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Table MannersWhat Service Included teaches us about restaurant service.

By Sara DickermanPosted Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2007, at 4:11 PM ET

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Bryan Curtis spent a night on the town with guidebook royalty Tim and Nina Zagat. Jill Hunter Pellettieri scrutinized the peculiar station of Danny Meyer, part foodie, part business guru. Sara Dickerman explored the socioeconomic oddities of restaurant tipping. Jeffrey Steingarten and Amanda Hesser wondered why foodies were fuming over Kitchen Confidential.

Degree of Difficulty: C = $$$
Always account for the complexity (C) of your server's work. High-end restaurants may require servers to french vegetables (not as naughty as it sounds), fillet fish, or poach meringues tableside in liquid nitrogen. At the movies, I'm a sucker for training scenes—Rocky, Showgirls, Tampopo—and my favorite parts of Service Included detail the training Keller's management puts the servers through. Such tests include choreography lessons, simulated soup serving using watered-down ketchup, and quizzing on the restaurant's dishes and wines. A gem of a question from one written test: "Circle the correct one: Cippolini, Cipolini, Cipollini, Cipolinni."

The Mistake Principal: CM ≤ 2(M)
The time it takes to correct a mistake (CM) should be equal to or less than two times the time it took to make the mistake (M).

Unfortunately, Service Included skirts the issue of mistakes (and I'm sure they're made, even at Per Se). I'd liked to have heard how feathers are unruffled in a place of such calm. How to handle mistakes quickly and efficiently? At a two-star restaurant in Lyon, France, this year, my husband and I were nursing a half bottle of white Burgundy. Our waiter absent-mindedly poured some mineral water into my husband's wine glass, before crying out an exclamation both pained and hushed (anticipating, I suspect, the hiding he would get). Before we could react, he returned to our table with two glasses of an eight-year-old Côte-Rotie, a far grander wine than we had been drinking. We were hard pressed not to wish for another stumble, but the rest of the meal was flawless down to the mignardises.

While an apology might come in the form of very noble grape juice at fancy restaurants, efficiently mitigating mistakes is a key to good service at any restaurant. A slice of pie can do the trick, but even a sincere, but simple "I'm sorry" can work.

The Tipping Principal: T ≥ .20
My formulas above would seem to add up to a tip calculator, but in truth, I am as flat as Steve Forbes on tipping: 20 percent on the tab—wine included—every time. (The national average tip is 18.9 percent, according to Zagat.) Why? Waiters are generally paid minimum wage, and tips are their income (they are even taxed on estimated tips). I don't care to mess with that. Many diners view tipping as a method to evaluate a server—a percentage plus or minus for the sloshed water service or a friendly smile. But, as I've written before, tipping is not the best way to communicate your opinion. When tipping 16 percent, you might be trying to say, "I waited too long for my check," but the waiter just thinks you're cheap. If you have complaints and want to voice them effectively, follow up with management.

Perilous as a stiffed tip can be for servers, gratuities are not something they are ready to give up—especially at restaurants like Per Se. Just before Damrosch quit, Per Se switched to a different compensation system, with 20 percent gratuities built into the bill (in lieu of tips at the discretion of the diner) to be divided by management among all staff, cooks included. Fair as the system sounds—similar programs are also in play at Chez Panisse and Charlie Trotter's—and despite the fact that Per Se offered a higher wage for the servers to make up for their lost gratuity income, Damrosch estimates that the new system would have meant the loss of one-quarter of her salary.

In the end, Damrosch's decision to leave waitressing after less than two years at Per Se limits the draw of the book. Service Included gives us a peek at the world of fine dining, but since Damrosch clearly has more of a passion for writing than wine, she doesn't show the complete dedication to métier that has made Keller and his team stand out in both Napa and New York. That's fine—it's the line-cook dabbler in me that recognizes the serving dabbler in Damrosch. But I'm still hoping someone will publish a truly fanatic voice on service, someone who writes as passionately and arcanely about finessing a table as Keller writes a menu.