Western food service originated from European aristocratic families, and different regions use different service methods.
After years of induction, summary and improvement, Western food service has formed four common service types: French service, Russian service, British service and American service.
Today's Western restaurants often combine two or more service methods in order to coordinate their menus and Western restaurant facilities.
Specialty Western restaurants use a unique service method, such as French-style service in French Western restaurants.
We will focus on French service, Russian service, British service and American service.
1. French style service (french style service) French style service is a service method that pays great attention to etiquette and is popular in Western upper class society.
Allowing customers to enjoy exquisite meals, perfect service and an elegant and romantic atmosphere is the purpose of French service.
French service is attentive, slower-paced and expensive.
Traditional French service is quite fussy.
After finishing a dish, the customer must leave the dining table and let the waiter finish cleaning before continuing to dine, which is very time-consuming.
Western restaurants also have to prepare a lot of utensils, and each meal has a lot of food and a lot of waste.
Nowadays, this kind of service is no longer seen.
Today's popular French service is to cook all or part of the food in the kitchen and bring it to the Western restaurant on a silver plate. The service staff performs impromptu processing performances in front of the guests, such as Diana Steak, Black Pepper Beef Fillet, and Dessert Susan Pancakes.
After the waiter performs the final cooking process on the cooking cart, he slices and puts it on a plate and serves it to the customer.
Another example is Caesar salad (caesarsalad), which is made by the waiter in front of the customer, put into a salad wooden bowl, and then served to the customer.
French service requires two service personnel, a waiter and a waiter's assistant, to serve a table of customers.
The waiter's tasks are: taking orders from customers and serving drinks; performing impromptu cooking performances in front of customers to enhance the atmosphere of the Western restaurant; delivering bills and settling accounts for customers.
The tasks of the waiter assistant are: deliver the order form to the kitchen, put the dishes prepared in the kitchen on the cart and send them to the western restaurant, deliver the dishes that the waiter has put on the plate to the customers, be responsible for clearing the tableware, and obey the waiter
s arrangement.
In French service, except for bread, butter, salad and other foods that must be placed on the left side of the guest seat, they are served from the left side of the customer. All other food and beverages are served to the table from the right side of the guest seat with the right hand.
French service is a very luxurious service that can attract the most attention of customers and give them more personal care.
However, French service requires the use of many expensive tableware, dining carts, and side tables, so the space utilization rate of Western restaurants is very low, and it also requires more trained professional service personnel.
2. Russian service (russianservice) Russian service originated from the Tsarist era in Russia.
Similar to French service, Russian service is also a luxurious service that pays attention to etiquette.
While there's plenty of silverware, there's less showmanship from the wait staff.
It pays attention to practical results and pays attention to graceful and elegant style.
Russian-style service involves one waiter completing the entire service procedure.
The waiter takes out the food cooked and decorated by the chef from the kitchen and puts it on the silver plate and the hot empty plate. He places the dish on the service side table of the Western restaurant and presses the hot empty plate in order with his right hand.
In the clockwise direction, the dishes are handed to the customers from the right side of the guest seat, and then the silver plate with the dishes is brought to the table for the customers to watch. Then, the napkin is placed on the left hand to hold the silver plate, and the serving fork and spoon are held in the right hand. Press the reverse button from the left side of the guest seat.
Go around the table clockwise to deliver food to customers.
When distributing dishes, distribute them according to the customer's needs to avoid waste and insufficient distribution. A clean serving fork must be used for each dish.
Soup dishes can be served in large silver bowls and spooned into the customer's soup basin, or they can be served in silver cups and poured into the soup basin from the cup.
Russian-style service saves manpower and is faster than French-style service. Western-style restaurants have high space utilization and can show their exquisiteness and elegance, making customers feel special care. The excess food after delivery can also be recycled
.
However, if customers order the same dish, then when the last customer is served, all he will see is an unsightly plate.
If each customer ordered a different dish, the waiter would have to bring out many silver platters.
As you can imagine, the investment in a variety of silverware is huge, but the usage rate is quite low.
Therefore, high fixed costs will also affect the economic benefits of Western restaurants.
Nowadays, Russian service is limited to family-style banquets with a small number of people.
3. British style service: British style service is also called family-style service and is mainly suitable for private banquets.
The waiter takes out the cooked food from the kitchen, puts it on a large plate and brings it to the owner together with the hot empty plate. The owner cuts the main ingredients and divides them into plates. The waiter acts as the owner's assistant and divides the dishes for the owner.
Dishes are brought to customers one by one.
Various condiments and side dishes are placed on the dining table, and customers can pass them to each other and pick themselves up as needed.
Customers, like attending a family banquet, eat by themselves after receiving the dishes.
Waiters sometimes help hosts cut food, so they must have skilled cutting skills and satisfactory plating skills.