The Secrets of Service

The Splendid Table: Conversations & Recipes For Curious Cooks & Eaters

American Public Media

Arts, Food

4.3 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2017

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Host Francis Lam talks to Will Guidara about what defines great service, Joe Yonan finds meatless smoking options with Project Smoke author Steve Raichlen, and Corey Lee tells Francis about his new "covers" restaurant. Plus, Melissa Clark gets a refresher on low-alcohol summer drinks from Spritz co-author Talia Baiocchi. And Lisa McManus from America's Test Kitchen talks about their recent review of espresso machines; she tells us about the winners and gives some advice for marking the perfect espresso drink at home.

Broadcast dates for this episode:

May 27, 2016 (originally aired)
June 9, 2017 (rebroadcast)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Our common nature is a musical journey with Yo-Yo Ma and me, Ana Gonzalez, through this complicated country.
0:08.1	We go into caves, onto boats, and up mountain trails to meet people, hear their stories, their poetry, and of course, play some music, all to reconnect to nature and get closer to the things we're missing.
0:24.5	Listen to Our Common Nature from WNYC wherever you get podcasts.
0:30.0	Hey, it's Francis Lamb, and thanks for downloading this Splend at Table podcast.
0:34.9	We hope you count on us for cooking, culture, and conversation all year round,
0:39.1	and we count on support from listeners like you. So please help chip in to help us make the show
0:44.7	you'll love. Give today at splendidtable.org slash donate.
1:02.1	This is The Splendid Table from APM American Public Media, the show for curious cooks and eaters.
1:21.7	I'm Francis Lamb. For years, my favorite restaurant in the world was a place where the server once walked by and dropped my knife and fork off at the table.
1:25.7	Like literally dropped, clank, clank, clank, and then walked away to do something else.
1:30.8	But I didn't care. In fact, I thought it was a badge of honor that I ate there because the food was so good.
1:34.6	But years later, when I started working in restaurants, I learned an old saw.
1:39.7	Great service can fix bad food, but great food can't do anything for bad service.
1:51.3	And I start to notice how much better I felt, not as an eater, but as a human being, when the servers are truly warm, and when they do things that make it seem like they knew what you wanted before you even did.
2:02.2	And I started to notice that the really, really great servers move a certain way, that they walk and hold plates and place them down a certain way, and that watching them in the dining room can start to feel like a ballet.
2:08.1	But there aren't that many restaurants these days that are really expanding the limits of what good service is about.
2:09.8	Our guest, Will Godera, is a practitioner and really a pioneer in the fine art of restaurant
2:14.2	service.
2:15.3	He is co-owner of New York City's 11 Madison Park and the Nomad,
2:18.8	both restaurants legendary for what they call the front of the house. Thanks so much for
2:23.8	joining us today, Will. I'm very happy to be here, Francis. Thank you. So I'm going to start with a
2:27.9	very simple question for you. What is great service? In its most fundamental form, I think great service is just doing in as
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from American Public Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of American Public Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.