Monday, October 10, 2005
Incongruous Dining. Finding a really good special-occasion restaurant on Massachusett's North Shore isn't easy. Not that they're aren't any to be found -- you'd just think there would be more around given the amount of disposable income at hand in many of the dozens of towns in the area. So it was a Great Event when my soon-to-be work colleague, a former restaurant critic for the Boston Globe, suggested Restaurant 'X', located 15 minutes drive from where we live. We invited another couple to share our adventure in celebrating a certain somebody's forty-sixth birthday (which I believe makes me now 'late forties' as opposed to forty-something, but I digress....). When they found out where the restaurant was located, they insisted we flip a coin as to whose car we would drive -- this due not to high gasoline prices but the fact that the new restaurant is located in a notoriously sketchy neighborhood. Not surprisingly, it sat like a neon-lit rose in the middle of a darkened patch of dilapidation ("OK, on the count of three, everyone make a dash across the street!"). It turns out the owner of this new restaurant is actually from this sketchy neighborhood. He was recently lucky enough to make millions in the high-tech arena and with I guess too much money and time on his hands, took it upon himself four months ago to single-handedly reinvigorate the neighborhood. Either that or he just wanted a good place to eat within walking distance of his loft apartment. Money being no object, it was a sure bet that the chef would be of excellent caliber and indeed the middle-European-style food is scrumptious. But for three reasons the restaurant will fail. Two of the reasons he probably can't do much about: 1) it's simply inconsonant to be spending $130 per couple while at the same time worrying about your car parked outside, and 2) designing the bar area at the far end of an elongated-shaped restaurant isn't a good idea. It means that your drinking patrons, many of whom might be in the company of someone they would rather not have everyone know about, must walk by the prying gazes of the eating patrons sitting at tables to the right and left in order to get to the bar. That said, it is the third reason, and one I cannot emphasize the importance of enough, that will doom this restaurant (and many others as well): If your waitstaff doesn't have its timing down, it doesn't matter how good the food is. Some tips:
- wait until your entire party has taken off their jackets and are settled before you hand them their menus.
- wait until everyone seated has his/her ordered drink in hand (and perhaps has taken a sip) before eliciting orders for appetizers.
- when pouring water, do the math and figure out how much you need; pouring two glasses full, the third an inch full, and leaving the last glass empty just looks odd -- especially when you leave to get more water but don't came back until quite a bit later.
- just because space is limited at the table doesn't mean it's ok to place the bread basket directly in front of one patron... 'do I look that hungry?'
- immediately replace all used silverware that was taken away after the appetizer, or, when a patron requests a fork and knife to accompany the main course because you took away his silverware earlier and now he has nothing with which to eat, hop to it! This will avoid the situation of your patron watching his $32 entree get cold as you tend to others.
- bring all the missing silverware to the table at once rather than just delivering one-found fork -- one that without the accompanying steak knife does the patron little good and has left the other patron who has no silverware feeling persecuted.
- try not to interrupt an animated conversation only to ask if everything is ok. If patrons are eating at a healthy clip and seem to be enjoying themselves, assume that they are ok.
- check the rim of the wine bottle before you begin pouring. A chip on the rim isn't a good sign that it will be accepted by the person who ordered it i.e. that's not why they call it Chard-onnay....
- don't tell me that the pumpkin broulee isn't available AND that it is so delicious....
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