waiters' turn to speak up by SUE WILLIAMS

Waiters' turn to speak up

By Sue Williams (smh.com.au)

Reserved at all times ... waiter Paolo Turina of Uliveto in Potts Point Point. Photo: Sahlan Hayes

It was a busy Saturday night when a sudden shrill whistle pierced the happy babble of diners' chatter. Waiter Paolo Turina looked over and caught the eye of the customer, now gesturing at him to come over.
Turina then slowly, very deliberately, turned on his heel and walked back into the kitchen.
In a 20-year career as a waiter, in Australia and previously in his native Italy, it's both Turina's worst memory, and his pet hate. ''Yes, there are people who still snap their fingers to waiters to attract their attention and some do still, occasionally, whistle to me like a dog,'' he says. ''I find that very offensive and I might take much longer to reach that table, or not even go there.

Ezard manager Quentin Ferguson. Photo: Eddie Jim

''Usually, the only people who'd ever do that are businessmen or career people who are well dressed, and really should know better.''

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Happily, however, diners generally behave with a great deal more decorum than they did in the past. They're now better-educated, more adventurous in their food choices, accustomed to eating in restaurants and generally more respectful of waiters than they used to be.
It's not so often now that patrons think it's acceptable to man-handle staff. ''I was once pulled onto someone's lap,'' says Gemma Grange, who works at the three-hatted Jacques Reymond restaurant Prahran, Melbourne, where such behaviour never occurs.

Bentley co-owner Nick Hildebrandt. Photo: Jon Reid

''It's amazing that people think that's appropriate. When you're working as a waiter, you try to establish a rapport with your customers, but then they might have too much to drink, they can take it too far and accidents do happen.''
It does seem the nation's wait staff have to put up with an awful lot from difficult diners. Too often we expect them to be counsellors, confessionals, priests, financial advisors, jugglers, entertainers, multi-multi-taskers and mind-readers … and that's even before they've topped up the second glass of sauvignon blanc and delivered the entree.
So what is the most acceptable way for a polite diner to attract the attention of a waiter? ''Catching their eye, and saying, 'When you have a minute', is the best way,'' says Turina, a veteran of, among others, Fratelli Paradiso in Potts Point, now working at Uliveto nearby. ''I find most Australians are pretty polite these days.''

Waiter Gemma Grange of Jacques Reymond in Melbourne says she was once pulled onto a customer's lap. Photo: Eddie Jim

There's also a good way to gesture, and a bad way, Grange says. The good is a slight flutter of the hand; the ugly is waving wildly in the direction of the waiter, and shouting across the restaurant. ''None of us particularly like that!'' she says.
Sometimes it's a cultural thing, says waiter Peter Kucera of La Grillade in Sydney's Crows Nest. Asian customers are more likely to put their hand up for attention, which is usual in restaurants in Asia, whereas that would be considered insulting in top restaurants in Europe. In Australia, it's tolerated, but not encouraged.
Even worse, says Skye Macaulay, of The Stokehouse at St Kilda, Melbourne, is when customers call you over, and then sit talking on the phone. ''They wouldn't put up with that kind of rudeness at their workplace, but we try to be positive about it,'' she says.
''That can be a challenge, especially when they take a phone call and start chatting when you're trying to tell them about the specials of the day, or they continually interrupt you or look obviously disinterested. We try to do everything we can to engage them.''
It's often much harder taking our orders than at any time in the past, too. A regular waiter at one of Melbourne's most-awarded restaurants - who asks not to be identified for fear of annoying much-needed, and valued, customers - says despite asking if anyone has any special dietary needs at the time of booking, people still turn up and, just before ordering, casually drop the fact that they have fructose malabsorption, a gluten or lactose intolerance, and possibly a shellfish and peanut allergy to boot.
''We can cater for everyone, as long as we have a little advance notice,'' she says. ''But sometimes people can come up with some fairly extraordinary dietary issue and you have to work out whether they might have a real medical problem, or it's just a dislike.''
The most appreciated clients are those who like to ask for recommendations, to make use of the wait staff's expertise. At the two-hatted Ezard restaurant in Melbourne's central business district, manager Quentin Ferguson says, ''The best clients for us are the ones who let us take them on a journey to let us pick the wine and beverages to go with each course.
''The diners who make things a bit challenging for us are those who have a different expectation of what we do, or who make requests, like certain meals off the menu, that we can't meet.''
Sometimes, asking for off-menu dishes is fine when the kitchen isn't too busy, Turina says, but when it's during a rush, and the diner wants the dish almost immediately, it can be impossible. ''They have to realise the kitchen doesn't have a working plan for that,'' he says. ''It may have elements that haven't been prepared … but then they're not willing to wait.''
Impatient diners who don't understand that the preparation of fresh food takes time, like the 25-40 minutes for the cooking of aged beef well-done, is also a particular … er … beef.
Diners can also enter some restaurants without knowing the kind of establishment it is, or perusing any menu beforehand. That can be great if they're adventurous; it's less auspicious when they've ordered wine and are drinking and chatting, then pick up the menu to discover the food - or the prices - doesn't suit them.
''That can be really difficult,'' says a member of staff at one fashionable - and expensive - new restaurant in Sydney, who again is fearful of the place being identified in case it inhibits future trade. ''They can look so trapped. I always try to make them feel comfortable, but some order the cheapest dishes they can find or just have an entree.
''But sometimes they can get quite aggressive about the prices and have a go at me. Of course, I don't set the prices and they are pretty high, but I just have to smile and try to placate them. That can be hard. I couldn't afford to eat here!''
Grumpy diners are always tricky for waiters to deal with, but the art is to try to turn them around. They might have had a bad day and want to ventilate, or be bickering with their dining companion, so it then becomes the waiter's task to try delicately to change the mood.
''It might make you feel annoyed when they're rude to you, but you can try to turn it into a joke and have a laugh with them,'' Kucera says. ''You want to change the mood and make it positive.''
After all, no one comes to a restaurant planning to have a miserable time, says Lucio Galletto, of the two-hatted Lucio's Italian Restaurant in Paddington. ''Something bad may have happened in their day, but there's always a way to improve things,'' he says. ''Waiters will, in this case, try to make even more of an effort to look after them. After all, customers are our bread and butter and good, professional service will usually make them feel comfortable.''
The customer is always right, too - however wrong. Galletto remembers the time one of his signature dishes, tagliolini alla granseola (fine green noodles with blue swimmer crab) was sent back to the kitchen because the customer ''didn't like the smell''. Galletto, who's been making that dish throughout his 30-year career, knew it was perfect, but asked them to order something else anyway. ''But I did find that upsetting,'' he says.
Similarly, an expensive bottle of older Australian wine was sent back at the two-hatted Bentley Restaurant & Bar in Surry Hills. ''It was absolutely fantastic but they just didn't like it,'' says Bentley's co-owner, Nick Hildebrandt, who oversees the service every evening. ''But we don't argue. They are right and we are wrong. We asked them to order again, and they ordered a completely different kind of wine.''
It can be even harder when customers receive the food or wine they've ordered and then, after it comes out, argue the waiter has made a mistake - even when he or she double-checked their order with them.
''A lot of customers make the assumption that waiters can mind-read and then don't communicate their order,'' the training manager at Hospitality Training Australia, Cam Istiaque, says.
It's not unknown either for customers to tell outright porkies to cover their tracks. He says it's becoming increasingly common for people, for instance, to phone restaurants that don't take bookings for fewer than six or ten people and book for those requisite numbers, but then turn up on the day as just a couple or foursome, with a tale of sudden illness or catastrophes depleting their group.
Equally, any number of diners who demand a particular table can be hard on wait staff, as can customers who turn up as part of a group, but can't remember under whose name they booked.
Then there are those completely unexpected situations with diners that waiters are forced to cope with.
Our unidentified Melbourne waiter cites her worst experience as waiting on a table at which the male diner was planning to propose to his girlfriend. He'd briefed staff to have champagne ready, on ice. Sadly, she turned him down, and marched out of the restaurant. ''He was obviously very upset but I had to give him the right amount of sympathy, but not pity,'' she says. ''It can be a very fine balance.''
Turina once went to take an order, and discovered a client he knew very well dining with his mistress, rather than his wife. He was careful to keep his expression blank - until the wife turned up, saw her husband and swept everything off their table.
Back in Italy, there was another occasion when fighting broke out in a restaurant and the police stormed in to restore order with all their guns drawn. ''But usually customers ask you to sort out their problems before it gets to that stage,'' he says, smiling. ''You get to know each other and you become almost a counsellor or their priest.''
The responsible service of alcohol provisions have also stopped some of the old problems of rowdy and drunk diners, although if a customer is seen to be guzzling drink, Istiaque says, it's the waiter's duty to tell the kitchen to rush their food out to the table before the alcohol goes to their head.
Once upon a time a waiter was there just to inform, advise, take an order and deliver it. ''But now they're expected to take charge of the situation, to read body language, and even to anticipate how much help a customer may want, or if they're too stressed to read a menu and just want a recommendation,'' Istiaque says.
''They also have to be a part of the conversation, and they have to be consistent. They can't treat a customer really well one day, then be brusque the next, they have to give plenty of information … and know much more than they did in the past about where produce is from as customers are now more knowledgeable and demanding.''
Yet even harder to cope with are the situations where a diner feels unhappy with either their meal or something about the restaurant, but doesn't mention it to their waiter so the issue can be remedied. Instead, they go home and blog a complaint on a site such as Urbanspoon.
Within the industry, it's known as ''the MasterChef effect''. While people are being educated by the huge number of TV food shows, they can believe they're experts as a result. ''From a chef's point of view, they've trained for years and most people come out having had an amazing experience,'' says George Schembri of Sugarcane in Surry Hills.
''But then someone may have been sitting on the couch thinking they know heaps about food and, while food can be very subjective, they might have not known what to expect, and then they go and comment on the food on a website. They're entitled to do that, but from our experience, that can be very subjective. I don't know any other industry where that happens to such an extent.''
Yet however bad a diner is, we can be assured of one thing: a waiter would never dream of spitting in their soup to exact revenge.
''No!'' Hildebrandt cries, obviously appalled at the very suggestion. ''In 20 years in the hospitality industry, I've never known that to happen … I think that's an urban myth. Even if a waiter thought about doing it, everyone else would stop him.''

PLEASE DON'T
Snap your fingers to gain attention.
Answer, and continue talking, on a mobile phone when an order's being taken.
Book a table for six (where reservations aren't taken for smaller groups) then turn up as a couple.
Return a perfectly fine, opened bottle of expensive wine.

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