A sucker for honesty

In his pedestrian review of Le Bouchon Breton’s new sibling at Spitalfields, The Independent’s Terry Durack begins with the observation that “an honest waiter is hard to find”. This ostensibly explains why he was both surprised and impressed by the candour of François Bertrand, the brasserie’s restaurant manager:

Tell him you are dithering between the steak frites and the moules frites, and he will tell you the steak frites is good, but no better or worse than any other steak frites around town. The moules, on the other hand, he says, are done better at only one or two other places.

It’s odd that Durack would single out Bertrand as that rarity, an honest waiter, when he identifies Bertrand as the restaurant manager. And even if, as Durack might argue, Bertrand was assuming the responsibilities and posture of an honest head waiter, he might have been doing so only because he recognized the critic and thought it advisable to take charge of his table and do whatever was necessary to prevent him from ordering and ultimately slamming the mediocre steak frites. In any event it is naive of Durack to be putting so much faith in an outwardly honest waiter, head waiter or restaurant manager, especially a French one.

Having worked at restaurants in France and enjoyed a behind-the-scenes look at Parisian brasseries while writing The Bistros, Brasseries, and Wine Bars of Paris I am familiar with the “yes, but” tactic Bertrand may have been using on Durack. At staff meetings prior to dinner service, the brasserie directeur (“floor manager”) would instruct the maîtres d’hôtel (“head waiters”) to move certain dishes, often those yielding the highest margins. If one maître d’hôtel was pushing lobster, it was likely there was a special lobster promotion at Rungis (the city’s wholesale food markets) that week and, as a result, nearly every maître d’hôtel at every brasserie, Right Bank or Left, was doing the same. Rather than employ a naked sales pitch, a more accomplished maître d’hôtel like the one from La Coupole pictured here would suavely seduce undecided diners with feigned sincerity: “Monsieur, ze steak frites, it’s very, very good. Mais, entre nous, ze lobster, c’est exceptionnel. My family, we are from Bretagne. Nev-air ‘ave I tasted in my life one that is juicy and sweet like this lobster.”