The art of...relishing restaurants

Does working in hospitality make someone a better or worse diner

- ANNA HART.

MY FIRST HOSPITALITY JOB WAS IN A BELFAST kebab shop called Abrakebabra. If this sounds like an amusing aberration, Abrakebabra is in fact Ireland’s premier kebab shop chain, romantically pairing drunk people with doner kebabs since 1982. We wore green baseball caps with palm trees on them, for authenticity. I was still at school, so I only worked weekends, and my shift was 9 to 5. Except this meant 9pm to 5am, and we had a braying queue out the door between 11pm (pub kicking-out-time) and 3am (comatose in bed or at a bus shelter time). Sometimes my supervisor would hand me a brown envelope of cash to give to the man lurking at the front door, “protection money” for local paramilitary groups, to prevent accidents happening, such as the windows being smashed in or the restaurant set on fire. Despite crawling home from work around 6am, smelling of chips, I adored working at Abrakebabra, because we worked as a team to make people happy, and this is a nice feeling for any human to feel. It’s also my baseline measure for any successful hospitality venture. And so began my illustrious international career: working in restaurants around the world, eating in restaurants around the world, writing about restaurants around the world.