Glossary.

The trade's own vocabulary, defined plainly, with a pointer to where the people in the book use each term. The book's own concepts (attention as a leadership discipline, anticipation, the recovery and the rest) are defined in Key Ideas.

Anticipatory service

Service that meets a need before the guest has to ask: the coffee refilled before the cup is empty, the car waiting before the guest reaches the door. It rests on observation and on passing what was observed to the next person on shift. What is anticipatory service?

Back of house

The parts of a hotel or restaurant the guest does not see: kitchens, stewarding, laundry, engineering, offices and the staff corridors. Many of the general managers in the book began there. Also called heart of house in several hotel companies. How a luxury hotel is organized

Brigade

The hierarchy of a professional kitchen, organized by station and rank, as Auguste Escoffier codified it: executive chef, chef de cuisine, sous chef, chefs de partie and their commis. The chefs in the book came up through it and most have softened it. The kitchen brigade explained

Butler

In a luxury hotel, a dedicated attendant for a suite or a floor who handles unpacking, pressing, in room dining, reservations and the small preferences a guest would otherwise have to explain to several departments. What a hotel butler does

Captain

In a fine dining room, the server who leads a section, presents the menu, takes the order and directs the runners and back servers for those tables. Reports to the maître d'.

Chef de cuisine

The chef who runs a single kitchen day to day, under an executive chef where there is one. In a restaurant with one kitchen the two titles often belong to the same person. What an executive chef does

Chef de partie

The cook in charge of one station in the brigade (sauce, fish, meat, garde manger, pastry), responsible for that station's mise en place and its plates during service. The rank at which, in the book's words, a pulled plate prevents a complaint. The kitchen brigade explained

Commis

A junior cook assigned to a station under a chef de partie. The rank where most of the chefs in the book spent their first years, and the one they describe when they talk about endurance and patience.

Concierge

The hotel's expert on the city and on the guest's wishes within it: reservations, tickets, transport, the thing nobody else can get. Les Clefs d'Or is the international society of hotel concierges, identified by crossed gold keys on the lapel. What a hotel concierge does

Covers

The number of guests served in a restaurant during a service or a day. A restaurant that does eighty covers a night has served eighty people.

Daily lineup

The short meeting at the start of a hotel shift where the team reviews arrivals, departures, VIPs and one topic from the standard. The general managers in the book attend it in person. Preshift meeting topics for hotels

Empowerment

In hospitality, the authority given to frontline staff to fix a problem or spend to resolve it without asking a manager. The book argues it only takes when the decision, the boundary and the consequences of a wrong call are made explicit. Giving the keys

Executive chef

The chef responsible for all the kitchens of a hotel or a restaurant group: menus, hiring, costs and standards, usually with a chef de cuisine running each kitchen. What an executive chef does

Executive committee

The general manager's senior team in a hotel: typically the hotel manager or director of rooms, the directors of food and beverage, sales and marketing, finance, people and culture, and engineering. Often called ExCom. How a luxury hotel is organized

Family meal

The meal a restaurant's staff eats together before service, cooked by the kitchen for the whole team. The Field Guide's lesson on creativity suggests it as the lowest pressure place to test a new idea.

Five star

The top tier in most hotel rating systems, including Forbes Travel Guide's, whose inspectors score hundreds of service and facility standards during anonymous stays. The book's hoteliers hold the standard daily rather than for the inspection. What does five star service actually mean?

Forbes Travel Guide

The rating system that awards Five Star, Four Star and Recommended status to hotels, restaurants and spas after anonymous inspection against published standards. The hotel world's counterpart to the Michelin Guide. What are luxury hotel service standards?

Front of house

Everything the guest sees and every person who serves them directly: the lobby, the front desk, the dining room, the bar, the concierge. The counterpart of back of house. How a luxury hotel is organized

Front office

The hotel department that runs arrival and departure: reception, reservations on property, guest relations, the night audit and often the concierge. The department most of the hoteliers in the book passed through.

Garde manger

The cold kitchen station: salads, cold appetizers, charcuterie and terrines. In Escoffier's brigade, also the pantry and its keeper.

General manager

The leader of a single hotel, responsible for its guests, its team, its owners' returns and its brand standards. Thirty six of the people in the book held the title when we spoke. What a luxury hotel general manager does

Guest history

The record a hotel keeps of a guest's stays and preferences: room, pillow, newspaper, drink, the reason for a visit. The book's warning, from The Savoy, is that it is a snapshot of time and has to be validated before anyone acts on it. How do luxury hotels anticipate guest needs before they ask?

Guest recognition

The practice of knowing a returning guest and showing it: the name, the preferred table, the drink poured without a question. Several hotel companies have a guest recognition role whose job is to make it happen. The guest handover sheet

Hotel manager

The general manager's deputy, responsible for daily operations across rooms and food and beverage. In many companies the step before a first general manager post.

Hotel school

A school teaching hospitality management, usually with a training hotel and industry placements. Several of the hoteliers in the book attended one in Switzerland; several did not and learned on the floor. Do you need a degree to become a hotel general manager?

Housekeeping

The department that cleans and prepares the rooms and public areas and, in a luxury hotel, notices more about the guest than any other: the books on the nightstand, the running shoes by the door. The book's anticipation chapter depends on it.

In room dining

Room service, in the vocabulary of luxury hotels. A food and beverage outlet in its own right, with its own kitchen or a dedicated section of the main one.

Keys

Hotel rooms, counted: a 200 key hotel has 200 rooms. The book uses the word in a second sense in Giving the Keys, its chapter on empowerment. Giving the keys

Maître d'

The person who runs the dining room: seating, the flow of service, the guests' moods, and the link between the floor and the kitchen. Short for maître d'hôtel. What a maître d' does

Michelin star

The Michelin Guide's rating for a restaurant's cooking: one star for a very good restaurant, two for excellent cooking worth a detour, three for exceptional cuisine worth a special journey. Awarded to the restaurant, assessed by anonymous inspectors, and reviewed every year. How do you become a Michelin starred chef?

Mise en place

Everything in its place: the preparation a cook completes before service so that each plate can be assembled without hesitation. The chefs in the book use it as shorthand for discipline itself.

Mystery shopper

An anonymous inspector who stays or dines as a guest and scores the experience against a standard, used by rating bodies and by hotel companies to audit their own properties.

Night audit

The overnight reconciliation of a hotel's accounts and the rollover of the business day, done by the night team at the front desk.

Pass, the

The counter between the kitchen and the dining room where every plate is inspected before it goes out, and the place the chef stands during service. The book's chapter on perfection is built around it. Read more

Pastry chef

The chef in charge of desserts, breads and baked goods, running a station or a separate kitchen with its own brigade. In the book, the station a young José Andrés was sent to study when Ferran Adrià asked to see the best dessert cart.

Preshift meeting

The restaurant's meeting before service: the room, the guests on the books one table at a time, the specials, and in the best rooms one topic from the craft. The hotel equivalent is the daily lineup. Preshift meeting topics for restaurants

Relais & Châteaux

An association of independently owned hotels and restaurants, mostly small and often historic, admitted on inspection. Gerrit Graef's first leadership role, in the book, was in a small Relais & Châteaux hotel in Germany.

Rooms division

The hotel departments concerned with the guest's stay rather than their meals: front office, housekeeping, concierge, guest relations and butlers, usually led by a director of rooms.

Runner

The member of the floor team who carries plates from the pass to the table and clears, the first rung of the dining room ladder.

Service recovery

What a hotel or restaurant does in the minutes after a failure: listen, apologize, correct, compensate without being asked, and fix the cause. The book's tenth chapter. What is service recovery in hospitality?

Sommelier

The wine professional of a restaurant: the list, the cellar, the pairing, and the conversation at the table. Part of the preshift meeting in the restaurants the book describes.

Sous chef

The chef's second in the kitchen, who runs the line when the chef is at the pass or away and oversees the chefs de partie. The usual last step before running a kitchen. The kitchen brigade explained

Stage, the

A short, usually unpaid period of work in another chef's kitchen to learn its methods, from the French stagiaire. The chefs in the book describe their stages as the education that made them. Read more

Steps of service

The sequence a restaurant defines for a table from greeting to farewell: when water is poured, when the menu is presented, how long between courses. A standard the best rooms hold lightly enough to read the guest.

Stewarding

The department that washes, stores and moves everything a kitchen uses. The first job of more than one general manager in the book, among them Krister Svensson, who began as a steward in a St. Regis, and Ayman Gharib.

Turndown service

The evening visit to a guest's room to prepare it for the night: the bed turned down, the curtains drawn, the lights lowered, often a small gift left behind. A standard of luxury hotels and one of the moments housekeeping notices things.

VIP

In a hotel, a guest flagged for special attention on arrival, from a returning regular to a head of state, with a level that sets who greets them and what is placed in the room.

World's 50 Best

An annual ranking of restaurants voted by a panel of chefs, critics and diners, separate from the Michelin Guide. Several of the restaurants in the book have appeared on it.