Waiter of the Year competition shines spotlight on Spain’s excellent service

Spanish waiting staff pride themselves on their professionalism, and the results are there for all to see.

Frequent a British pub, café or restaurant with a non-Brit and two things are bound to happen. First, your foreign guest will likely gush at the surprisingly good quality of food and choice of drink on offer (it seems the old stereotype of the UK being a land of warm bitter and bland food stubbornly persists, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary), but secondly, they are likely to be left aghast at the lack of professionalism shown by your server…

For Brits, working in a restaurant is either a temporary gig – while studying, playing in a band, or writing that first breakthrough novel – or a fall-back option to be tried only when most other avenues have failed. A career in food service in the UK is looked upon sniffily, despite the requisite levels of politeness and humility required being evident in most other walks of British life.

It is a curious contradiction, and one that plays out exactly the opposite way in Spain. Spaniards, you will learn, are proud people, and not readily drawn to displays of humility or overt politeness. However, when it comes to working as a waiter/waitress or behind the bar, they happily defer to the customer and wear their professionalism with pride.

And so it was with this year’s Spanish Waiter of the Year competition, which is organised by the country’s association of waiters, Amyce. The Financial Times (FT) this week published a fantastic article looking at Spain’s love affair with good service, and found that the typical Spanish waiter prides his or herself on being the best they can be, abiding by a series of unwritten rules designed to ensure that their guests have the most enjoyable time possible.

Now, anybody who has ever frequented a traditional establishment in Spain cannot fail to have noticed just how well drilled most waiters are. Knowledgeable, attentive but not overbearing, friendly and polite without being grating, and always ready with a smile or a suggestion, getting served in Spain is always a pleasure and rarely – if ever – a chore.

During Spain’s economic downturn, the waiting profession established itself as one of the most recession-proof industries going. Even when tourism figures were down, restaurants and bars still had custom, and it was during these lean years that the industry rallied and proved its worth. Indeed, at a time when millions of jobs were lost across the country, for many Spaniards a last crumb of comfort was to be found at their local watering hole, discussing politics over a wine, beer or cortado.

As the FT suggests, when tightening their belts, the “pleasure of sharing a meal or drink with friends” was one of the last things to go. And waiters understood. Never the highest paid (but far from poor, either), the recession years brought a level of solidarity and understanding between the waiting profession and regular Spaniards that perhaps had rarely been considered before.

Since then, their stock has risen even higher, and it is awards like that arranged by Amyce that go some way to paying back the gratitude that many Spaniards feel towards their favourite waiter. So if you’re in Spain this spring or summer, spare a thought for the well-trained professional keeping a watchful eye on your table – they’re doing a great job, so raise a glass to them!