Servers vs. Those Served

New York Times food critic Frank Bruni yesterday complained about waiters. ("Tonight, Patronizing Language. Enjoy.") Specifically, he objects to the way restaurant servers instruct eaters ("Enjoy these appetizers left-to-right." "While it steams, you can enjoy the aroma."), the way they are so personal ("How are we doing?" "Do we have any food allergies?") and the way they insist on your enjoyment of the food.

The article in yesterday's Times got hundreds of comments, including one from a waiter at The Blue Plate in Charleston (who pointed out that servers are required by their employers to use restaurantspeak) and one from a diner in France (who said why are Americans complaining? Come to France where you practically have to slug a waiter to get his attention).

I'll comment here instead of on the Times' Web site. One of the most thoughtful readers there pointed out that dining out (in any country) has always been fraught with a kind of classism and snobism by which diners often feel entitled to either belittle or just NOT DEAL WITH persons serving them, whom they consider to be on a different level from themselves.

I've waited tables a few times, but the training I got in the U.K. gave me the best perspective on service. I worked at a private dining club in Edinburgh, Scotland, a very upstairs-downstairs kind of place whose members were important and sometimes titled.

I wore a really ugly wine-colored polyester uniform with starched white collar, cuffs and "wipe" over my arm. Britain, which doesn't pretend to not have class divisions, makes the rules of serving the upper class  very clear.

We (servers) were never to speak unless spoken to. We did not take food orders. The club members had arranged what they would eat before they entered the dining room. We were to simply deliver the food. We distributed no wine, water or coffee and asked no questions about preferences. The wine steward did that.

At any table, we were to serve the guest or guests first and the host, or hosts next. We were to serve from the left of each diner and move in a counterclockwise direction around the table. Should there be ladies present, we were to serve the guest's wife, first, then the host's wife, then the guest, then the host. We never touched a plate until all at the table were finished with each course. Each would signal this in turn by laying their knife and fork parallel to each other along the side of the plate (instead of crossed in an X in the middle of the plate, which meant they were still eating). We removed the dishes from the diner's right side. The easy way to remember it was: Serve to the left, take away from the right.

We were never to touch a diner or speak to him, much less comment on what he was eating. If we were asked a question, we could answer it. When we'd laid the food on the table, we retreated to stand by the wall in good view of each table we served, so that we could be summoned with a gesture, or a glance, if the diners needed anything.

I, of course, sometimes broke those no-talking rules by saying, "Hi, how y'all doing?" every now and then. If somebody noticed I was American, I got to tell them what I was doing there. By talking, I invited some rude and patronizing behavior. They weren't used to being spoken to by a food server. And I ended up being fired when I asked a table of four late at night (the last on the floor) if they needed anything else and if they'd mind blowing out their candle when they left. Then I left my post, an unthinkable thing to do at this place even if everybody was stuffed and happy.

In the U.S., I've I learned that you can generally tell the character of a person by how he/she treats a servant or a waiter, that the dining experience is a two-way street and you must treat a server the way you would like to be treated. As a waitress in the U.S., I've tried to be friendly without being imposing. I've never considered it an insult that I wasn't part of the dining party.

In Britain, at that exclusive club, I also learned that the strict class rules, when observed by both sides, work, too. Diners there were generally undemanding and quite polite in their demeanor while they ignored me. Serving them was strictly a job, and I didn't have the burden of telling them my name, telling them what to eat, telling them to enjoy it, making small talk, or checking in with them to see how they were doing. There also never seemed to be the plate shortage that must exist at so many restaurants here, necessitating the snatching of your plate while you are still chewing with fork in hand.

I admit to being annoyed by restaurantspeak sometimes in supposedly "classless" America and by interruptions by the server. But you know, if you wanted to eat completely alone, you could always stay home, cook it and serve it to yourself.

Comments

[slowjogger]

What gets my goat is the server who asks, "Are you still working on it?" Madam, or Sir, as the case may be, I don't consider eating work. I consider it enjoyment.