Breaking old patterns: protocol at the restaurant

I invite you to accompany me to the past once more, to sniff at the memories of my beginnings in the world of hospitality. A couple of anecdotes came to my mind, some of those critical moments in the career of a waiter, in the training camp that teaches more in this world: the restaurant. Frequently the eye is put on the most suitable management of the kitchen, which is very intelligent, but we must not forget the importance of the dining-room. For me, it also has a lot to say in the enjoyment of our gastronomic experiences.

Moments to remember

Moment of truth in the beverage service at a table full of important people at a convention. Me, 14 years old, inexperienced on all four sides, legs shaking, the tray full of drinks ready to serve. If you could put what I was living then in an amateur film plane, my eyes would be the camera, and a very cold beer would be in the very first close-up, with diners thirsty and impatient in the background. There´s no need to add anything about the levels of adrenaline that ran through me when I got to that table. First mistake: I serve the gentleman on my right, recklessly forgetting the ladies present. Second mistake: without asking anything to anyone, I dump the entire contents of the beer bottle in its glass, as if it were still water. Naturally, the glass was filled with 80% of bubbling foam in front of the hallucinated face of that man. I could always have been lucky, and find probably the only person in the world who prefers very little beer and a lot of foam in the cup, but it was not like that: _ “But boy, what are you doing ?!”. And let the abysses of hell be opened! You can not be so demanding with yourself when you have such a short career. But believe me, there is nothing that resists you with enough time and practice. And you definitely learn from mistakes.

Second anecdote: this time the protagonist was wine. The scenario was practically the same, but now it was in a restaurant on the coast and the customers were tourists. A couple of years later, a similar scenario, and the same error: without asking anything, I served the wine glass to the gentleman, ignoring by the lady. The difference? This time I doubted the order of this protocol. And the reaction that I perceived in the clients was not very positive, the gentleman complained. Two errors, the same solution.

Later in time, with more work and more study; I learned always, always, always to ask. We will never be wrong, nor will we be insecure or inexperienced for asking. This way we make sure that we are correct in the performance because it is simply what the person asks us to do; zero risk of failure. With practice you learn to calibrate; to read non-verbal gestures; to generate good outputs; and also to relax, invent and play. This is very appreciated by many customers.

And as for protocols, we have to make our vision more flexible. Not necessarily the man in front of a bottle will know more about the wine than the woman (do you know that women have more olfactory sensitivity than men?). Sometimes we can find that in a couple will be the man who asks for a beer without alcohol. As well there is no reason to expect that the sommelier who assists us in each restaurant will be always a man. It is not mandatory that a white wine accompany the fish, or a red wine to a cheese tray, someone can always dare to try a different combination. Let us also dare to open the mind, to break prejudices, to change protocols. There is a constant in this life that governs us from the first to the last day: everything changes.

If, like me, you think you are one of the brave ones able to reinvent the position of the waiter, participate by sharing your anecdotes, doubts, and tricks to elegantly save those moments of the job that challenge you to get the best out of yourself. See you soon gourmets friends.