Are You Being Served?

September 8 is National Waiters Day, promoting front-of-house as a fantastic job with plenty of opportunities. Why do we need such a day? Well while we value our skilled waiter when we sit down for a meal, we all-too-often disparage waiting as not a ‘proper’ career

- Katie Jarvis

Fred Sirieix, general manager at Michelin-starred Galvin at Windows (maître d’ on the hit Channel 4 show First Dates and the originator of National Waiters Day) had a bit of a Twitter spat recently with Piers Morgan.

“Could be worse,” Piers had tweeted – in the firestorm surrounding Ivanka Trump’s surprisingly elevated performance at the G20 summit – “Ivanka could have been a bar-tender 18 months ago.”

The courteous, but clearly riled, reply from Fred put him straight: “Bartending and waitressing are highly skilled jobs Piers. All too often they are undervalued, appreciated or respected. Time for a change.”

So true. I’ve had meals – expensive restaurant meals – where the service has made an excellent evening superb. And not just because of attentiveness. Once, at an outstanding Cotswold hotel (I remember nothing about the food), it was the desert-dry humour of the waiter that delighted us. (“Would you like a drink in the bar before dinner?” “We’ll go straight in, thanks.” “Excellent decision, sir.”)

Works the other way, too. A delicious meal at another well-known establishment was punctuated by waiting staff conducting endless exchanges about their social lives, two feet from our table. We gave up on our own conversation.