Fred Sirieix on why the table is more than just a place to rest your plate

The table. A simple structure: a flat piece of wood balanced on four legs. At home, we treat it casually and at mealtimes we usually throw down some mismatched knives and forks (with chipped handles), and use kitchen roll as paper napkins. In any good restaurant, however, the look and the feel of the tables are paramount to customer satisfaction.

And so they should! The surface of the table is like an artist’s canvas that starts out blank and is gradually filled in.

To set a table to restaurant standard is a professional skill, and one that I am proud to have worked hard at and mastered. As you will see, a table is never just a table in a restaurant; it is the sum of many different aspects and much careful work.

From my early childhood, I was the table setter. Before every meal at home, as my mother cooked in the kitchen, my job was to set the table – and to set it properly. So, even before I began a life in service, I had a proper appreciation for a well-laid table. Onto the table went the plates, cutlery, linen napkins, a jug of water and glasses, as well as bread and, as is the French way, wine. It is possible that more often than not I put the fork on the right rather than the left.

At catering college, I have to confess that during my first year I did not know how to set a table because I could never remember where to place the fork and where to place the knife. Pretty basic knowledge for you, perhaps, but for me it was always a source of deep confusion. For some reason my brain simply could not retain the information. One weekend I saw my aunt Nicole, and she asked how I was enjoying catering college. I said ‘It’s great, but I can never remember whether the fork goes on the left or the right.’ In a flash, Aunt Nicole solved the problem. She pressed her left hand to the left side of her chest and told me, ‘All you need to remember is that the fork goes on the side of your heart.’ That’s how I’ve remembered it ever since.

In the service world, as well as having a clean dining room, you must also know your dining room: a clear understanding of the table plan for the service ahead is essential before you even think about the table. Each table is placed both in relation to the other tables and the other chairs, but also in relation to where the guests will come from and whether they will be able to sit down without disturbing others at their tables, or at the tables around them. This may sound obvious, but you would be surprised at how few restaurants really pay attention to this.

There also has to be sufficient room for the waiters to be able to carry out service, comfortably passing around the table and guests. And never forget: just as a hotel does not have 13 floor, a restaurant does not have a table 13. Who would want to sit at table 13? (Bowing to the restaurateur’s superstition, there is no Chapter 13 in this book.)

Poor positioning of a table is a basic and common mistake. Every chair at the table has a position number that relates to the guest at the table, so that when the dishes are brought to the table you do not need to ask which guest is having. This is established when you take the order from each guest. You write down, for example, ‘Beef – 1. Dover sole – 2.’ and so on.

At the table, sometimes you do see a particularly well-folded napkin, which is pretty and uplifting. But the intricate folding means that the waiter has had to touch it ten or 20 times with his hands. Instead, I like a napkin that is simply folded, thereby eliminating repeated contact, no matter how clean your hands are.

Once the napkins have been positioned, you place the knives on the table. Not the forks. The knife is laid first because in the high-class restaurants of the old days there would always be a sommelier, and he was the one in charge of putting the glasses on the table before service. To place them correctly he used the positioning of the knife.

Unfortunately, the undersides of the table and chairs have to be checked. There are times, I am sorry to say, when guests put chewing gum – or worse – under their seats.

open image in gallery

I have also worked in restaurants where guests have placed small pieces of uneaten food, or even bits they have chewed, found not to their taste and spat out, under the arms or seats of their chairs or on the underside of tables.

Less unhygienic but no less hazardous, there may also be splinters of wood lurking under chairs or tables. You do not want the guests to discover any of this, so before they arrive you must conduct your own search by running your fingers under each table and chair to make sure they are clean. The things we do!

Edited from Secret Service: Lifting the lid on the restaurant world by Fred Sirieix (Quadrille, £16.99). Photography: Chris Terry