Peter Camarero, Author at The Restaurant Manifesto

Industry Comes First

There’s a soldierly code of honor in restaurants. We take care of each other. The restaurant business is built on manufacturing pleasure for strangers, so we cherish the opportunity to extend hospitality to our industry brethren. Bearing ourselves naked for nameless faces every night can be exhausting. So when our friends come visit us at our restaurant jobs, we feel like human beings again.

Even if you work in the business and we don’t know you personally, it’s our responsibility to make sure you leave drunk, full and happy. We know you’d do the same for us. A restaurant’s reputation among insiders is vital to its success and pampering industry friends pays it forward. You have to be at the top of your game. When restaurant people are impressed, they become evangelists and will spread your gospel to a captive audience that can singlehandedly butter your bread. Word of an ungracious experience travels fast.

In the service industry, we take a lot of pride in what we do and love to show it off. Who better to share all of this with than people who understand what it takes to produce beautiful food and serve it with style? Restaurant schedules are often so rigorous that the only chance you have of seeing a friend who works in the business is to visit them at work. So, we do.

These experiences all begin the same way: “I just came by to see if you were working.”

Even the most innocent visit will end up in your consuming three to four more times the amount of booze and food than you had intended. Your waiter friend will start by asking you: “Is there anything you don’t eat?” The question tells you all you need to know about our mentality. If you don’t tell us what to eliminate, we’re considering sending you everything. Once you get on the train, there’s no way of stopping it.

The meal starts and complimentary things begin materializing unexpectedly. The kitchen sends an extra appetizer—the one you discussed at length with your friend but didn’t order. Your steak comes and they bring a side of potato gratin. You finish your glass of red, turn away for a split second, and it’s automatically refilled like magic. You’re so full at this point that dessert is out of the question, so you decline. But it comes anyway. And, eventually, so will the check. Items you ordered will be suspiciously missing. You leave a huge tip to say thanks, but you know they didn’t do it for the extra gratuity. They did it because they know how hard you work and how much you deserve to be on the receiving end for once.

You leave feeling fat and tipsy; you wake up the next day lazy and hungover. It’s a tragic and beautiful cycle of enabling codependency. Sure, there are consequences. But if we cared about consequences, would we be working in restaurants in the first place? Hell, no.

Dining In a Digital World

How we dine is not immune to the effects of modernization but, historically, the institution of restaurants has come to symbolize a retreat from technology—a place to shut out the noise and get back to the basics of sustaining human life. You can live without Facebook or Twitter but not without Broccoli. As we progress further into the Mobile Era, our need for basic human interaction is subjugated by our obsession with our own digital selves. It’s inevitable for that trend to contaminate the restaurant experience, and it does—for both staff and guest alike—erode the quality of our dining in ways of which we aren’t, but should be, more cognizant.

Distraction is the enemy of successful dining. The dysfunction caused by it can take many different forms—sloppy cooking, negligent service, arguments at the table, or breakdowns in communication between server and guest. A great restaurant experience is emotional, not scientific. Cultivating this chemistry is like a romantic relationship—a little foreplay can’t hurt. Greeting your waiter by asking “What’s your wifi password?” is like approaching someone with “Do you come here often?” at a singles bar—no one’s getting into anyone’s proverbial pants. Technology changes the way we behave in restaurants and makes everything more impersonal. The less we are willing to unplug ourselves from the stream of data while we dine out, the more likely the beauty of the experience is lost on us.

The staff of restaurants are just as guilty of their own brand of attention deficit. Imagine having to put away your smartphone for over eight hours at a time without being able to check your messages or social networks. This is de rigueur in the hospitality industry. Most restaurants frown upon cellphone use during service, for obvious reasons, but it can be difficult to enforce. We’ve all been in a restaurant desperately needing something from our server while he’s hiding in the back checking his cellphone.

This is all to say nothing of how smart devices have changed our relationship with food itself. Where we once felt lost in a restaurant with an esoteric menu, now we can save ourselves the embarrassment of asking a question with a botched pronunciation and just Google it. Of course, Google’s algorithms won’t convey the charming diatribe about the chef’s recent trip to Amalfi and how it inspired his recipe for traditional Cioppino. There’s really no need to solicit the waiter for his recommendations either, because you’ve already vetted the menu online, scouring pages of Yelp reviews and food critic favorites.

Finally, the moment of truth! The food arrives and we reach for our phones before our forks. The moment must be Instagrammed, Tweeted, and Hashtagged before anyone can disrupt the mise-en scène. We can’t eat until everyone we know can digitally share in the glory of the moment. In fairness, our hearts are in the right place. It shows we have an elevated respect for great food. And we’re right, the moment deserves to be preserved, but at times we turn it into a fetish. At some point, we must learn to trust the simplicity of memory to canonize a great meal. Enjoying food is a sensory experience, and the finest meals are best served on a plate not a touchscreen.