It used to

bother me when
our waiting
staf would get
poached Now
I take it as a
compliment to
the quality of our
training.
Paulo de Tarso
FRONT
OF HOUSE
Chefs may be the stars of the
restaurant business, but if anyone
doubts that a top matre d is worth
their weight in trufes, then Paulo
de Tarso might be the man to put
those doubts to rest. Indeed, he
could represent a new dynamic
for the industry, one in which the
guardians of service the people
diners actually interact with, after
all could be the new stars.
By Josh Sims

Its about making

every individual feel
like they belong here.

Continued over ...

60 61
62 | FRONT OF HOUSE 63
fThe food is important of
course, says the American-
raised Brazilian, who has been at
Daniel Bouluds Bar Boulud since
2010 having worked his way
up as a 15-year-old dishwater
to become manager at Beverley
Hills The Ivy, before starting from
scratch again in London in 2005
at Daphnes, The Wolseley and Scotts. The
food has to be good. But thats a given these
days in so many places. Service, however, isnt.
And its every bit as important. Diners have
bought a ticket to a show when they dine
out and they want it to be right. Life is about
moments and youre attending to someones
moments. People cry over meals. They get
engaged. They get divorced. Ive seen it all.
Service is about attending to their memories
of the occasion.
Sufce it to say, perhaps, that de Tarso
was, cleverly, selected to be the face of
Bouluds restaurant given the chefs then
low prole in the UK he and his team won
awards for best front of house the year the
restaurant opened; and the telling fact that,
he says, most of his customers followed him
from Scotts.
Indeed, he says that such is the
explosion in restaurant openings in London
now at last its new foodie society is
trumping New York as the cosmopolitan
culinary destination, he suggests, such that,
despite nice ofers, he cant be tempted to
leave the city that service standards have
necessarily rocketed and competition for top
service staf has become intense. It used to
bother me when our waiting staf would get
poached, which happens all the time, de
Tarso says. Now I take it as a compliment to
the quality of our training.
If the sharp-suited de Tarso appears
to have done one thing during his various
tenures in the UK, it has been to import a
more American service style. There we recruit
for personality and give people the skills later,
and here theres a tendency to try it the other
way round its not so easy, jokes de Tarso,
a man keen to underline just how much the
restaurant scene has shifted in the last ve
years away from the stufy obsequiousness
of formal dining towards an atmosphere of
friendliness and fun (providing the waiter
has read the tables mood appropriately, he
stresses those divorce jokes may not be a
good idea right now).
He is, after all, a man whose intensive
training programme includes everything
from food and wine knowledge, of course,
through to telephone manner, local cultural
knowledge, whos who (and, no, not just the
rich and famous) and even art appreciation
never mind the specials, the front of house
staf at Bar Boulud could, if quizzed, tell you
something interesting about the tables. And
as for the diferences in service culture as
supercial as the US approach can sometimes
seem to Europeans he puts that down
to two simple things: passion, and working
conditions. One hed like to encourage, the
other improve.
I alway says that if what you do front
of house doesnt come from the heart, then
go do something else follow your dream,
because this isnt it, he says. Unfortunately
there is something of a generation gap. Young
people today want an easy life, or want things
too quickly they move jobs too quickly in
order to move up a little rather than learning
through loyalty to a company. But that
attitude at least in part stems from their lack of
a sense of reward, which de Tarso is at pains
to correct.
Put simply, in the US waiting staf
keep their gratuities their efort is directly
rewarded, says the man who, as one might
imagine, is quite ready when eating out
himself to dock the service charge and take
the waiter aside to explain precisely where
he or she went wrong. In the industry here
you have long working hours, bad contracts,
tip pooling and these are all issues that the
industry is going to have to address to bring
front of house standards up. Waiters need
better salaries, a better work/life balance, and
inspiration. Chefs are inspired to become the
next Boulud, Atherton or Blumenthal. Waiting
staf need to know there are opportunities to
manage.
He lives his philosophy. Because of his
family, "It is important for me to be with them."
he does not and will not work weekends" he
has three small boys to manage and football
to play (well, he is Brazilian, even if he has
been dubbed The American by regulars).
Besides, happier staf make for happier diners
and the creation of regulars. Tourists are
all very good, he suggests and he works
in Knightsbridge remember but it's local
people who make the business. Some 82
percent of Bar Boulud's regulars are in twice
a week. Knowing that they like an espresso
pronto, or a newspaper while waiting, makes
for what de Tarso calls the 'Cheers' efect
("everyone knows your name") that diners
buy into as much as any acclaimed food. It
won't surprise anyone to hear that he keeps
customer proles even of rst time diners,
if he can pick up a bit of relevant info about
them when they book that would keep the
CIA happy. "It's not about being invasive," he
counters. "It's about making every individual
feel like they belong here."
For his staf to belong they need to
grasp a small nugget of advice perhaps the
best single piece of advice any restauranteur
might give their waiting staf, and which any
diner might be pleased to hear. You want to
know the most important thing about service?
Its not necessarily training or attention to
detail, or all the rest of it. Its a readiness to
move on. The customer says the wine is
corked. Well, maybe it is, maybe it isnt. Who
cares? What matters is that the customer
thinks it is. Let it go. Move on..
I alway says that
if what you do
front of house
doesnt come from
the heart, then
go do something
else follow your
dream, because
this isnt it...
PAULO DE TARSO
BAR BOULUD