Service Included

by Phoebe Damrosch

  Customizing people’s menus took skill and patience, but pairing wines for the picky guest—or any guest for that matter—I still found challenging. No matter how many seminars I attended, books I read, and wines I tasted, I retained only a fraction of the knowledge. At restaurant tastings, the other captains discussed winemakers and soil variation while I was still trying to figure out what region we were talking about. And when it comes to vintages, I am still convinced that a mind that can recall the difference between 1981 and 1982 Petrus is very similar to the mind that knows not only who won the World Series in 1981 and 1982, but also who pitched and in how many innings.

  Because of my weakness in wine knowledge, André began to spend a lot of time in my section. We didn’t have a wine pairing per se, but we often put together a program for guests who wanted to leave it up to us. In situations like these, we might use half bottles, and even beers, sakes, juices, teas, or spirits. I would have gone down flailing if it hadn’t been for André. When a guest asked about different vintages or my recommendations for old Riesling from Alsace, André always just happened to be walking by. Soon I had the sense that he was watching my every move. And as time went by, I began to watch his.

  “I have something for you,” he whispered one day at the beginning of service and motioned for me to follow him off the floor. It was a wine key, exactly like the standard-issue key we all had. I looked down at it, unimpressed.

  “Turn it over.” A tiny white label stretched along the side with “Diva” in black lettering. The label told me he had, indeed, been watching me closely.

  “So you don’t lose it. It’s left-handed, but don’t advertise that—I had to buy a whole box of them.”

  “How did you know I was left-handed?”

  “Chef,” he answered, shaking his head as if disappointed in me. “I noticed. Plus, lefties seem to be my lot in life.”

  All potential lovers encounter a moment when the harbored crush becomes possible. In the movies, it is a look; in the theater, a subtle innuendo; in pastoral poetry, a stolen embrace followed by a blush of the pretty innocent’s lily white breast. In reality, it’s often chemically induced and somewhat predatory, though no less exciting when reciprocated. There are romantic exceptions, of course, as in the case of a chef I know who met a woman at a farmer’s market and wrote his phone number on a squash. Or the sommelier who ordered an entire case of useless wine keys for the left-handed object of his affection. I can’t be sure, but I have a feeling she blushed and smiled, like the shepherdesses and milkmaids, starlets and ingénues before her.

  DESPITE MY LACK of wine knowledge, my fast track turned out to be about two weeks. The restaurant added more covers every night and had begun increasing the number of private dining events. This meant that we needed more captains on the floor. Furthermore, we expected the New York Times critic any day and wanted to make sure that the captains had manageably sized sections so as to have enough time for each guest. Patrick was ahead of me by a few days in our training and, even though he wasn’t working a full station yet, already he was flourishing. He had always been personable, but his persona on the floor blossomed in the role of captain. Because of his small stature and boyish face, guests sometimes underestimated his wit and his knowledge of food and wine. By the end of the meal, they were asking people to “send the little fellow over” and clapping him on the shoulder on their way out. I also enjoyed my promotion when I began, but my experience was quite different from Patrick’s.

  For most of my first year working in fine dining, not only was I the only female captain at Per Se but, as far as I could tell, one of only two in the city’s four-star restaurants. The image of the debonair Frenchman with a serviette draped over his arm still reigned, although a new wave of sleek-suited younger men was entering the field, no doubt spurred by a society with new Gourmet subscriptions and Food Network on TiVo.

  The fact that I was aware of my gender in this world struck me as odd. It was as if I were some sort of inversion of an inversion. Wasn’t hospitality or servitude in essence women’s work? Apparently, when it involved six-figure salaries and health care, it wasn’t. It took some time to understand where my own power lay and that I was at an advantage as a woman.

  Although I wore a black suit and silk tie, I learned when to work the woman angle by exuding warmth and making guests feel at home. I learned that a domineering wife requires a much different approach than the ringleader of a group of lunching ladies. I interacted one way with the gentleman attempting to impress his date and another with the financial broker with his posse of drinking buddies. I was ally, authority, object, and confidante within a span of thirty seconds, but in every case assumed as much control over my tables as my male counterparts, no matter how subtle my hold.

  As I had seen as a backserver, our greatest skill in the hospitality business is the ability to anticipate desire. If I did my job well, the guest would constantly wonder how I knew what he wanted before he did. When he asked to see the wine list again, it should be in my hand. When he motioned for the check, it was already on the table. If all went well, he was satiated not only by the food he was served, but by being given the attention he didn’t know he craved. It was not uncommon for a previous guest to yield completely on his second visit. “You know what I like,” he would say, handing back the menu and wine list. “I am in your hands.”

  Did putting guests at ease come more naturally to a woman? Or were we just used to using observation and empathy to our advantage? Did my male customers enjoy feeling like I was in charge or had they fashioned an angel-at-the-hearth role for me that they found comforting?

  Fascinated by these dynamics, I began to observe gender politics on the floor of the dining room…wearing a boxy, unflattering suit, a shirt that buttoned to my chin, and a tie. I can think of only a few occasions for which a woman wearing a tie is appropriate: when meeting a female lover at the altar, when holding a cane and tap-dancing across a stage, or when protesting a gender-discriminatory uniform policy. In an age where women lead nations, corporations, and cultural, political, and religious movements, I find it hard to believe that a phallic noose is the best symbol of the power we could wield.

  “How do you feel about female dominance?” I asked Truman, my backserver, one dinner as he set four water glasses and a coaster on a Christofle silver tray.

  “I like it,” he responded, affecting a pant, as he picked up the tray. “Corner!”

  Before I had a chance to explain myself, Truman rounded the blind corner from our service station and strode toward table six, where one guest was nervously flipping through the thick, leather-bound wine list. Truman placed each Orrefors water glass just below and to the right of the Spiegelau wineglass, the other edge of which had been directly aligned with the outer edge of the Ercuis knife. Both of us, if asked, could give you a brief history of each company, its geographic location, and a few of their lines of product. Table six opted for sparkling water, which meant Truman would pour T Nant, a Welsh water with tiny, tight bubbles. A perfect food water. Had they requested still water, they would have chosen between the crisper Hildon, from Southwest England, or Wattwiller. The latter, specially imported for us from Alsace, I always described, with an almost undetectable smirk, as more “full-bodied.” If guests laughed or rolled their eyes at this, I knew we would get along just fine.

  As in all services, we were working in a two-“man” team, this night in VIP-heavy station two. This meant we would pour free champagne and offer to prepare a special menu. If the guests were foodies or press, they usually loved the attention. If they were celebrities with a nutritionist to see in the morning or CEOs with an early meeting, they would start to squirm after the soup, savory sorbet, caviar, fish, custard, and meat canapés, all of which come before the meal has really begun. Tonight, as we learned in the preservice meeting, Truman and I would be waiting on an influential socialite who was well known in the gossip columns (light on the canapés) and a British celebrity chef in town
for a book signing (heavy on the organ meats).

  As I quickly polished fingerprints off the sterling silver clasps of four menus, I regretted having thought aloud to Truman, of all people. Most of the other captains dreaded working with him because he was cocky and quick-tempered, but he and I got along well. It wasn’t the easy, unspoken rhythm I had with some of the other backservers, particularly the women. I was constantly making room for Truman in a variety of ways, complimenting him on being able to run the station without me, letting him take over some of my captain’s duties like readying glassware and taking drink orders while I served bread and poured water. If this didn’t soothe him, all I had to do was ask about his daughter. They weren’t living together these days, but he picked her up and took her to school every morning, no matter his hours the night before. Recently, we had been working on a new lunch menu for her second year of school. My days nannying had kept me current on trends in elementary school dining, but he clearly spent his fair share of time in the grocery aisles as well.

  Maybe we tolerated each other because I wasn’t particularly easy to work with either. I had a reputation of being merciless at times. After a particularly busy night working with me, one of the newer backservers nursed his wounds over a beer and complained that I had ridden him hard. After that, I tried to take it easy on Seabiscuit, as we subsequently named him. When he worked hard and fast, I called him Bisquick.

  Back in station two, I had finished taking the order on table six when I noticed their water glasses had gotten low.

  “Even in jail you get bread and water,” I scolded Truman, since he enjoyed female dominance.

  As Truman poured, the maître d’ seated our socialite on table three. André had readied the champagne in the ice bucket, the chef fired two gougères in the kitchen, and I polished two more menus. I realized that I never explained my question to Truman and wondered whether he had forgotten about it when he barreled around the corner again.

  “Think we will make it into Page Six tomorrow?” he asked, tossing the breadbasket noisily back onto the service station.

  “We can always dream,” I responded, gathering the menus. “Let the kitchen know they can send those gougères any day.”

  Truman was already halfway down the hall, but he paused and turned with a grin.

  “Yes, mistress.”

  AFTER A FEW months as a captain, I congratulated my feminist self on breaking through the glass ceiling of fine dining. I was getting important tables, I had health care and dental, I had set up a new 401(k) account (now that I had figured out what it was), I was respected by my male peers and making inroads for the women working just beneath me. And, most important, I was making the same amount of money as the men. Or was I?

  Our term for the stealthy act of slipping cash to someone, while both parties pretend to be exchanging simple pleasantries, was a “handshake” or a “palm.” The rule at Per Se was that all handshakes had to be turned into the house so that all the cash could be equally divided among the staff. This caused a lot of grumbling among maître d’s, sommeliers, and captains who felt they deserved the extra cash because they had been singled out for exemplary service.

  As the resident restaurant leftie, I hopped right up on my soapbox to defend the rights of the common man. How could we have the arrogance to believe we could stand at a table for ten minutes discussing art or literature or wine or even politics (except during the Republican National Convention, when I decided that if I didn’t have anything nice to say…) if it weren’t for the backservers, runners, and bussers running their asses off to make sure the restaurant kept moving? And then it occurred to me that it was easy to preach since I was rarely tempted by cash myself.

  It comes down to this: No matter how you frame it, when a man slips cash to a woman, it feels like it was just left on the bureau. How do you explain that to your date? I can just hear the voice of the jealous wife. “I see she made quite an impression on you.”

  As I was the only woman, I couldn’t compare notes with peers, so I went to our only female maître d’ and asked her opinion on the matter. At her last job, at a swank French bistro, the men walked out with $700 on some evenings when she was lucky to get $200. Her theory was that a man giving money to another man is a way for them to affirm their hierarchy. Although the captain, sommelier, or maître d’ sets the tone of the meal, knows more than the guest does about wine, or seats him in the coveted corner table, once the guest slips him some cash, the guest is back on top.

  The final piece of the puzzle is the kicker. While men palm other men out of discomfort with the master/slave dynamic, they are perfectly comfortable with a woman serving them. In fact, it is assumed that she enjoys it, that she is nurturing by nature, that she could never threaten the hierarchy. She will be lucky to get a thank-you, a good word put in to the boss, or even a pinch in the ass for her services.

  Which begs the question of how women handle this situation. I have only once been palmed by a woman, and it was a most awkward exchange, involving a lot of fumbling and blushing. This is not what we women do. My greatest rewards from women have been kisses on the cheek, a whispered thank-you for helping them manage their mothers-in-law, and even an invitation to tea.

  One day I had a table of five men and one woman, who was in charge, although she was clearly catering to the man sitting across from her. I circled the table on my initial approach, trying to figure out who was the host and who was the alpha (not always the same person). Finally, still stumped, I positioned myself to the right of the catered-to man and in direct eye contact with the woman. I offered the wine list. He took it. I explained the menu and suggested the chef’s tasting menu, as I always do. Most of the party went with my suggestion, but the wooed man wanted the sweetbreads from the five-course menu.

  “Could you show me to the ladies’?” the woman asked in her best woman-to-woman tone.

  “Of course,” I responded, reluctant to leave the men alone with the menus. If they started tinkering with the chef’s tasting and ordering only the biggest and cheapest California Cabernets, I would hold her responsible.

  “Here’s the deal,” she said when we were out of earshot, speaking in bullet points. “We will have the tasting menu. We will do a wine pairing for one-fifty a head. We will add an additional foie gras course. We need this client. Make us look good.”

  I went back to the table with her credit card in my pocket and gathered the menus from the men, whose attention had wandered from food to the usual one-upsmanship. I made sure the guest of honor had his sweetbreads, poured his wine first, batted my eyelashes until I was dizzy, and broke the company rule by touching his arm and shoulder whenever the opportunity arose. Each time I looked at the host, she winked at me. So far, so good.

  I had to respect this woman. If we had not had that talk, the dynamic would have been different between us. She would have had to deal with me as a distraction and a threat to her authority, not as a weapon for her own cause.

  “Perfect!” she whispered triumphantly when the meal was over, squeezing my arm. She allowed the men to let her go first and as I thanked the group, the client paused to shake my hand. And I felt it, the unmistakable wad pressing itself into my palm.

  “Thank you.”

  “A pleasure, sir,” I responded, slipping my hand into my pocket as I had seen it done so many times and glancing quickly around to see who might have witnessed it. I realized that all three of us knew what was going on; I had made her look good, and I had been a kind of ally for him. But was the cash his way of acknowledging the dance we had all done? Or did he feel unarmed without his credit card and ability to choose what he would eat? I pondered this as I walked up to the host stand to add my money to the cash tips we would divvy up at the end of the night. I was pretty sure that no one had seen the handshake, but the truth was, it wasn’t about the money.

  * * *

  • A TIP •

  Always call if you will not be showing up for a reservation. Making backu
p reservations and not showing up is like making multiple prom dates and then letting them wait all night in their living rooms, watching the clock in heels and hose and sagging up-dos.

  * * *

  • being frank •

  * * *

  Rule #36: Staff may attend wine industry events at the restaurant with approval from the wine director or head sommelier.

  * * *

  eVEN AFTER MY three disastrous affairs, not to mention three waves of feminism, my life in the summer of 2004 was defined by two men. The first was trouble, the second was torture. Because I had briefly been in charge of ordering wine at my first restaurant in Brooklyn, which now seemed completely absurd, I was on a few e-mail lists for wine distributors. I usually just deleted them, but one caught my eye: a biodynamic tasting at the Metropolitan Pavilion. Even though it was not being held at the restaurant, I decided to run this one by the wine department, and André in particular. It’s not like I’m asking him out on a date, I told myself; it’s an industry event.

  “Of course you should go,” André assured me. “In fact, I might join you.”

  When I arrived at the tasting a few days later, he was waiting next to a table of empty glasses.

  “Shall we?” he asked, taking one for each of us. Though he had only lived in the city for a few months, André ran into someone he knew every few steps. He introduced me by name only, leaving our relationship open to interpretation. Between acquaintances, we paired the wines we tasted to recent menu items, stopping every so often for a piece of cheese or bunch of grapes.

  If the biodynamic wine tasting did not begin as a date, it felt like one by the end. Afterward, loosened by the wine and accustomed to each other’s pace, we walked together toward the subway. Then, with a subtle nod of his head in the direction of the pub across the street, he led the way. Circumstance spared us from the classic awkwardness of a first date. Not only had we achieved an ease with each other in the dining room, but my curiosity inspired an immediate inquisition. Since he had first introduced himself during training, I had wanted the whole story of how he went from slinging burgers in San Antonio to shaving truffles in New York.