15. The restaurant

The word restaurant is derived from the French verb restaurer - to restore or refresh - and thus by usage means an establishment that offers food and drink for sale. The restaurateur is the person in charge of the restaurant or dining room and as such has to meet the challenge of stamping it with his own personality. This challenge is to make it a place where people like to eat and to be welcomed personally by him, and this is still a significant feature of any successful ea n place. The feeling of importance and well being which it gives the customer is reflected in his patronising an establishment on a regular basis. Such a person was Auguste Oddenino who for years was restaurant manager at the Cafe Royal until 1901 when he opened his own place nearby and ended up by giving his name to a group of hotels and restaurants. Nowadays hotels, as a rule, have a dining-room or restaurant. The restaurant is primarily a selling unit which must be run at a profit; the facilities offered should lead guests into making the most of them, and the resulting orders will usually mean substantial takings. Good food and drinks are the basic elements of sound catering but service and decor play no mean part. Decor helps create the right atmosphere for attracting customers into more or less elaborate and refined surrounding. One favours subdued lights, soft carpets and settees, another show crystal chandlers, red velvet and brocade, a third relies on fishnets and lobster-baskets to justify narrow benches and tables, every one of them is trying to bring in something different. It is a civilized pleasure to take friends to dine out at such places, and the party will take their time and enjoy themselves at leisure without undue haste or hurry, sampling the wines and dishes. Service will do much to enhance the appreciation of the quality and value of the food and drinks. It has been defined as «the capacity to make customers feel at ease on arrival, at home while they are here, and sorry to leave». Highly-skilled, efficient and faultless service remains the hall-mark of good management. Attentive, quick, smooth and courteous service hi keeping with the reputation of the establishment allows good cooking and good wines to be enjoyed to the full. Before the serving of the different meals, a number of preparations have to be carried out in the dining-room, and the guests will find the perfect setting at the appointed time. These preparations begin with the cleaning of the dining- room (sweeping the floors, dusting the furniture, polishing mirrors, silver, etc.). The changing of linen, the re-stocking of side-boards and dumb-waiters, the sharpening of knives, also take place before laying the table. Laying the table begins an hour or so before meal-time under the supervision of the head-waiter. The waiters and assistant waiters first lay a cloth on each table (right side up, please!), then the marker plates, then the cutlery (including the right assortment of knives, forks and spoons). Table silver should be arranged in the order in which it is to be used, starting from the outside and going towards the plate. The glasses are placed in front of the plates in French restaurants, and on the right of the plates in their English counterparts. A salt cellar and a pepper castor are men disposed in a central position and a napkin is laid on each top plate. A seat is placed in front of each marker plate. Everything is ready for the inspection of the head-waiter who makes a last minute check before the first guests arrive