One of my English professors maintained that “art is the fulfillment of expectation.” A line of poetry, a musical phrase, an early visual in a movie all give us a sense of something about to happen. When it does, and when it surprises, delights or shocks, we are satisfied.
In a few notable restaurants, the same definition can be applied to waiting tables. And when the waiters are trained for service in a great French restaurant, it is art indeed. Waiters at Taillevent in Paris in 2002 were, I assure you, artists at the height of their powers.
My son and I enjoyed a meal there on a culinary tour of France that included Paris, Lyon and several towns in Provence. The main course, a lamb dish, was superb and the cheese plate a gastronomic adventure, but what I remember most was the service. Considerate, efficient, virtually invisible and performed by a team as impeccably prepared and practiced as the ballerinas we had watched earlier at Opera Garnier. When the thought began to first enter your mind that a bit more wine would be just the thing, it was there at your hand. When you were finished with a plate, truly finished, it disappeared somehow. When your palate had sufficiently recovered from one taste sensation, washed down with a perfect sip of perfectly matched wine, the next would appear just at the very instant when you were beginning to think that a little something else might be lovely.
We didn’t wait for our table. We didn’t wait for our first glass of wine. We weren’t introduced to the waiters. No one asked if we were still working on our plates.
When we wanted advice, as in what to choose from a cellar with over 3,000 choices, they were expert guides. When we asked for a glass of champagne without specifying which one, their choice was outstanding.
But they did more. My son, at the time still a smoker and feeling the need at mid-meal for a Marlboro, asked a waiter who was escorting him to the suite of restrooms (you were always escorted), if it was possible to have a private smoke. I was not to be told that he still had the habit. Here’s what the staff did. They procured a pack of the right brand. They set up a table in the salon, with table cloth, chair, ashtray, lighter and a small glass of wine to sustain him while he smoked. Then, a waiter stood guard in the hall in case I decided to walk in that direction. He relaxed, enjoying his cigarette at his leisure in a beautiful room in a beautiful restaurant, then returned satisfied and ready to tackle the cheese plate and dessert.
A restaurant that has served the rich and famous, from Nicolas Sarkozy to Vladimir Horowitz, practiced its art for us, giving both of us a memorable meal.
I grew up in south Alabama in the 1940s and 50s. The City Cafe, across the street from my mother's store, was our default lunch venue. The same servers saw us nearly every day, but when they delivered our orders, always had to ask who ordered which meal.
This chafed my father, who had frequented Antoine's and the Court of Two Sisters in New Orleans as a young man – it was my grandfather's favorite city and the only city of any consequence in the southern US. He would tell me to just wait until we had dinner at Antoine's; not only would the waiters always deliver the right meal to the right person, but they would do it without ever writing down anything.
Sure enough, when I was about twelve, we dined at Antoine's. At that age, I was primed to check the waiters' performance. To my amazement, they did exactly as my father had predicted – it was perfectly done without a note or the slightest hesitation.
Ever since that dinner, I have known that this level of service could be accomplished, but have rarely seen it repeated.
And no, we never learned our waiter's name at Antoine's.