As hotels, and the travelers who sleep in them, have gotten increasingly sophisticated, it is increasingly challenging for meeting planners to impress their attendees and meeting sponsors.
But in the food operations at the new Water Club, an 800- room resort that opened adjacent to the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City, NJ, last month, there’s an effort to bowl guests over without bells and whistles. Instead, the objective is to win loyalty by providing knockout service.
Presided over by legendary New York City chef and restaurateur Geoffrey Zakarian, the victuals are still likely to dazzle. But, as he told MeetingNews, the success of the hotel’s food and beverage ventures all depend on service delivery.
Q: Your cooking style has been called modern with roots in French cuisine, and you have publicly described it at “dynamic American.” Will Water Club guests see that in the food and beverage operations?
A: Yes. It is dynamic because it adjusts to the needs of the customer, which is most important. It might sound simplistic, but the customer is all we have, so whatever the customer wants, we can generally do. Or, we’ll even come up with ideas that incorporate their needs and go beyond.
Q: It’s very rare—maybe even unprecedented—for a known restaurant chef (not to mention owner) to run the banqueting function at a hotel. What do you think you’ll bring to the Water Club that meeting planners might not find at other hotels?
A: I have been cooking in boutique hotels with meeting rooms since 1988, and we developed a “whatever the customer wants” philosophy. I think most meeting planners are surprised by how flexible we are in the kitchen.
Q: How will food and beverage at the Water Club differ from what’s offered at the Borgata, as well as from what is typically found at other hotels?
A: Generally we are cooking more a la carte for the events since we are a smaller property than Borgata (we only have room for about 200 people for a sit-down function). That means doing as much as possible ahead of time and finishing the dish on order.
Also,we have a concept called the “marketplace” which is a sort of a riff on the Les Halles area in Paris, where there are different food shops all next to each other.
We have eight or nine shops, or markets, each serving very specific food, i.e. the cheese shop, the bonbon shop, the charcuterie shop, and so on. We pair each shop with a specific wine and guests browse the different shops with the matched wines. It’s sort of a movable feast.
Q: You have experience working with hotels on their food in terms of room service, at the Carlton and Chambers hotels in New York, but I understand that catered functions, or banquets, are new to you. What have you learned about how that works?
A: Actually they aren’t that new to me but I’ve never done it for 800 rooms! It’s been a great learning experience. The challenge is to get special touches on the room service menu to actually travel successfully to the rooms. We are fortunate that the elevators are close and the staff is very willing to do their best.
One of the things I insist on is serving hot coffee with warm steamed milk—instead of cold milk—something that the staff had never seen. It’s a small touch, but its one that people notice immediately, and it costs us nothing!
Q: Based on your experience with hotels, what are some best practices when it comes to working with banquet customers that you are deploying at the Water Club?
A: We will give customers what they want but also direct them to new and more upscale ideas and experiences for their event.We believe in tailoring each event to the customer, and going that extra bit to make it special, not just providing another party in a room.
Q: What’s your goal for food and beverage operations at the Water Club?
A: To bring guests exquisite service—meaning reliable, cordial, and anything they want whenever they want it, not when we want to give it to them—and the best sourced products.
Q: What’s your favorite food?
A: My favorite food is wine. But that’s followed by seafood and Mediterranean food.
Contact Rayna Katz at [email protected]
Originally published July 7, 2008