How hard can it be to wait on love-struck customers at a busy restaurant? Food critic Richard McComb finds out
Being a waiter, as everyone knows, is one of the easiest jobs in the world.
It is on a level with being a clippy on a bus, except waiters, unlike bus conductors, don’t have to be good at mental maths because everything is done by computer these days.
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Clippies, sadly, are a thing of the past but waiters, implausibly, survive. All they do is carry food from the kitchen to the dinner table. They don’t even have to cook the food. Sure, they have to pour drinks although experience suggests they don’t have to bother doing this very often.
Who couldn’t do a job like that? Easy peasy.
So the prospect of a night working front of house at one of Birmingham’s busiest and best restaurants was unlikely to trouble a man of my capabilities. I have suggested as much in several restaurant reviews over the years.
Okay, said Opus restaurant, if waiting at tables was so easy, why didn’t I give it a go? Bring it on.
Opus suggested, for a joke, that I pitch in on Valentine’s night, one of the most hectic services of the year. I laughed in the face of their challenge. I loathe Valentine’s Day and its manufactured spirit of conviviality and soppy romance. I would be the ideal waiter for the night: miserable.
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As the night approached, a strange thing happened: I started to feel uneasy. This was ridiculous, I told myself. Waiting is a cake-walk, sometimes quite literally so. An idiot could do it. Hell, idiots do it.
By the time I pitched up at the Opus directors’ office in Cornwall Street, my legs were starting to buckle. My heart rate had quickened and my breathing was elevated. No, it wasn’t the anticipation of seeing chef director David Colcombe strip off before my very eyes and leap into his whites like Mr Ben. This was full-on nerves.
Fortunately, fellow director Irene Allan, who runs the restaurant’s front of house and private dining, sensed my unease.
“Would you like a drink, Richard?” said Irene in her lilting Glaswegian accent. “Tea, coffee ...”
She could see this wasn’t working. This wasn’t the time for a cuppa. “Maybe a G&T..?” she asked.
“Oh, god, yes. A large one,” I blurted out.
(I should point out that it is not staff policy at Opus to get smashed before service. No-one joined me. Still, I’ve never been averse to drinking alone.)
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Colcombe led the pre-dinner briefing for the waiters and restaurant managers in the sparkling restaurant bar. As Colonel Colcombe addressed the troops, I tried to do what I did for the rest of the evening: and made myself scarce. Following a warning not to foul up with the cutlery, Colcombe handed over to senior chef Ben Ternent, who ran through the special Valentine’s dinner menu, just £25 for three courses.
I thought Valentine’s night was a licence to print money for restaurateurs but Opus, which has run premium lovebird tasting menus in the past, decided customers wanted value, as well as quality, in the current climate.
The policy appeared to pay off. The Thursday night when I joined the team was the first of three Valentine’s nights, continuing until Saturday. A hundred covers feasted on Carlingford oysters and toasted their love on Night One alone.
I made myself ostensibly busy by unloading some glasses from the bar’s mini dishwasher before joining Irene at the front of the restaurant in what might be described as a withdrawn “meet-and-greet” role. Irene did the meeting and greeting; I withdrew towards the cloakroom.
My mentor ran through some of the tricks of the trade. She explained how she writes descriptions of diners who take a drink in the bar before going to their table. This allows her to keep tabs on who’s who and where they are sitting. Next to an entry saying, “7pm: Mr Smith x2,” she might write “Side ponytail” or “Red dress” (for Mrs Smith). When Irene launched the system, she gave diners nicknames. Then one customer looked at her reservation sheet and asked why “Groucho Marx” was written next to his booking. She doesn’t do that any more.
The first customers walked through the doors just before 6pm. Veteran waiter Pascal Cluny discreetly told me my apron was flapping open. Not a good look. Then, prompted by a smile from Irene that felt like a kick in the ribs, I showed my first couple to their table.
In an instant, I ran through everything Irene had told me: smile, be polite and welcoming, just be yourself. Present the menus, ask if they would like water (“Still, sparkling or tap. Don’t up-sell water”).
I also remembered the advice of Fred Sirieix, general manager at London’s Galvin at Windows. Fred starred in Michel Roux’s BBC2 series Service, teaching novices the art of delivering outstanding restaurant service. He kept going on about “the golden touch” in the show. You do the golden touch when you seat a customer. You touch them, but they don’t know it, only they sort of know it, but it’s non-threatening, and definitely non-sexual. It’s golden. I’ve experienced Fred’s golden touch 28 floors up at Galvin at the Hilton in Mayfair. It’s a giddying experience. I nearly proposed to him.
I asked Fred if I should play Midas at Opus. “It’s the intent that counts,” he said. I’ve no idea what he meant, but Fred is French.
I managed to seat my first customers but when I returned to my station, a waitress asked what water the couple would like. And what about their drinks order? I hadn’t asked. The waitress intervened as I legged it back to the kitchen to hide.
Colcombe explained that Valentine’s night is tricky for the kitchen because there are so many orders for two people. The service is dominated by couples. That means small numbers of dishes come together in rapid succession, rather than in large numbers, which presents different challenges for the chefs. The restaurant might actually do fewer covers on Valentine’s than a normal Thursday because there are no big tables, of six, seven or eight. But it feels manic.
I decided to try the less stressful role of a “runner.” Runners don’t actually run, they walk, but they walk very quickly, from the kitchen to the dining room carrying large trays of food. All they have to do is remember which station to deposit the tray at, and not drop it. The waiters then take the plates from the tray to the table, putting the right dish in front of the right person without saying: “Ok, you guys. Who’s the fish?”
The night ends around 11pm and is deemed a success, although the course of true love doesn’t run entirely smoothly. Earlier, as I dropped off the umpteenth tray groaning under the weight of rump of Cornish lamb, I spotted a man aged in his 20s leaving the restaurant on his own. His date was still in the ladies’, in tears.
Apparently, an argument started in the bar and continued at the table, where the woman ate her starter while crying. The couple decided to call it a day after the smoked chicken and Jerusalem artichoke risotto. Would things have been different if they’d had Colcombe’s clever wild mushroom, tarragon and rocket sandwich? On such decisions is love won and lost.