Secret Service by Fred Sirieix

Author:Fred Sirieix
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Quadrille Publishing Ltd
Published: 2017-09-18T04:00:00+00:00

14

THE CUSTOMER IS KING (OR QUEEN)

At Le Gavroche, and under the tutelage of Silvano, I learned so much. Above all, he taught me that that the customer is king, which he genuinely believed that to be the case. There was no shred of doubt in his mind about this. I still maintain this same rule. The customer must be happy, therefore it is our task to help put the customer in the best of moods, no matter what it takes. Most of the time, of course, this is covered by following the rules of good service in a restaurant. But sometimes, things are far more precarious than that.

It was New Year’s Eve at Galvin at Windows, one of our busiest nights of the year. Soon it would be midnight, with the pop, pop, pop of Champagne corks, and the guests tipsily breaking into a chorus of, ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot. And never brought to mind …’

A certain Russian gentleman was about to walk into my life, and it seems to me still that he was sent to test me to the limit on the idea that customer is king. The lift arrived on the twenty-eighth floor of the London Hilton on Park Lane, the doors opened, and this man and his entourage emerged. He was a big guy, in his forties, and he was probably the only person who was not smiling. That was the first problem. Normally, guests arrive smiling, excited to be there and amazed by the view. It is rare that they aren’t, and it is never good.

He had booked a table. As we stood at reception, he pointed to a table near the window, and said, ‘We’d like to sit there.’ Now, of course, it was New Year’s Eve so we were fully booked, and that particular table near the window was booked for 11 people who were about to arrive. The table I had reserved for the Russian was in the centre of the room, perfectly set up for him and his five guests. That night, to ensure smooth service on such a busy and special evening, we were seating guests in alternate stations, according to the size of the party, some near the windows and some not. Moving things around would not have been possible without disrupting all our careful work.

I told him as much, and of course, he was unhappy. This situation could annoy anyone, but it took only a minute or two for him to become rude. I tried explaining exactly how the table plan worked, giving more detail than I usually would to try and calm him down. Throughout the explanation, I was holding the reservation list. He snatched the piece of paper from my hand and interrupted me: ‘I don’t care about your booking policy.’

With hindsight, I believe that I would have been totally justified in saying to him ‘You know what? I am not taking any more nonsense, Sir. You don’t have to be rude. I have explained what is happening, and I want to make amends, even though I haven’t done anything.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.