Sybil Davis (of the Culinary Institute of the Carolinas at Greenville Technical College) presents specific tips concerning eating bread, drinking beverages and paying the bill in a formal dining setting.
http://www.gvltec.edu/culinary_institute/
Now I want to talk with you about how to eat bread properly in fine dining. In fine dining, your bread and butter plate will always be on your left hand side.
So if you take the bread that was on your right hand side, you have taken someone else’s bread. To eat bread properly, you want to pick up your piece of bread, hold it over your bread and butter plate, and break off one bite at a time.
Then, if you’re going to have butter, you place the butter on your bread and butter plate. You don’t use the butter from the main dish of butter. You place it on your bread and butter plate, and you butter and eat one bite at a time.
So, that is the proper way to eat bread in fine dining. Now – salt and pepper shakers: These are a pair. They like to stay together. If someone asks you to please pass the salt, pass both.
If they still say, “No, I only want the salt” still pass both, and make brilliant conversation with someone else at the table like you still want to give them both of them even though they just want one.
Place them on the table next to you so they can pick them up rather than trying to place them in their hands. That way if you pass both, if someone on around the table wants both, they have stayed together.
A little bit about your beverage -If you have a glass with a stem, hold it by the stem if the stem is tall enough. You don’t hold your glass up here. Hold it by the stem.
If you want to use lemon in your beverage, you can just put the slice of lemon into your glass. You don’t squeeze the lemon. Even if you’re going to try to squeeze the lemon and
keep it from getting on someone else with the other hand – No. You just take the slice of lemon and place it in the beverage and you’ll get enough of that lemon flavor just by it being in that beverage.
If you have utensils that are at the top of your place setting, those are for your dessert. If your sever does not move those down when it comes time for dessert,
You may move those down – the spoon over to the right and the fork over to the left. I’ll bet you’re thinking, “What should I do if I just don’t like the food and I just cannot eat it?”
Push it around on the plate, making that brilliant conversation with the other people at the table, without making any negative comment about that food. Those little sugar packets – I bet you wonder sometimes what to do with those once you’ve used them?
Let just say we’re going to an artificial sweetener. One thing you don’t want to do is this number. It will be okay.You can open it and you’ll get enough of it without trying to get it all to one side.
And then you want to tear off one corner, use it, and then you want to fold it up pretty tightly and place it under a plate or a saucer. That way it doesn’t clutter up the whole table.
One thing you don’t want to do – and this would take you right into that hall of shame again – and that is while you’re talking, wave your utensils. That certainly is not appropriate nor professional. Always be very respectful of your servers.
I always notice this in other people – some people dining at my table might be very, very nice to me, but they might be a little rude and disrespectful to the servers. That tells me a lot about that person.
If you’re trying to get the attention of your server, you don’t need to call out or wave. There is a little silent service code there, too. A server will be watching you for your needs, and you can just look
use eye contact, a gentle nod of the head, and they’ll know that you are in need of something and they’ll come to your table. Now, what do you do if you drop a utensil on the floor? Servers would rather you leave it there and let them pick it up.
If it’s on the floor, then it’s contaminated, right? So it does not need to be back up on that table. They will notice it. If they don’t notice it, bring it to their attention,
And say “Would you mind picking that up for me and bring me another? I would really appreciate it.” Now, who pays the bill? In a business situation whoever does the inviting does the paying. So keep that in mind
And there is a little method that works well. If you’ve invited someone to lunch or to dinner, and you know that at the end of the meal there is going to be this little argument
of “No, I’ll take care of it.” “No, let me take care of it.” Then you arrive early; ask to speak to the manager or the server that you’re going to have, and give them your credit card, add the tip, tell them how much tip you want to add,
And then tell them that you’ll sign it on the way out and pick up your card. That way at the end of your meal, there is none of that “Well, you know that I would take care of it.”
You just say, “It’s already taken care of.” Now how cool is that?