Waiting game

TOP chef Michel Roux is coming out of the kitchen for his new BBC2 series. Michel Roux’s Service focuses firmly on front-of-house service.

When it comes to great service, it’s the little things that count and, as the Michelin- starred chef knows only too well that poor service can ruin even the finest meal. So his BBC2 series focuses on the art of waiting at table.

For him, waiters and sommeliers are the unsung stars of the restaurant world.

They can transform a great dining experience into an unforgettable one, which is why he is setting out to train eight young people, none of whom have considered service as a career, to become front-ofhouse superstars.

As they progress, they’ll learn the skills required to lead the service in some of Europe’s best restaurants and, Roux hopes, they’ll discover that working front-ofhouse is a brilliant career in its own right.

But one that calls for discipline, self-confidence and a burning desire to care for others.

Then there’s getting over the feeling common among the British that providing service is somehow a second-class occupation.

“I’m not the only person who genuinely feels we have a problem with service in this country,” he says. “And it’s not just in restaurants – you can get bad service anywhere, even buying a newspaper you can find that you’re not even acknowledged. There’s no eye contact, no greeting or anything. You give them the money and they don’t even say ‘thank you’. It’s dreadful.

Tonight’sTV By Steve Pratt email: steve.pratt@nne.co.uk “There has been a loss of respect through the generations and the issue of service in Britain is, maybe, a class problem with service seen as subservient – the old Upstairs Downstairs syndrome where it’s only for the lower classes.

“Regardless of that, the core message of this series is that working front-ofhouse should be seen as a career path and a profession to be proud of, just as it is in France, Italy and Spain. I genuinely believe you can take great satisfaction from delivering great service.

“At any level, from a fast-food restaurant to a cafe to the fine-dining restaurants, as a paying customer you just know when service is good, and that’s why we’re putting it at the top of the menu.”

The eight intensive weeks that the candidates spend in Michel Roux’s Service will be spent trying to convince him that they have what it takes to earn a potentially life-changing scholarship, in turn leading to placements at top hotels and restaurants.

He wanted the trainees, who are aged 17 to 24, to be a broad spectrum representing Britain today. The one thing that brings them all together is that they are all more or less at a dead end and don’t know what to do.

“For the most part, they have very little self-confidence. They need not only to be taught a profession, but to learn a few life skills as well – it’s a huge challenge.”

The series begins with some absolute basics, as he explains: “Just saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, I was aghast that some of these kids found it very difficult even to utter those words. There’s not much more basic in life than that, it’s simple upbringing. Whatever your background, courtesy matters, and then being smart. Knowing how to present yourself is something that should be taught by parents and in schools. It should be second nature.”

His approach to this is to treat them as individuals. “I don’t want them to break down or have their dreams shattered,” he says. “It’s a hard task and they need to understand the importance of it all, but they also need encouragement and a lot of praise. Many of them have never actually been told they are doing something right and there’s an amazing reaction when you say to these guys and girls ‘Well done, you’ve achieved something’.”

So is enough being done in the restaurant business to make front-of-house an attractive career proposition? “They do try, but not hard enough. We’ve all got to look at ourselves as restaurateurs and make the effort to take on a few more youngsters who perhaps don’t have the exacting qualifications we require but who, given time, can be helped,” says Roux.

“Perhaps we need to be a little more patient, because it’s a career that can be very rewarding, as this programme shows.”

■ There’s another episode of Michel Roux's Service tomorrow, at 8pm, on BBC2.