Waiting
THERE’S A SOUP ON MY FLY
(The Secret World of Waiting)
(c) David Astle
FOR STARTERS
Frank Sinatra and Jennifer Aniston did it, but not together. David Niven tried it. Irving Berlin sang show tunes doing it. Bruce Willis was so bad at it, he ended up being a bartender. Tennessee Williams eavesdropped dialogue doing it. Roseanne Barr sharpened her tongue doing it. Rudolf Valentino started doing it, before discovering the gigolo trade made more dough.
I’m talking waiting, the career you have when you’re waiting to have another career. That off-off-Broadway existence known to actors and artists and other aspirants. The demimonde of garcons and filles, the catchall of backpackers and undergrads.
Or so goes the misconception. For not all waiters are fly-by-nighters. The best in fact outstay Sinatra. Not every guy and doll in black apron is memorising Chekhov under their breath. I’m sitting at a table right now, watching Rebecca and Antoinette dream of waiting for keeps. Joining me is Kamal Unvala, their assessor, who’s waited on nabobs from Bombay and Yemen, from Roger Moore (‘that one eyebrow, with that lovely mole….’) to David Niven himself.
‘I served Prince Charles and Margaret Thatcher at a restaurant called the Rangowli Restaurant,’ says Kamal. Her voice is rich and mischievous. ‘There was so much security I hardly got near the table. They kept pushing me away. A few of them discreetly nibbled things off my tray.’
Rebecca and Antoinette face lesser obstacles – but all under Kamal’s gaze. The room is The Angliss Room built within the William Angliss Institute of TAFE, in Melbourne. The college is the cradle where chefs and waiters begin. foyer. A headless waiter stands beside our table as a sartorial model for first-year students to imitate. But I’m here to solve more urgent matters:
+ What makes a good waiter?
+ Are good waiters born or groomed or both?
+ What’s for lunch?
Question 3 could prove the trickiest. For starters the salmon is a red herring. As is the veal in hazelnut polenta. Today’s menu is make-believe, more like a wishlist that bears no resemblance to the random plates being fetched from an L-plated kitchen. Duck could arrive as ziti alfredo, but food is not at issue here. The crunch is service. How fluidly Rebecca unfurls a napkin. How seamlessly Antoinette tilts a cruet.
Kamal has a checklist on her lap, known as the Sequence of Service, or SOS to her students: a 26-step dance from meet-and-greet to fare-thee-well. ‘As soon as the order is taken,’ says Kamal, the college’s food and beverage queen, ‘the waiters have five minutes to correct the cutlery. In another four or five minutes the first course should be on the table. Fifteen minutes maximum if the meal takes time to prepare.’
Kamal’s face is ruled by smile lines. Her gold rings – waiting tips from the Sheikh of Ta’izz – flash beneath the lighting. Back in 1991, she helped to suffix a star onto the Hyatt Hotel in Melbourne. When the Hyatt upgraded to the Grand Hyatt, gaining a star along the way, Kamal was entrusted to fine-tune the staff, waiters included. ‘We had new standards for serving bread, for opening up a bottle of wine, for serving entrée. We had to write up new sequences that matched the Hyatt standards around the world.’
That same pernickety nature distinguishes Kamal in academia. Every year she moulds a batch of tearaways into elegant attendants. Where you and I see a banquet hall, Kamal sees table legs aligned with the carpet, salt and pepper in harmony, and linen creases symmetrical.
SIDE ORDER
Rebecca hopes to use waiting as a stepping stone. ‘I had so much fun organising my trip to Europe I started thinking about event management.’ And waiting tables is the first port of call. Mind you, says Rebecca, mid-course, compared to the sleazebags in corporate boxes, silver service is a breeze.
‘I once did the boat show in Queensland. The guys up there think your theirs. Sometimes they touch you. You just step back. You brush them away. If it becomes a problem you swap tables or get a guy to take over. You can’t throw in your hand. You’ve got to make hay.’
As the young waiter must. Starting off, the game isn’t lucrative, with pups entitled to $12 an hour, and the pro upscaling to $19 – plus the fickle bonus of tips. Unlike American restaurants, where a service charge is factored into the overall damage, Australian eateries rely on a diner’s discetion, be they Russian czars or boat-show sleazes.
Lucy Allon, co-owner of Salt in Sydney, found peas a bigger hassle than sleazes in her waiting days. Allon won her start back in London, waiting the high-starch tables of the Launceston Room. ‘I lied at the interview. I said I could do silver service. I caught a bus to Kingston Library and got out a book the same day. I went home and tortured my family. I practised picking up a single pea.’
Her first week in livery was the stuff of trauma therapy. ‘My first night was the scariest night of my life. I was relegated to what they called the coffee corner for a few months.’
Truth be told, I share Lucy’s scars. I’m not a waiter’s toenail. Every diner in every fancy nook should try the ‘trayed trade’ before passing judgement. I did my tour of duty in London through the 80s. My first and only job as a waiter was at Regent Park Zoo, where I dressed as a penguin and murdered a trout. Not a living trout, a smoked one. I guess you could say I re-murdered the trout in the name of silver service. Compared to acting in Die Hard 2, waiting is tough gig.
MEAT AND POTATOES
Kamal Unvala recalls a student who dropped a mocktail (a glorified tutti frutti) down a diner’s back. And then the poor woman in dentures who had to eat her pav with a bread spoon, almost committing a tracheotomy.
So far Rebecca and Antoinette are sidestepping the pitfalls. No linguines land in the lap. Their timeline is brisk. Like Randall in Monsters Inc, Antoinette knows how to vanish and reappear at will. Rebecca is chatty without being pert. (Though her tongue stud could put you off liverwurst for life.) They enjoy their job – which matters.
‘Even if you’re stressed,’ says Kamal, ‘or things aren’t finished – be cheerful. You need to show the customer they are in good hands. Never let them now that you’re scared or frustrated. Don’t be cheeky, agree with their needs, and find alternative ways to help them out.’
On the sticky rice arriving, Kamal pretends to be difficult. She wants the prawns removed, but the chicken pieces to stay, and no, she can’t eat anyhting else on the menu. ‘Not a problem,’ says Antoinette, and disappears. We trade grins. Today we are licensed to be maximum bastards.
I ask Kamal for her most embarrassing moment as a waiter. It was back in Bombay. ‘I was doing my traineeship at the Taj Hotel. I met a guest there, a palmist, who wanted to see my hand. And he reeled off all these things about me – he was so accurate – and I was most puzzled. But I found out later he already knew my background from the manager. He’d found out a whole lot of stuff about me. The guest’s name was Rohinton. We’ve been married for 22 years.’
I use a similar ruse the next day. Seeking Australia’s best waiter, I ask every foodie I know, and most sing the praises of Simon Denton, (‘the duck’s nuts’ says Age critic, John Lethlean). Denton co-owns Verge on Spring Street, Melbourne and remains a Zen master of the floor.
My ruse is a pseudonym – Mr P Dantick for one at 1 o’clock, Friday. A deliberately busy time to see the guru under the pump. I hope to observe this waiter among waiters in his natural habitat. I’m keen to distil that je ne sais quoi of haute cuisine.
But there’s a snag. While I know Denton’s name, I don’t know his face, and two waiters serve the floor. Both are lean with graceful moves, but which waiter is sublime, and which is one simply good? The dilemma helps me focus on the hallmarks of great waiters.
‘The best waiters,’ says Lisa Hudson, co-editor of Sydney’s Good Food Guide, ‘know how to pace your meal. They know the menu intimately and how everything is cooked. They fill your water glass when it’s nearly empty. They are friendly without being overfamiliar. You don’t even realise the best waiters are even there.’
Which makes lunch an existential exercise. The unbearable lightness of walking the floor. I study two invisible men and try to pick the less visible. Both have a Krameresque slide when parking the roulade beside a diner’s elbow. Both whisper. Both swivel. Both glance at plates as clocks, yet seem to be looking elsewhere.
Matthew Evans, a former chef, a momentary waiter, and now the Sydney Morning Herald’s restaurant reviewer, believes, ‘Good waiters have an opinion. say, ‘The chef thinks the tuna’s great, but personally I think the tuna’s too sweet.’ Good waiters convey what the chef’s trying to do. To offer advice. I hate it when you say what’s good on the menu and they say, ‘Oh, it’s all good.’ That’s crap. It can’t be all good.’
Both waiters in my radar express opinons. Both have the blackboard specials inscribed in their hearts. Both orbit clockwise. The taller man uncorks the wine like a surgeon. The other, in van Dyke beard, lays the tablecloth like an orderly. But which waiter is which? Or what does it matter. The essence of waiting is anonymity
Lucy Allon describes waiting as a grand game of chess. ‘You have to second-guess the next move. Your eyes on the room all the time, you’re acute, you anticipate.’ I watch Denton and non-Denton shifting knives and forks, grandmasterfully.
Hiring waiters, Allon has a tendency to ignore resumes. ‘For me my first impressions counts a lot because that’s the first impresison the customer will have. I look for someone who enjoys their surroundings, confident in their approach, they give the response you want.’
Waiters, says Sir Peter Ustinov, are diplomats who can’t sit down. Add to that the talents of actor, athlete, publicist, dancer, gigolo, psychologist and foodie, and you’re close to the make-up of Simon Denton.
JUST DESSERTS
‘A restaurant is like a litte child sometimes. Sometimes it’s screaming, sometimes it’s sleeping like a baby. That’s one of the things I love. You do get that adrenalian rush. Most waiters will tell you that love it when its busy.’
Denton is fagged from the Friday rush, but not sweaty. His Vandyke beard is kempt. His eyes are saying tired, but not his body language. When I drag the tape recorder from my bag he nods at Jeremy (Waiter #2) who ghosts down the jazz. Second-guessing needs. Even sitting down, the career waiter is on his feet.
‘You can see when people are new to a restaurant. They arrive a bit tense. They’re not sure if they’re going to be looked after or not. That’s one of the keys to waiting. Trying to get the customer to relax and show them that you’re in control.’
(Like a waiter Matthew Evans knows in Sydney. When a stressed party walk in, he converts the table’s bar drinks into doubles – no extra charge. But efficiency, argues Denton, works far better than any doctored whiskey.)
Denton learnt his trade from scratch, part-timing at The Botanical in South Yarra, a Mod Oz restaurant for the elegant set. ‘The five Greek guys who owned the place were mentors. They taught me how to read different personalities.’ In 1993 Denton moved to the swank settings of the Adelphi where the busboy turned to gun. Luxe was the climax in 1998. ‘Luxe was pretty crazy. We didn’t take bookings. There were nights when I sent three hours standing at the door saying sorry we’re full.’
Now 31, the waiter’s brain is a motherboard. It knows which cover wants unsalted spinach, which table needs solitude, or water, or cajoling. He knows the nuances of grenache and byplay and timelines, and can carry four souffles in each hand with nary a tremor.
‘A lot of waiters don’t listen properly and they make mistakes. You have to be patient. You have to listen. And know your product. Because whenever someone asks, you’ll be confident. You wont need to walk away and find stuff out.
‘You have to look at a table and in a few seconds what’s been done and what needs to be done. You got to know whent to step back and when to step in.’
So are good waiters born or groomed? ‘You learn on the job,’ says Denton. ‘You can’t go to a classroom. You can put faux customers there but until you get in the situations and learn some of them the hard way.’
Melbourne foodie, John Lethlean, calls it the trickle-down effect, where the career waiter shapes the raw talent into the house moves. At Salt in Sydney, the core staff is indeed hard-core. ‘We don’t employ part-timers for our core group of eight,’ says Allon. ‘They have to be full-time to focus on what they’re doing. They’re employed because it’s their life.
Back at the Barmecide feast, I give Kamal Unvala her chance to reply. ‘I train my students to 5-star standards. But when you join Piccolanos Pasta Restaurant, you have to serve the way that Piccolanos wants you to serve. But at least you know the difference.’
Denton and I drain our coffees – real ones. In real cups. I tell him Frank Sinatra used to wait tables. Does Denton nurse some crazy Sinatra dream, or is waiting the end-all? And just for an instant the waiter façade fractures. ‘There’s more and more professional waiters out there – I’ve tried to instil that pride in what I do. Waiting is a profession. It does have career opportunities. You don’t have to be studying something else to be working as a waiter. I used to get that question a bit and it pissed me off. Because waiting is what I do – it’s what I love doing.’
WORST WAITER AWARD - SIDEBAR
Would madam care to choose her favourite nightmare?
Lisa Hudson (Good Food Guide editor, SMH): ‘I went to a top-end restaurant (in Sydney) and while I was studying the menu I had my hand resting on my chin, and my fingers over my mouth. To my surprise the waiter appeared saying quite loudly, ‘Oh, I can see madam’s hungry.’ And when I looked up, puzzled, he added, ‘She’s already starting on her fingernails.’
Lucy Allon (Salt and Café Lulu) ‘A friend of mine didn’t have time to concentrate on the winelist, so he asked the waiter to recommend a pinot noir – and the waiter said ‘Well I know what I’d recommend but I don’t know if youd like it.’
Matthew Evans (Chief Restaurant Reviewer, SMH) ‘The shocker was a French restaurant in Melbourne. My girlfiend wanted to impress me for my birthday. Everything was gong fine, until I complained about a fish dish. It was so dry it was like eating cotton wool. And the waiter goes huhhh. He takes my plate away, brings it back and says, ‘I and the chef have tried this fish in the kitchen and there is nothing wrong with it,’ And he throws it back in front of me.
Simon Denton (Waiter Extraordinarie): ‘When I get sweaty my wedding ring gets really loose. I was running up the stairs the other day, and it went flying off my finger and hit a diner on the arm. It was one of those slow motion things.’
John Lethelean (Food critic with Epicure, The Age) ‘I had a waiter who asked, ‘Did sir find the meal adequate?’
Basil Fawlty (Maitre ‘d) ‘Forgive him – he’s from Barcelona.’
GREAT WAITING MYSTERIES OF OUR TIMES - SIDEBAR 2
+ Why is the unreserved table in a far better place than your reserved table?
+ Why do some waiters come complete with nametags?
+ Why are cultural stereotypes so stubbornly preserved among waiters?
+ How comes the phrase ‘medium rare’ loses its meaning between table and kitchen?
+ Why don’t yum cha meals come with price tags?
+ Why is wine easier to get than water?
+ What’s wrong with vegetables and chips?
+ Why do we need ‘vine-ripened sun-dried’ in front of the word tomato?
+ Why do waiters stand rocking with trays behind their backs?
+ Why is the waiter’s eye is difficult to catch at bill-time too?
+ How does the Snooty Waiter deign to get tipped?
+ And ditto for Insolent, Fresh, Slow, Vacuous and Impatient Waiters?
+ Please explain why a 7-centimetre bill needs a 30-centimetre vinyl book?
PLAYING THE WAITING GAME - SIDEBAR 3
ANDREW CHEN, Flower Drum, Melbourne (28½ years of service)
Q: 28½ years. That’s a very precise number.
A: Well, I remember the day I started.
Q: Any disasters in that time?
A: When you drop a plate in the middle of a function, every eye is on you.
Q: Have you done that recently?
A: No, that was in 1980 or something.
Q: Ever blushed as a waiter?
A: Maybe when you find out the origin of the scallops, say, is from a different state. And you’ve given the customer the wrong information.
Q: What’s the most difficult type of customer?
A: Some vegetarian people say I don’t take mushrooms or tofu, but don’t just give me a plate of veigies. What can you give them? That’s a challenge.
CARLO ??, Bill and Tonys, Sydney (40 years of service)
Q: What drew you to waiitng?
A: I love people. I love the interacting. The restaurant is my playground.
Q: Your most embarrassing moment?
A: A snowstorm in Montreal. For three days the hotel staff couldn’t wash – so you could understand things were very hot and sweaty. But everyone was the same.
Q: Your most difficult sort of customer?
A: People who expect more than we can give them. They don’t want this plate, or that plate, they want another plate, but that plate’s down the road.
Q: What’s been your biggest tip?
A: $10,000. That was after one week in a ski resort.
VIRGINIA GAFFY, Trotters, Melbourne (8 years of service)
Q: How did you get into waiitng?
A: Kind of by accident. I’d done a food and beverage course at Redback Brewery. And my brother-in-law knew a restaurant that needed somebody. And once you’re in hospitality it’s kind of difficult to get out.
Q: Why waiting?
A: I like how it’s flexible. I want to do other things – visual arts and stuff.
Q: Who’s a difficult type of customer?
A: Usually people with no manners, who treat you as insignificant.
Q: When did you last blush on the job?
A: I dropped a stubbie once. It overbalanced on my tray. The other time is when you go to open a wine and the cork breaks.
Q: So what do you love about the job?
A: I’ve just started doing a day in an office, and its completely different. People in restaurants are really friendly and easy to talk to. You have fun when you work.
Q: Your most extravagent tip?
A: (Trotters) is not a big-tipping place. Everyone’s in a hurry to see the movies. There was one lady who had a pasta, and tipped $40. We thought it was some mistake.
DAVID MYERS, Quay, Sydney (16 years of service)
Q: What do you love about the job?
A: The food, the wine and the camaraderie. It’s a pretty social environment.
Q: What about a difficult customers?
A: I try to please whoever comes through the door. Some people are harder to please than others but we do what we can.
Q: Any red-faced moments?
A: I saw a gentleman eat a cigar once. He thought it was a chocolate truffle.
Q: Committed any catastrophes?
A: One of my colleagues was lighting a cigar for a customer. He stuck it in his own mouth and sparked it up.
[Sunday Life, April 2003]