Not Just Anyone Can Become a Maître d'Hôtel
Holding this role calls for real qualities. First, there is passion for the craft, which is needed to overcome the constraints that come with the job itself. That is the foundation: without passion, you will never feel fulfilled in this role, and you will end up feeling like you are enduring it rather than living it. This will keep you from delivering quality service. Your inner self will suffer for it, and sooner or later, you will leave the profession.
You also need to be fully present in your role, not looking to escape it. Wearing the uniform helps with that. For Denis Courtiade, president of the Association au Service des Talents de Demain, the uniform does not change who the maître d'hôtel is as a person, but it lets him be himself through a kind of filter. When an employee arrives at work and puts on the uniform, he steps into a role that he will carry throughout his service. He joins a team bound to a craft, a history, a reputation that he will come to embody. He brings his own authenticity and professional spirit, and sets his personal life aside for the length of the service.
You also need constant resilience. Every step of table service is a moment of risk, where a mistake can happen at any time. That is simply human: you have to be able to adapt and tame the unexpected when it appears out of nowhere. It helps to keep moving forward without losing control of events and without ever feeling overwhelmed. You have to rise above every experience and share it with your guest. A maître d'hôtel needs this capacity to live this way and to keep growing in a positive, principled manner.
Emotional intelligence is a major part of the job. Sensing a guest's emotional state is far from obvious. There are cultural differences that call for broad general knowledge too. Understanding what a guest expects is a real asset: it means anticipating his needs and picking up on what he doesn't say but would love to receive. Sometimes it also calls for diplomacy, and a great deal of transparency. If the guest is "king" in great restaurants, the maître d'hôtel is the guardian of the customs and manners of a country, or of a code of conduct he sometimes has to remind the guest of. Denis Courtiade shares a few examples in his book, including a time he had to ask a public figure to put his jacket back on after he had taken it off during the meal. Denis had thought of everything and offered his guest a personal fan instead.
Adaptability is another key skill. You have to know how to respond to changes in society, to new trends, and constantly meet your guests' expectations. The introduction of the naturalité concept at Alain Ducasse's restaurant at the Plaza Athénée in 2014 is a good example. It was an enormous challenge: creating a new menu, a new restaurant, a new service signature, no more meat and therefore fewer great wines on the list, fewer tablecloths, less flexibility in the number of tables set up in the restaurant, starting over from scratch with the Michelin stars (two stars after a year, then three the following year). Denis shows in his book the rewards of this profession, and above all the richness of the encounters it brings. The job goes beyond the restaurant itself, and once a bond forms with a guest, it becomes possible to offer him a continuous kind of service that follows him through his different travels. The notion of service is universal, and it does not stop with working hours: being at a guest's service means being available around the clock, and responding quickly, especially in luxury hospitality.
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