When they meet my chef, many of my clients simply break down
and cry for joy. Others - thankfully only a few - use the
opportunity to pour out on this poor man all of the complaints
they have saved up from the time they were six year old.

Restaurateur Jean-Paul Bofinger, 1884

Chefs and restaurateurs all over the world know that they will occasionally have to face complaints. They also know that in addition to complaints that are justified they will also receive others that have no basis in reality. Few things, however, are more frustrating than those clients who seem to enjoy complaining at least as much as they do dining. Lord Alfred Douglas, who was at one time the lover of Oscar Wilde, gained special pleasure from driving restaurateurs mad, especially when the time came to pay the bill. On one occasion, for example, Lord Alfred dined with a friend at Delmonico's restaurant in New York City. The two occupied a table for four and a half hours and throughout the meal both ate with gusto.

When the bill was presented, Lord Alfred demanded to see the chef, and when that notable appeared, Douglas informed him that "the lobsters had been undercooked, the pate was too coarse, the soup had been too salty, the lamb had been too old, and the steaks too tough". Douglas paused for breath and then continued by stating that "the sauces were badly made, the carrots and potatoes were cold when they were brought to the table, the red wine had been served too cold and the white wine too warm. The entire meal", Douglas declared, "had been so bad that it would have been rejected by even an untrained monkey". It seems almost unnecessary to add that Douglas refused to pay for the meal.

Not all client complaints are as unjustified or exaggerated as those of Douglas. The reality, however, is that chefs, maitres d' hotel and restaurateurs do receive complaints and it is critically important to the success of their establishments that they pay close attention to these in order to determine which are justified and which not. Equally important, they must also decide how to respond and what action to take in regard to the complaints of those who patronize their restaurants.

A recent international research study conducted by the members of the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University revealed that complaints in restaurants are similar all over the world. The complaints they uncovered fall into five major categories, and these relate to the quality of the food, the quantity of the food, the level of comfort of the restaurant, the structure of the menu and the prices. They also uncovered a fifth general category that they called "oddball" complaints such as those that relate to the height of the waiters, the fact that "a trout tasted too much like a fish", or that the wine list does not include the client's favorite, although generally unknown, brand of wine from the State of Oregon. Discussions with more than twenty five and restaurateurs revealed that complaints heard fall into many of the same categories whether in Europe, North America or the Middle East. The twenty-five most frequent complaints in restaurants are listed in the following table.

Twenty-Five Most Frequent Complaints (not in order of frequency)

A Few Specifics

"My steak is not cooked enough": One of the most common problems that arises in restaurants, especially with not specially sophisticated diners, occurs immediately after a steak or other large cut of meat has been served and the client calls the waiter to the table to complain that his portion has not been "cooked long enough". The fact that the waiter specifically asked when taking the order whether the client wanted the meat rare, medium-rare or medium rarely has any bearing on this complaint, for, as executive chef Shalom Kadosh of Jerusalem's Sheraton Hotel points out that many people do not really know the meaning of rare or medium-rare". In such cases, agree chefs Kadosh and Hanoch Bar Shalom and restaurateur Assi Aviv, the best practice is to take the steak back to the kitchen and to prepare it in the way the client wants it.

Some chefs, knowing that a well done steak will ruin their efforts, have what they consider a moral problem when it comes to the client who wants a steak well done. Woutrous Lap, formerly the executive chef at the Sheraton Hotel in Tel Aviv, reflects the attitude held by many chefs that "the chef is there to please the client and not his own ego" and even though he admits that it causes him "a certain amount of pain", Lap will cook steaks however it will most please his clients. Few allow themselves the privilege, as master chef Alain Chapel once did, of taking one thousand francs from his pocket, handing it to a client and suggesting that he eat at any of the other 2,700 restaurants in France.

"The portion is too small": In 1969, when nouvelle cuisine was still a brand new phenomenon, a well known cartoon in New Yorker Magazine showed the head-waiter of an obviously prestigious restaurant asking a diner whether he had enjoyed his main course. The client, with a puzzled look on his face, replied "But tell me, was my main course the two peas, the asparagus tip or the tiny piece of meat that I found in the center of my plate?"

Fortunately, the days when some chefs thought that minuscule portions added to their prestige have passed, and the complaint that someone left this restaurant or that so hungry that they went out for a hamburger is more of a joke than a reality. Many do, however, complain that a portion was too small. Chef Hanoch Bar Shalom, who caters small, exclusive affairs reports that this is a problem primarily with non-sophisticated diners. Shalom Kadosh smiles when the issue is raised, pointing out that there have been several occasions when, during the same day, one client had complained that a portion was too small while another was concerned that the same dish had been served in too large an amount.

Reviva, one of the owners of Ramat ha Sharon's "Reviva and Celia" has found an ideal solution to this problem area and reports that her staff has been instructed in such cases to offer the client an additional portion of the dish in question. Such an offer not only satisfies the customer's appetite but, whether the client was right or wrong in his estimation of what should have been the proper amount of food, also serves as a highly positive sign of good will on the part of the restaurant. In cases where dishes have been specially prepared and cannot simply be "added to", many restaurateurs will offer the client an additional portion of another dish that is easier to serve.

There are times, however, when even restaurateurs reach a point of desperation. Strasbourg's "Maison des Tanneurs", for example is world famous for its huge portions. On one occasion a German visitor to the restaurant insisted that his portion of Choucroute Garni had simply not been large enough. Without question, the waiter rushed off to the kitchen and brought a second, equally large portion. When the client still insisted that he had not been served enough food, owner Maurice Lenhardt became so furious that he ran out into the street, borrowed a horse from a passing cart, led the horse into the restaurant and demanded to know whether the client wanted the horse "rare, medium-rare or well done". Unless your restaurant has been in business for more than 400 years (as the Maison des Tanneurs has), this is not a suggested solution.

"The service is too slow": In addition to each of the chefs, caterers and restaurateurs cited previously, at least a dozen more report that many clients complain because "they have to wait too long for their food". The sad truth is that many Israelis still expect to enter a restaurant, order, complete their meal and pay their bill all within half an hour. While such expectations may be appropriate in a fast food eatery, they have no validity in better restaurants. Ofra Ganor, one of the owners of Tel Aviv's "Taboon", suggests that it is always wise, especially if clients order dishes that have to be prepared to order, and even more especially, at lunch time, to let them know when they order approximately how long it will take until their dishes are ready.

Another sad truth is that service in many restaurants really is too slow, and this is a fact that restaurateurs must face, because customers who feel that their time is being wasted rarely enjoy their meals and even more rarely return for another meal.

"I do not understand the menu": Recently, when I visited Guy Savoy's well known restaurant in Paris, an American couple at the table next to mine complained to the waiter that they could not find anything on the menu that appealed to them. The waiter, realizing that the couple was simply not familiar with the names of the dishes being offered, patiently (and without the least sign of being condescending) explained each of the dishes to them. Within second the couple began to relax, and within minutes they had ordered. They had been neither made to feel foolish nor insulted and then went on to enjoy their meal thoroughly.

On another recent occasion, I was in a well known Jerusalem fish and seafood restaurant when a table of four twenty-five or thirty year old diners made a similar comment to the waiter. The waiter responded sarcastically that "if you don't understand the menu, why did you come here in the first place". That the foursome did not break a bottle over the waiter's head was much to their credit as was the fact that quietly and with great dignity they simply got up and left the restaurant. I am sure they will not return.

"This dish is not prepared well": There are two reasons why a customer will send a dish back to the kitchen. It may simply not be to their taste or it may really have been prepared badly. "In either case", says California chef Robert Parker, "the dish should be immediately returned to the kitchen and, whether the customer was right or wrong, he should graciously be given another dish of his choice". Parker adds that whatever the reason, the chef should also be sure to taste the dish to make sure that he really did not make a fatal error.

"There is a fly in my sauce": That flies do occasionally make their way into a sauce or soup is an undeniable fact of life. There really are people, however, who will carry a dead fly with them or put one of their own hairs into their food in order to avoid paying the bill. "The giveaway", says Assi Aviv of "Picasso" is "those people who always find the fly at the very end of their meal". Whatever, the best policy in such cases, says Dominique Le Stanc, the chef at Monte Carlo's "Chantecler", is to "beg their forgiveness and then to deduct not the entire cost of the meal but the cost of the offending dish from their bill". Le Stanc adds that "of course if the same person finds two flies on two separate occasions, he is asked never to return to our restaurant again".

Knowing The Client

As restaurants can be divided into general categories so can people who dine out be perceived as belonging to various groups. Because each group tends to have its own set of complaints, it is important for restaurateurs and chefs to recognize into which of these categories the majority of their clients fall.

According to the Cornell University study, Frequent Diners, those who dine out five or more times per month, are prone to have specific rather than general complaints. They will complain, for example, about the quality of a specific dish or sauce; the temperature at which a dish was served; the fact that the service was too familiar or not responsive enough; or the overall quality of the wine list. To the contrary, Moderately Frequent Diners, that is to say, those who dine out between two and four times monthly, tend to have general rather than specific complaints and most frequently report problems with the size of the portions, the level of the prices, the levels of spiciness of the food; and their perception that the service was either too slow or too rapid.

The most commonly heard complaints by Infrequent Diners, those who eat at restaurants less than twice monthly tend to be personal in nature. Such diners often comment that the food was "not like they are used to", that various dishes are "are not made like we had them in Italy", that the chairs or tables in the restaurant were not comfortable, that there were too many choices on the menu, or that they "did not like the waiter".

The study also showed that the more often people dine out, the less frequently they complain and when they do complain there is a good chance that there complaint is justified. This is possibly accounted for by the fact that those who dine out frequently have developed a realistic set of expectations for the restaurants they frequent and if those expectations are met, they have little reason for complaint.

© Daniel Rogov