Michelin-starred chef Marcus Wareing to adopt ‘American-style' service
Chefs Marcus Wareing and Mark Sargeant have said "fine dining" is no longer what many customers want, as a more "American-style" service grows in popularity.
Two-Michelin-starred chef Wareing, who runs the Berkeley Hotel restaurant in Knightsbridge, has asked his waiting staff to adopt a more "high-end American" approach as part of a new restaurant style that ultimately means "Michelin stars alone will [not] fill restaurants anymore," according to an interview in the Times.
The news comes as the chef last week announced that he was renaming his Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley Hotel to "Marcus", and revamping the décor and style to something more informal.
"I don't really know what the phrase 'fine dining' means now," he added.
People are especially turning away from over-stuffy service, interfering waiters, "mumbling sommeliers" and too-quiet volumes in restaurants, he said, while customers are also demanding a higher level of knowledge from waiters about the dishes served.
The Times food editor, Tony Turnbull, said: "No one wants a frock-coated Frenchman constantly to interrupt their conversation… Equally, they don't want a super-friendly Aussie to pull up a chair and tell them how awesome the steak is."
Wareing, who previously worked with Gordon Ramsay and has successfully run the Berkeley restaurant since 2003, is set to open the revamped site in March.
The comments come in light of a trend of moving away from traditional fine dining; many popular chefs are today appearing to reject the traditional "white tablecloth" pattern, such as Xavier Rousset, who in November last year told Caterer and Hotelkeeper: "Right now fine dining is not the thing of the future", and Belle Epoque's Matthew Mooney, who said: "It feels as though those days are gone."
Similarly, a Horizons report from 3 January predicted that casual dining restaurants were set for a boost in 2014.
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