From my notes: Working in an upper-class London restaurant

Anastasia G.
Sep 9, 2018 · 3 min read

I got into the world of high-end restaurants by pure coincidence, like many of my counterparts. A word here, a word there — and I am standing in front of a pretty storefront in one of the most prestigious London neighbourhoods. Paying homage to the Russian classical literature, I will refer to it as Restaurant N. (or just N.) in the future. Back then, it smelled of seafood and hardwood floors, and managers smiled wide offering me to come for a trial shift.

“British people are lazy” — one of my colleagues told me on the first day of my job with secret immigrant-to-immigrant look in their eye — “They cannot work in this industry”. Truth to that, we do not have a single UK national in our restaurant — only Eastern & Southern Europeans. I don’t know if it is cultural or not, but people talk about work here with almost masochistic pride, about how little they slept last night and for how long they had been washing dishes before being promoted to be a waiter. I had no idea there was such thing as promotion to a waiter.

N. is just one of almost 700 upper-range restaurants in the area, part of the giant syncretic machine of leisure and luxury, which is central London. British people indeed do not come there to work, but to spend money and, ultimately, to feel good about themselves. Rich tourists follow suit, bringing in hard-to-grasp accents and tips in mysterious currencies. The Customer is always right, is always honored by the table and viciously discussed behind the scenes.

So far, I am a runner — I bring the food, clean & polish plates, and run errands. We are perpetually understaffed and perpetually tired. During my first week, I work more than 50 hours, most of them — in 12-hour-long shifts. Our managers share the burden of the long days, although it is us, Front-of-the-House staff, that does most of the dirty work on the floor. At least, we are not dishwashers.

In customer service, people sell not only the work of their bodies, or time of their days (and nights). Ultimately, this business is about selling emotion and attention — a product more volatile than seafood platters. It is in the dozen rules of service, haphazard wine tastings and unnecessary rituals of customer engagement. Offering too much attention is worse than offering none — it means you expend the valuable resource too quickly. Turns out, professional versions of friendship and sincerity come with larger set of Terms and Conditions. It is easy to be sincerely pleasant with most customers, and incredibly difficult with others, especially “stayers”. They appreciate quirky romantic aura of empty after-hours restaurants, but feel less for the staff, whose work day is postponed by the lone kissing couple. We work til the last client. Sometimes, another hour creeps into my timesheet after midnight.

Quality of service we offer is constantly under jeopardy, according to our general manager. Constantly frowning woman in her thirties, she carries herself with pride and likes to offer sharp personal criticism on our general meetings. Staff makes mistakes: forgets to bring in drinks before food, mixes up the endless rules and procedures of fine dining, or does something else she does not like. Coincidentally, no-one dares to bring up Catch-22 relationship between the bad state of our business and the toxic, meatgrinder culture that is being cultivated in N.

New waitress comes in two hours before the end of my last shift. She emerges from the guts of staff area, apron on. She is scheduled to do four 12-hour shifts next week. I remember her saying: “this is the most miserable place I ever worked in”. You know, she might be right.

Anastasia G.

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Durham alumna, aspiring analyst and researcher. Russian, ESL