can convey, sit them down and taste your produce with, with the waiter.
And they say, well, this is the combination of the wine, go with it and so on.
I know that's a lot of professional, I got a lot of respect with you, do that.
But what we would like to have, all the mass doing that and doing that, by doing that,
you know, you will have again waiters.
You will have again on that.
And you know, that's, that's very, very important.
And, you know, having said that, for me, the best way to retain the waiter is paying them
well is very important, but give them knowledge.
Give them knowledge.
There are two ways, in the old time, always to say, if you don't pay them enough, at least
give them a job.
That's when they go out from that place, they can go and learn the job somewhere else.
You know, and that's what it is.
And my real plea for the chef who always say they don't find any chef, yes, you know,
what you got to do is respecting them, teaching them well, feeding them well is very important.
How many, how many, how many restaurants to do their, how many, how many waiters of top
restaurants do their, yeah, my God, we're serving fantastic food, but our food is terrible.
And you know, that's, that's, that's, doesn't take much, doesn't take much for the chef
to prepare those food.
And you got to think that if you got happy stuff, you got to have happy customers.
If the customers, if they, you see it on the face on certain time, you go to restaurant
and you see the, the, the, the guy don't want to talk because they worry to be judged to
make a mistake and they, they, they are not flourishing themselves.
You know, if they are properly fed and they are properly, they, they will go and they
will be happy to do their job.
So as I said, the four rules is respecting them, teaching them well, feeding them well,
and pay them properly.
That's also very important.
So that's the four quality which you have for service.
And as, as I said, you know, that's the way it will be your ambassadors and it will be
your ambassador forever.
I was lucky enough and I spent all my part few years before I arrived to London, but
I spent something like 40 years now still working for the same owner, the same family,
which is fantastic.
And, you know, they, I'm retired now and they still pay me, which is very nice.
You know, that, that's, that's very good.
And the, you know, the retaining, retaining stuff is very, very important.
And, you know, when you got, when the praise go, when you got, I say, a costumers, when
they go inside the premises and they recognize one person is fantastic.
One celebrity, one top celebrity one day, I was talking to him and he was coming to
me a lot of time.
I said to him, what is your, what do you think is your best restaurant for you?
And he said, look, I go here, I go there, I go there, but my best restaurant for me
is the best, that is the restaurant which I've been, which I'm recognized.
You know, so when if you, if you, when your customers, your regular customers are coming
in, you recognize them and the people, which you don't know, you don't know, but try to
make them regular, you know, that's what got to be the skillful of the, the staff.
Try to make your guests regular to come back, you know, sell, most of the time, most of
the time, if the service is not good, the guests are not coming back.
If the front of the, if the, sorry, if the restaurant, they got very good food and the,
the front of the house is not nice, the people are not coming back.
The majority, they want to be welcome, they don't want to have a fight, they want to
have a good food and good entertainment, a good service, hospitality, that's what we
got to teach our dear young waiter.
And with that, thank you very much for listening to me.
Thank you.
