Mr. Flores

Food & Beverage

Sommelier & Chef Interaction Will Make Your Restaurant Excel

By Juan Carlos Flores, Executive Sommelier, Pueblo Bonito Hotels Resorts & Spas

How often have you gone to a restaurant and though the setting was beautiful, the total experience was merely adequate? And how often have you thought how rare it is to find a restaurant where the entire experience was perfect?

Proper ambiance, good service, good food and a good selection of wine among other beverages are all important for the success of a restaurant. But more is required to make your restaurants a standout. It takes perfect communication and interaction between the kitchen and the service, the chef and the sommelier, to create the perfect fusion in everything your guests will taste.

I find the origin of the word "restaurant" fascinating and extremely pertinent to the subject of this discussion. It stems from the same root as the verb "to restore," in this case pertaining to restoring bodily energy and health. In much earlier times, travelers either walked or used far more primitive means of transportation than we have today. After days of walking they needed to stop at hospitable homes to be fed and restore their energies. Today, we not only have sophisticated forms of rapid transportation, but also an enormous variety of available restaurants. When diners choose a restaurant that counts a sommelier among their other important services, they are not patronizing that restaurant simply to restore their physical energies. They go to restore mind and spirit and with the expectation of a beyond-the-ordinary experience that gives pleasure to all five of their senses. Fulfilling that expectation before the final check is delivered should be the goal of the restaurant.

We all know that in addition to the setting, a restaurant is judged by its chef. In every very good restaurant we have a good chef and also a good restaurant manager. In an excellent restaurant we have a very good chef, a very good manager and a very good sommelier. But the formula for a magnificent fine dining restaurant requires all these people working together in perfect communication, sharing the same passion and working toward the same objective.

Each one of these elements is of vital importance. The chef is in charge of his team, which produces the food. The restaurant manager is in charge of the ma^itre d' hotel, the wait-staff and the details of the dining room, and must provide perfect service. The chief sommelier is in charge of other sommeliers who propose the perfect beverages in accordance with the food and the clients' preferences.

Originally, in Europe a sommelier was a "taster," the person who sampled the food and drink of the king to verify that they were palatable and not poisoned. Over time, the sommelier's role expanded to recommending the manner and the order in which the king should eat each dish in order to enjoy the utmost flavor and aid digestion. This is why the French prefer eating salads at the end of the meal. They believe that salads clean and refresh the mouth and stomach after the main courses. As an aperitif they also prefer a glass of champagne or a dry martini with an olive, because the champagne has great acidity and the martini enough bitterness to enhance the appetite. Liquors and creams taken before a meal can depress the appetite and distract from the flavors of a meal.

To achieve excellence today, the sommelier, the chef and the restaurant manager must be knowledgeable about the food, ingredients and beverages of the world, as well as any other product that can be tasted with the five senses. These include the water, coffee, tea, and cigars that complete the entire experience. If they know the theory of their products and have practice discovering flavors with love, it will be very easy to progress.

When I first began studying different cuisines and wines in hotel management school, I encountered some chefs who were trained to believe that the sommelier's job is to find the wine that goes well with their food. This was sometimes difficult because of the style of the chef and the ingredients he used. Some years later after my sommelier studies, I began as a "stagier," or practicing sommelier in wonderful restaurants, and I found other ideas with chefs who already knew about wine. Some of them had even studied as a sommelier before becoming chefs. I also found chief sommeliers that studied in a culinary school before being in charge of the wine. Their attitudes were completely different. They were very open to ideas and changes in their recipes, using new ingredients that helped match the food with wine in a perfect way. When they needed a third opinion, the restaurant manager, with his vast experience and knowledge, would complete the trilogy.

Good food and good wine on their own are pleasurable, but when they come together well-married, it is an unbelievable experience. To create that experience, we need to guide our clients because we can't be sure that people will taste food in the way it can best be appreciated. Sometimes chefs prepare delicious sophisticated dishes with different sauces, textures and creative garnishes that taste wonderful together but are presented separately in the same dish. The chef assumes that clients will know what part of the dish they should taste first, but unfortunately that is not always the case. For example: we present a serving of caviar in a dish with some little squares of boiled egg, next to other little squares of onion and fresh cream, and on the side a basket with blinis. Even if we have clients who may know how start, to make the experience more pleasant we should explain the order in which we suggest they begin, instead of leaving them to start with the onion and the egg. Another example is a plate of assorted cheeses served with a bittersweet marmalade, which could accent certain blue cheeses, yet we leave people to taste it with Reblouchon and Brie.

A fine dining chef should always try to simplify the possible combinations and guide clients to taste dishes that are hard to prepare in everyday at-home cuisine. Exploring good, so-so and bad experiences by trying different cheeses with different ingredients can be done at home.

It is the same with wine. When at home, we like opening bottles of wine and sometimes playing with them to see what happens. We change temperatures and see how the wine changes. We serve the same wine in different kinds of glassware and verify how aromas and flavors can be a little different. We cook different dishes and bring to the table other ingredients that may or may not help in matching the food with the wine. But when we go out for fine dining, we are looking for another level of taste than we normally experience. We don't want to experiment with the expensive, well-aged wine that we are buying. We want something different that we don't already know, and we need help to assure that complete success. It is goal of the sommelier to study your palate, your preferences, your experience drinking wine and the food that you are choosing, then help you find the correct wine that will surprise you and give you complete satisfaction with what you are paying. His work appears to start when the sommelier knows what you have decided on for dinner, but it really started before having the Chef's final menu.

I asked one of my favorite chefs in the group of hotels in which I work, "What do you think is the key to a successful fine dining restaurant?" His response was, "For me, a good restaurant is like a good American football team where the manager is the quarterback who is always observing and driving the team. The sommelier is the star wide receiver who appears at the right moment, and the chef runs with the ball, making touchdowns all along the way." (He loves sports, and because I don't want to change his description, I will leave it like this because I would love to say that the sommelier is the one making touchdowns.)

Whether or not we understand football, we should remember that chefs, sommeliers and restaurant managers need to have an open mind while working for a common result-perfection. The next time you have dinner in a restaurant whose the reputation is based just on the chef, also try another where the chef is good but not as famous and works closely with his entire team. You will end by being more satisfied. Even the bill will be less because half of that team's compensation is your complete satisfaction.

Juan Carlos Flores, executive sommelier with Pueblo Bonito Oceanfront Resorts and Spas, was named Mexico’s champion sommelier in 2004, and in 2005 won the Five Star Diamond Award for best North American sommelier. Mr. Flores was educated in Mexico, France and the United States and speaks fluent English, Spanish and French. As executive sommelier, he oversees the extensive wine collections of Pueblo Bonito’s seven resort hotels and numerous restaurants, provides pairing recommendations, and serves as wine advisor and instructor. Mr. Flores can be contacted at jflores@pueblobonito.com.mx Extended Bio...

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