Unreasonable Hospitality

September 15, 2022
A noted restaurateur and manager shares his experiences. Guidara, co-owner of the world-renowned New York restaurant Eleven Madison Park, makes his nonfiction debut with an enthusiastic guide for leaders. Drawing on 25 years in restaurant work, including corporate and management positions, the author asserts that hospitality is crucial to the success of any business. In a restaurant, hospitality means "genuinely engaging with the person you're serving, so you can make an authentic connection." That engagement results from a culture of caring that emanates from everyone involved. A restaurant manager must ask a host of important questions: "How do you make the people who work for you and the people you serve feel seen and valued? How do you give them a sense of belonging? How do you make them feel part of something bigger than themselves? How do you make them feel welcome?" The author distinguishes between being "restaurant-smart"--doing what's best for the guests--and "corporate-smart"--i.e., "running a tight ship." When those two goals created tension, Guidara found that trust was essential to forging a productive team. "A leader's responsibility," he writes, "is to identify the strengths of the people on their team, no matter how buried those strengths might be." A leader is also responsible for giving praise, choosing how and when to deliver criticism, and encouraging participation from all team members. Ultimately, a leader must know when to take the helm. "If you try to be all things to all people," writes the author, "it's proof that you don't have a point of view--and if you want to make an impact, you need to have a point of view." Most of Guidara's anecdotes come from his eventful years as manager of Eleven Madison Park, which was chosen as the world's best restaurant in 2017. That success, he insists, came from daring to enact "unreasonable hospitality"--going beyond flawless service and memorable cuisine to shower each guest with personal attention. Sage advice about leadership.

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October 1, 2022

In his first solo book, Guidara (Eleven Madison Park: The Cookbook) focuses on the evolution of his fine dining hospitality philosophy. It starts with lessons he learned as a student at Cornell and moves through his career as general manager of Eleven Madison Park, voted World's Best Restaurant in 2017. This is a fast-paced, memoir/managerial treatise, with chapters headed by pithy phrases encapsulating nuggets of managerial wisdom. At the heart is the idea of unreasonable hospitality, an over-the-top customer service solution to the problem of how to become the best, most memorable restaurant. This involves providing personalized experiences, while ensuring that employees are well cared for and empowered. Guidara focuses on dining room dynamics, building a team capable of innovation and excellence, and directing resources. Given broader discussions about harassment and toxic climates often found in the restaurant industry, it is somewhat surprising to see these issues only hinted at in a few brisk anecdotes. The author stays firmly in the realm of the positive, even when describing the various setbacks and personnel issues that arose as he and his restaurant made their way to the top. VERDICT Recommended for those interested in managerial success, the restaurant industry, or inspirational memoirs.--Rebecca Brody

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