Learning to serve you
Latest restaurant from Oliver & Bonacini puts staff through the paces
THE TOWN OF THE BLUE MOUNTAINS—
It’s somewhere between a rah-rah sales meeting and a cult initiation, and the message is loud and clear: if you are not a foodie, you won’t fit in. The purpose is to “ indoctrinate” the recruits hired for the new Oliver & Bonacini Café · Grill with the company’s philosophy of “ intelligent, enthusiastic and emotional service.”
“ We will achieve our mission through fanatical adherence to the core Oliver Bonacini values,” Peter Oliver tells the first wave hired for the 150- seat restaurant on day one of staff training. They are an elite crew. Of 180 applicants, 110 were interviewed and only 29 hired for this latest venture by Peter Oliver and Michael Bonacini. The restaurateurs have a stable of Toronto eateries: Canoe, Auberge du Pommier, Jump Café & Bar and Oliver & Bonacini Café · Grill at Bayview Village.
“ We hand- select each and every employee we invite to join our team,” explains Oliver. “ We’re looking for live wires, not bozos.” He expects two or three of the trainees will decide they don’t fit. Another 30 or so will eventually need to be hired. “ Training is very expensive,” Oliver points out. “ It takes a lot of our resources to indoctrinate our staff — perhaps I should I say instil our values.” The biggest challenge facing this community is finding enough people to fill service industry jobs, a recent economic conference heard. The area has enjoyed explosive growth since 1999, when Vancouver- based Intrawest Corp. announced its new Village at Blue Mountain development. But Oliver remains confident that the best in the industry will want to work for him. And he hopes that those who fail the interview process leave with the thought: “ One day I’m going to get a job there.” With half a dozen years in the restaurant industry under her belt, including a stint as dining room manager at a local fine dining restaurant, Abigail Hitchens, 26, didn’t expect to learn a great deal about food service during the two weeks of training.
“ I’ve been amazed at how much there was to learn,’’ she admits as she confidently serves cappuccinos — with exactly the right amount of froth as outlined in the Oliver Bonacini manual — during the final dry run before the restaurant’s opening.
“ I’ve never been so motivated,” admits Hitchens. “ I think it’s awesome.” Jody Decoste, 27, who has been dining room manager at a local Italian restaurant, is also taken aback. “ It all so new. It’s quite an adventure.” The Oliver & Bonacini Café · Grill provides breakfast, lunch, dinner, 24- hour room service and convention dining for the 220- room Westin Trillium House. There’s another connection here: Executive chef Mark Marchment apprenticed under Bonacini 20 years ago. The Westin is the area’s first four- star condo/hotel. The restaurant opened Nov. 10, on the same day as the first 110 hotel rooms. So there was no time for a soft opening to work out the kinks.
That meant training ( including roleplaying), three dry runs and, as Hitchens put it, “ a lot of homework.” The dry runs were like dress rehearsals where staff members could practise their skills on invited guests. An emphasis on kitchen training pushed home the point that even simple tasks will be vital to the restaurant’s success. As Oliver puts it, a kitchen helper is “ the most important person in the company” when he or she puts a salad together. The training sessions are repetitive and intense. Servers practise skills such as opening wine bottles that are corked but full of water, until they get it right. Watched by supervisors from the Bayview Village Oliver & Bonacini, who came up to help lead the training session, Hitchens approaches two “ guests” ( fellow trainees) with a bottle of wine.
First she shows the guest the label to check that it’s the wine ordered. Then she opens the bottle while ensuring the label is always facing the “ guest” and the pop from the cork isn’t too loud.
Hitchens pours the wine, remembering to let the “ host” taste it first, but her fellow trainees are quick to point out that she has forgotten to place the bottle on the side plate. She does get high marks from the supervisors for “ emotionally engaging the guests” in friendly and intelligent conversation.
Later in the training process comes a chance for the staff to taste the entire menu.
“ Food is life,” Bonacini repeats as he describes the ingredients. Even something as simple as a tomato must be just right, he insists. Stored at room temperature and perfectly ripe, tomatoes are sliced at the time of service, then seasoned
with sea salt and
cracked pepper,
making a perfect
base for the crumbled blue cheese and tomato salad ( one of five on the menu).
Calamari, which is grilled and served on a spicy eggplant and tomato caponata, comes from New Zealand. Mushroom soup is creamy without cream or butter. Beef carpaccio is thinly sliced young beef — but not veal — and is served uncooked.
It would have been hard for anyone to leave the table at the end of the tasting session without an appreciation for good food. Some may have even become foodies. But the first dry run lunch — one week into training — hits plenty of snags. The computer system crashes, the dishwasher over- chlorinates the water glasses, and someone drops a tray of dishes with a loud crash that echoes through the dining room. The gas flame pillar that’s the focal point of the restaurant won’t light, and the cappuccino machine acts up and over- froths.
It takes nearly two hours to get lunch, but server Paige Muth takes it all in stride and never falters.
“ My husband says I’ve become an Oliver & Bonacini clone, but I don’t mind. I’m proud to be here because the standard of service is so high,’’ says Muth, 41, who has 20 years of experience in the restaurant industry. The last dry run is held Nov. 8, two days before the restaurant opens to the public. By now everyone has perfected their roles, everything goes off without an apparent hitch and food is served promptly. Drew and Barb Easterbrook, whose 22- year- old son Sean Easterbrook is a server’s assistant (read busboy) are among the invited guests. Drew (who eats Southern Smoked Back Ribs with Sage and Cornbread Pudding) and Barb ( who has grilled Atlantic salmon) love the food, but are most surprised to see the professional and confident way their son works.
“It’s great to see,” enthuses Barb. “ He’s starting at the bottom, but I can’t believe how much he’s had to learn. I think he’s studied harder for this than when he was at university studying physics.” Roberta Avery is a Meaford-based freelance writer.