A post-event high made me want to extend the evening and had me strolling to the poolside at ITC Maurya. It was a pleasant evening in Delhi and the setting was pretty. With muted lighting reflected off the aquamarine swimming pool, casually arranged seating and Marvin Gaye?s soothing Sexual Healing playing in the background, it promised to be a night of memories. However, what actually happened served as a reminder that in my journeys through hotels and restaurants, ambience doesn?t necessarily translate into a good experience. That ITC Maurya has been an iconic hotel and boasts some of the finest restaurants in the country is a well-established fact. So to expect, by way of association, a similar outing at the humble poolside, open for service during the late hours, was an honest expectation.
Poolside service is an art. However, it is an often-neglected area of F&B operations, as it isn?t quite the money-spinner. But it is mostly present because in-house guests, who sometimes use the pool, insist on being served there. Poolside service exists as a grudging compromise to a guest?s needs. At ITC Maurya, with the pool closed for the night and the transformation of the area into a ?lounge?-like space, one was led to assume that there would be more to come from the poolside. The first thing you were told on being seated was that there would be no food served, a justifiable stand. Often satellite kitchens and headstrong chefs dictate and decide that a few burgers a day don?t justify the mise en scene and staffing such a service requires. But then why have a cover layout? Pretty pink napkins arranged on tables for chips and soggy nuts? The offering reeked of a desperate compromise.
The service sequence at a poolside, which offers nothing more than beverages and two bowls of munchies placed on the table, allows for the presence of a younger and less skilled staff, but it does not permit inattentiveness in service. The internal politics of assignment to restaurants is a ferocious game played across hotels and establishments. Within the system, restaurants are known for the tips they generate. The potential earning from being assigned to a well-known restaurant is far greater than being, say, assigned to a coffee shop, even a busy one. The best of all are banquets, but that?s another column. It?s a high-stakes game and comes with manipulation.
The poolside doesn?t figure in the calculation. A necessary evil as it is, it usually sees the youngest and most inexperienced staff assigned to it. But what the young staff lacks in experience, they often make up for with their cheer and conversation, this being a more casual area than the rest of a five-star hotel. At ITC Maurya, though, what the staff did was huddle into groups of their own and ignore everyone. Did the F&B manager bother to take a stroll down to the poolside to check on service on a Saturday night, as is customary in most hotels? In the few hours that I was there, he didn?t. And from the behaviour of the staff, I am quite certain I didn?t miss him. That evening, we were all left to our own devices, waving hands and calling out loud repeatedly for attention. The only thing that would have made the process more agreeable was if they had given guests glow sticks to attract the attention of the staff!
But we, in many ways, ruined our own experience. A purchase that could only be paid for in cash and for which we doled out a R1,000 note had the somewhat attentive server go off on a long stroll, only to return with the note still in his hand, saying, ?There was no change?. No change for a R1,000 note in all of ITC Maurya! And, of course, he never brought with him what he had been sent out for lest we insist on paying with the denomination we wanted. So off he went again for another 20 minutes with a R500 note for our ?purchase?.
These subtle oddities, cheerless service, lethargy and the distinct feeling that this once-great hotel had perhaps opened its vent and let in some of that ol? familiar ITDC air in made me put pen to paper and write this column.
Advaita Kala is a writer, most recently of the film Kahaani. She is also a former hotelier having worked in restaurants in India and abroad