Brazilian customer doesn’t want waiters, demands servants – 10/25/2023 – Cozinha Bruta

Young Laurène is a sommelière at the La Bastide restaurant, in Bonnieux, in the south of France. The restaurant, inside a luxury hotel in Provence, has one star in the Michelin guide. It only serves a tasting menu.

It was Laurène who did all the table service the night I had dinner at Bastide. Not just my table, but all occupied tables. There were three tables. Do you think it’s not enough?

She explained the food and wine, asked if everything was ok, brought the full plates and took the empty plates back. It didn’t stop for a second, as each group received ten servings with the corresponding wines.

Everything worked in perfect sync. At the end of the shift, two colleagues left their posts in the kitchen to help Laurène finish the service – and get everyone going home faster.

A dinner at this restaurant costs 175 euros (270 euros, if paired with the drinks chosen by Laurène). The wealthy paying people – I wasn’t one of them – were completely satisfied with the service provided by just one person.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, we require a waiter to be at the table even in the most smelly places. I say “we” because I include myself in this behavior. It’s something that the Brazilian middle class does as if it were natural.

Jamaican restaurant Healthy Eaters in London is not foot odor. Far from it. It’s a neat but simple place that serves delicious Caribbean food in the Brixton neighborhood.

I went there with family and friends on a random Saturday. There were menus on the table. A lovely lady, the only person behind the counter, only approached us when she saw that we had already had time to read the menu.

“Do you want to order?” he said.

“Four beers, please,” I replied.

But the woman didn’t move from our table. After a few seconds, she broke the awkward silence: “And to eat?”

If it were in Brazil, we would drink a round or two before thinking about lunch itself. Not in England. Or you order everything at once because you know that the waiter – or anyone else responsible for serving – has more to do.

This is also the case in the United States, Europe and all other First World countries. In Brazil is different.

Take a São Paulo pizzeria on a Sunday night.

A couple arrives, sits at a table for ten people, and orders two draft beers. Then the rest of the family arrives in drops, in a process that takes half an hour or more. Each end of the table orders drinks at their own time.

Finally they decide to order the pizzas, which the restaurant employee leaves on a sideboard out of reach of customers. Every time someone finishes eating a piece, the holy waiter needs to be around to replace the pizza. It’s insane.

Because it’s like this? I have my guess.

It has to do with the way that the money owners invented to maintain a minimum of stability in our mocked society. So that the educated and educated don’t unite with the masses and set the whole thing on fire.

The rich allow the middle classes to maintain some privileges that, in other countries, only the top of the elite can afford: maid, a few workers to paint walls and change burnt out light bulbs, two (three, four) parking spaces, health plan with hospitalization in an apartment.

And a waiter at the foot of the table to get more ice for the Coca-Cola at the snap of his fingers.

Between a nice life for everyone and the crumbs that fall from the pockets of those who own the money, we have already made our choice.

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