06-01-2016
Simone Dimitri, left, with the beard, guiding the dining room team at Trussardi alla Scala in Milan (to the right, chef Roberto Conti). He participates in the debate on Identità Golose after the articles by Enrico Camelio, Lisa Foletti, Donato Marzolla, Ruggero Penza, Ramona Anello and Ermes Cantera
Maître, that is to say “dining room manager”. As with all managers, you have to manage people, guide them in what is the ultimate goal: making guests happy. This is my job, and I like it. Today “the dining room” is a debated topic as through all media channels lots is being said about cooking. I’d just like people to know how a 30-year-old guy feels, directing the restaurant orchestra.
Let’s start from the dining room team, which is an easy concept: it’s a group of people. The fact a dinner or lunch is perfect, doesn’t depend on the skills of a sole chef or sole waiter. It is, indeed, a question of team. For the work to be well done, everyone has an important part, and then of course we have chef and maître, that is to say the faces, the people responsible, those who catalyse compliments and critiques. They should more and more often understand how it is impossible to have excellent results without teamwork.
What makes me happy during a service, or as a guest leaves, it’s praises. Of course those for the food are the most common but I’m even happier when the nice words are also directed at the guys in the dining room. These things make me happy.
All my staff participates in the moments dedicated to the guest, when the role of the maître becomes that of the now-forgotten host and, passing beside the table you collect praises and critiques, questions and requests. In these moments of relative calm, I invite all the dining room team, in turn, of course, to come closer and listen, so that each one of them can realise what today’s clients need.
I would never betray my maison, a place that has given me visibility and has also believed and still does in me. Today I’m still here, guiding a magnificent place which once again offers me a challenge: getting back the Michelin star we lost, getting back what we deserve and which, due to a series of elements in a rather weird world, we lost. I say it using the plural, “we need to get it back” because we can only win or loose together.
The public side of a restaurant seen by its protagonists: maître, restaurant managers, waiters
by
Born in 1985 in Milan. From september 2013 Dimitri is maître at Trussardi alla Scala
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