The Hospitality Dilemma

Despite the reason, despite any recognizable law of nature, despite a prepared arsenal of blunt, heavy, and sharp objects, cooks somehow manage to deliver service over and over again, service in a very blisteringly hot and nerve-wracking atmosphere while not killing each other – or, most importantly, striding out to the restaurant floor and beating the inconsiderate diner over the top with a meat mallet for ordering a well-done cut of meat a couple of minutes before the end of the shift.

Like any inventive art, food preparation perfection is an unrealizable goal.

Sorry, again, to be the bearer of negative news, however, the golden age of gastronomy has long passed. And haute cuisine – all that pretentious shit regarding white tablecloths, silver service, amuse-bouche, and, like – is dead for the overwhelming majority of diners. Current economic science and the very fact that a nationwide shortage of chefs has hit crucial levels can merely not permit it. What remains nowadays is that of the involuntary reflexes of past glories, the last spasmodic jerks of a classical gourmet entity.

Let’s face it

Every establishment can’t be a Le Gavroche, Chez Vendome, a Le Bernadine. Nor is it possible or feasible for them to be elBulli,  Eleven Madison Park, a Fat Duck, a Noma, a Daniel, or an El Celler de Can Rocca. (Imagine tweezer food. Dots on plates. Think foams, washes, gels, and every other manner of molecular manipulation. Think unconscionable price tags afforded by those with expense accounts and/or meaty piles of disposable funds.)  The world’s prime restaurants will afford – for a minimum amount of time, at least – to source the perfect native and international ingredients for their seasonal menus.

They can demand perfection from their suppliers; purchase state-of-the-art equipment; engage an army of adept and professional employees to cater to the Michelin standards; afford off-season closures to experiment with exotic products and leading-edge techniques; set precise and non-negotiable menus; absorb the establishment’s losses with the celebrity chef’s TV series and/or book deal; and, consequently, charge their fawning, cashed-up patrons for the privilege.

Sadly, most kitchens don’t have that luxury.

Most chefs in most kitchens deal with typically inferior and sometimes frozen or pre-prepared products to piece along with some straightforward menus that will appease the common, pennywise patron. Food percentages are tight. Wages are a continuous juggling act. Equipment is poor or non-functional.

Skilled and reliable employees are nearly impossible to seek out, let alone, retain. And, as an added insult, the industry is rife with dodgy owners underpaying staff, abusing liberties, and enforcing agendas with little or no practical hospitality experience beyond a profit/loss spreadsheet. Without question, the overwhelming majority of today’s diners merely are looking for good food and value at reasonable costs.

People need to eat,

sure, however, they don’t need to pay a great deal of cash. That is why pubs/clubs and casual feeding institutions (despite constant and typically unwarranted criticism for serving mediocre food) serve thousands of meals every week whereas the hard-working, privately-owned venue producing ingenious trendy food typically struggles to fill sixty seats on the weekend and beyond peak-season periods.

That is why, in ever-increasing numbers, classically-trained chefs with fine feeding expertise are abandoning their lofty posts as high-end slaves to open food vans, burger joints, Yankee BBQ shacks, and a google-map-chicken-pox of franchised Asian street food temples complete with low-cost mismatched pieces of furniture, jam jars for drinking vessels, and gloriously apathetic waiters.

But there is, of course, a downside.

How many low-cost burger joints will one community sustain?

How many BBQ shacks are needed to accomplish a perfect beef brisket?

How many Doners can survive in a small community?

The fact is, there are way too many restaurants and not enough experienced and knowledgeable chefs to man their kitchens.

As it stands, consumers are spoiled for choice.

Work in any establishment long enough (I’m talking years) and you’ll inevitably hear the old-dog lamentations of this place “used to rock and pump”.

Every eating place, guaranteed, can expertise the ebb and flow of patrons.

There will be times of boom and there’ll be times of bust. The trendy new restaurants booming these days can bust tomorrow. That isn’t to mention that chefs aren’t longer presenting quality food. It’s far more complicated than that. A restaurant’s success or failure is set by factors typically not in the control of the chef and his kitchen staff.  (Food trends. Rent hikes. Wage costs. Staff shortages. A scarcity of produce. Economic downturns. Increased competition.

The list goes on.) Even sufficiently staffed, well-run restaurants serving good food at reasonable prices will suffer at the hand’s culinary trends, geographical location, and economic climate.

In terms of online ratings and rankings, a seafood-eating place with an oceanfront location will always beat the one adjacent to a car park. An intimate, inner-city, forty-seat eating joint destination can trump the suburban 300+ seat food barn any day of the week. The chic, paddock-to-plate, organically sourced, celebrity-chef-certified farm kitchen can outpoint the genuinely rustic tavern-eating Bistro by unanimous votes time after time.

But again, what does all that really mean?

Doesn’t the residential area food court doner kabob serve a purpose, an occasion? As will the mid-town pate de foie gras on brioche with truffles?

Surely, it’s all about realistic expectations.

And surely, diners & reviewers should be accountable for their, attitudes and actions toward employees, and, ultimately, the internet criticisms they feel are their compulsive right to share with similarly minded souls the world over. Back in the late ’80s, well before the modern epidemic of amateur online criticism, a young Ulrich Koepf and his wife Nazarine conceived a direct and immediate method for dealing with rude or belligerent customers at Martini’s Bistro.

Called the Whoosh, it convoluted a troop of waiters swarming in on the offensive table mid-service and clearing away everything, together with half-filled wine glasses, during a seamlessly synchronized counterattack. The final bit was a theatrical whooshing of the table linen. The mortified guests weren’t asked to pay, however, their evening was over.

While Ulrich’s and Naz’s technique of jettisoning rude and objectionable customers is also the dream of perhaps anyone who has ever worked in the gastronomy/hospitality industry, the Whoosh technique has its limitations in today’s culinary climate. Times, indeed, have changed.

Due to a contemporary, modern saturation of the market, restaurants are no longer able, nor can they afford to choose their patrons.

Well, they can, however chastising guests – be it at the table, or later, once responding to significantly harsh and unjust online reviews – is walking in dangerous waters. Competition is thus fierce, and therefore the custom of social media is so widespread and frenzied, that restaurants are probably more tempted to kiss the ass of the belligerent diner than they are of telling them to fuck off and don’t return. There was a time, not too far back, that the typical punter felt it a privilege to be able to dine out. They worked, saved their cash, and enjoyed a rare occasion with family, friends, and/or colleagues. Today, however, the typical punter expects and/or demands a personalized champagne experience on a larger beer budget on any given day of the week. Perhaps they’ve seen too many episodes of Master Chef, the faux-culinary apex of reality TV that continues to carry on contrived, fantasy fiction and glamour. Or, perhaps, they merely result in a misanthropic and egotistic contemporary world that thinks everyone seems to be out there to defraud them or challenge their position as a rare and unique gift to humanity.

Don’t get me wrong.

In no manner do I profess to be a culinary wizard or expert – a classical master, a leading-edge or revolutionary superstar.

And I’m not Thomas Keller, Heston Blumenthal, Ferran Adria, Massimo Bottura, Alain Ducasse, Jiro Ono, or Fredy Girardet.  Nor do I want to restrict the opinions of the general dining population. They are, after all, the explanation for the chef’s being.

But, as mentioned in earlier posts, I have had the privilege of operating, living, and traveling throughout much of the world throughout a 50+ year career.

Think Roesti in  Switzerland; Duck confit in France; Turtle steak in Bermuda; Truffle risotto in Milan; steamed mussels in Antibes; cassoulet in Paris; conch chowder in the Bahamas; steamed grouper in Cayman Island;  chicken mole in Guadalajara; great steaks in Edmonton, Canada; sancocho & mangu in the Dominican Republic; paella Valenciana in Spain; rabbit stew in Malta and Ensaimada in Mallorca; Florida snapper in South Florida. I’ve worked in some pretty descend kitchens with some inventive and capable international chefs and, of course, I’ve been a diner. Not every meal was always perfect. certainly, not every experience was outstanding. But I’m proud to mention that, as a guest, I’ve NEVER once sent a meal back to the kitchen, abused a waiter, refused to pay a bill, or, most significantly, manipulated social media to rip apart an establishment and its employees with fury and condemnation. I just never returned to the place!

Maybe I’ve been lucky.

Maybe I’ve tried not to be a jerk.

Or maybe, it’s just because I have a lengthy and affectionate understanding of the way food is made, cooked, and served in restaurant and hotel kitchens. I understand that mistakes will always occur. I perceive to know that my tastes are precisely that, my tastes. I perceive knowing that, in view that all of my adult life has been spent with food and hospitality, I still have plenty to grasp, learn, and appreciate even at my age. I also perceive to know that the folks preparing my meal – and sometimes those who serve it – are laboring physically much harder, longer, and for less pay than the typical 8-hour desk jockey enjoying their nights, weekends, public holidays, and month-long vacations. I know that some kitchens are the sanctuary or shelter of the desperate and some of the insane!

Quote by a famous chef and writer:

“If the snapper is good, they say nothing.

If it isn’t excellent, they complain like stuck guinea pigs.

It’s quite reassuring really.”

For a chef, those may be the truest words ever spoken.

Get used to it, I’m afraid. Or get out of the kitchen.