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The Check, please.
Dec. 4th, 2003 10:24 pmNB. I wrote this Tuesday, but what with one thing or another didn’t get a chance to post it. Shannon is, alas, on her way (arriving soon) back home. A grand visit was had by all. Anyway ..
The Waiter Game
Service in Italian, or at least Venetian, restaurants, tends to work exactly in reverse as in the States. In America, if you’re a good, regular, liked, customer, you get a lot of attention. You get quick, efficient, attentive, service. In Venice, speed of service varies in reverse proportion to how much they like you. The more they like you, the more you’re treated as one of the family, they want you to linger, to chat, and to stay as long as possible. The more they like you, the slower the service. It’s decidedly odd.
On Friday, Shannon and I showed up at Oniga, one of the cozy restaurants I’ve come to like a lot. We began with a caprese salad with a ‘burrata pugliese,’ which is essentially fresh mozarella filled with cream cheese (this is a wonderful invention, however it might sound when described), then proceeded to yummy pasta. An hour or so past. Our drinks were refilled. We got around to ordering a single order of carpaccio with red radicchio from Treviso, received our massive double order from Mario, a waiter who I’ve drunk with at a local watering spot, Café Blue, drank some red wine, and let the evening drift away (with some sweet wine to pass the time for dessert). Sometime around midnight, four hours after arriving, we got around to asking for the bill.
Asking for ‘il conto’ is a delicate dance here. See, if the waiter brings you the bill, it means he or she wants you to leave. But if you ask for the bill, it means you want to leave. So they avoid the issue. Once the waiter is pretty sure that you don’t want to eat or drink anything more, they avoid your gaze, and the dance begins. You try to catch their eye, and they try to avoid yours, until enough time has passed that the bill can conceivably be delivered without insult from either party. In this case, Mario shrugged when I finally asked him, and just said 50 euros, considerably (but not vastly) less than we should have paid.
So that’s the waiter game … except that last night at ‘La Zucca,’ it went beyond all previously seen norms. All of my friends bailed, and Shannon and I had a perfectly delightful meal, sitting inside with a view of the canal, essentially in a private little nook. We ate baked cheese, Tomino, from the mountain regions nearbye, we shared a pasta with pancetta and tomato sauce (amatriciana), we shared delicious lamb chops, which somehow Shannon had never actually eaten before, a plate of baked leeks with gorgonzola, and some spicey fagioli. The two waiters we dealt with were both charming, both known to me, and we chatted on and off as the night waned. Around 10:45 or so (dinner began at 9:30 or so, hence we were moving right along), we shared a ‘panna cotta,’ essentually custard, with lovely honey and almond slivers.
Now this is a small restaurant, with a front room with two tables, a back room with seating for about 16, and our table in the nook in between. There’s not a lot of room to hide. As the last customers paid their bill around 11:00, one of the waiters walked by and made absolutely no attempt to make eye contact either coming or going. Oh, I could have asked him for the bill as he went by. Perhaps he expected me to. But I wasn’t going to lose, damnit.
11:15 The staff was eating in the other room. Shannon and I were pouring the last of our wine, and chatting. I explain the waiter game to her in detail. I tell her I want to win, and she agrees, because she’s nice to me and humors my idiosyncracies.
11:30 The staff finishes their meal and begins to smoke. Shannon, by the way, has quit smoking and we should all tell her how proud we are and generally provide positive reinforcement.
11:35 Shannon agrees to let me wait until midnight. We finish the wine.
11:45 We finish the water. We see shadows as the staff get up and move around a bit here and there, but no one so much as peeks in our direction. I figure they are waiting for me to get up and ask for the bill. But … but … then they would win! Never!
11:55 Most of the staff seem to be leaving, the female waiter and the two cooks heading out the door. I sigh, ready to admit defeat.
11:58 One of our waiters walks back and smiles absently in our direction, but doesn’t so much as stop to ask if there’s anything else we wanted. But this is as much as a victory as I’m going to get. You don’t want to make the waiters force the check on you, that’s rude too. So I ask for the bill, he smiles, as if we haven’t been sitting there for an hour, and as if that’s not why he walked back there, and goes to fetch us for it.
12:02 Out the door. Only two people are left other than us, washing up. We smile and chat for a few more seconds, then head out for a delightful walk home through midnight Venice.
The Waiter Game
Service in Italian, or at least Venetian, restaurants, tends to work exactly in reverse as in the States. In America, if you’re a good, regular, liked, customer, you get a lot of attention. You get quick, efficient, attentive, service. In Venice, speed of service varies in reverse proportion to how much they like you. The more they like you, the more you’re treated as one of the family, they want you to linger, to chat, and to stay as long as possible. The more they like you, the slower the service. It’s decidedly odd.
On Friday, Shannon and I showed up at Oniga, one of the cozy restaurants I’ve come to like a lot. We began with a caprese salad with a ‘burrata pugliese,’ which is essentially fresh mozarella filled with cream cheese (this is a wonderful invention, however it might sound when described), then proceeded to yummy pasta. An hour or so past. Our drinks were refilled. We got around to ordering a single order of carpaccio with red radicchio from Treviso, received our massive double order from Mario, a waiter who I’ve drunk with at a local watering spot, Café Blue, drank some red wine, and let the evening drift away (with some sweet wine to pass the time for dessert). Sometime around midnight, four hours after arriving, we got around to asking for the bill.
Asking for ‘il conto’ is a delicate dance here. See, if the waiter brings you the bill, it means he or she wants you to leave. But if you ask for the bill, it means you want to leave. So they avoid the issue. Once the waiter is pretty sure that you don’t want to eat or drink anything more, they avoid your gaze, and the dance begins. You try to catch their eye, and they try to avoid yours, until enough time has passed that the bill can conceivably be delivered without insult from either party. In this case, Mario shrugged when I finally asked him, and just said 50 euros, considerably (but not vastly) less than we should have paid.
So that’s the waiter game … except that last night at ‘La Zucca,’ it went beyond all previously seen norms. All of my friends bailed, and Shannon and I had a perfectly delightful meal, sitting inside with a view of the canal, essentially in a private little nook. We ate baked cheese, Tomino, from the mountain regions nearbye, we shared a pasta with pancetta and tomato sauce (amatriciana), we shared delicious lamb chops, which somehow Shannon had never actually eaten before, a plate of baked leeks with gorgonzola, and some spicey fagioli. The two waiters we dealt with were both charming, both known to me, and we chatted on and off as the night waned. Around 10:45 or so (dinner began at 9:30 or so, hence we were moving right along), we shared a ‘panna cotta,’ essentually custard, with lovely honey and almond slivers.
Now this is a small restaurant, with a front room with two tables, a back room with seating for about 16, and our table in the nook in between. There’s not a lot of room to hide. As the last customers paid their bill around 11:00, one of the waiters walked by and made absolutely no attempt to make eye contact either coming or going. Oh, I could have asked him for the bill as he went by. Perhaps he expected me to. But I wasn’t going to lose, damnit.
11:15 The staff was eating in the other room. Shannon and I were pouring the last of our wine, and chatting. I explain the waiter game to her in detail. I tell her I want to win, and she agrees, because she’s nice to me and humors my idiosyncracies.
11:30 The staff finishes their meal and begins to smoke. Shannon, by the way, has quit smoking and we should all tell her how proud we are and generally provide positive reinforcement.
11:35 Shannon agrees to let me wait until midnight. We finish the wine.
11:45 We finish the water. We see shadows as the staff get up and move around a bit here and there, but no one so much as peeks in our direction. I figure they are waiting for me to get up and ask for the bill. But … but … then they would win! Never!
11:55 Most of the staff seem to be leaving, the female waiter and the two cooks heading out the door. I sigh, ready to admit defeat.
11:58 One of our waiters walks back and smiles absently in our direction, but doesn’t so much as stop to ask if there’s anything else we wanted. But this is as much as a victory as I’m going to get. You don’t want to make the waiters force the check on you, that’s rude too. So I ask for the bill, he smiles, as if we haven’t been sitting there for an hour, and as if that’s not why he walked back there, and goes to fetch us for it.
12:02 Out the door. Only two people are left other than us, washing up. We smile and chat for a few more seconds, then head out for a delightful walk home through midnight Venice.
