Inedible

"He says it's inedible" said my front of house manager, as she laid the half-eaten fish and chips in front of me, and instantly I relaxed. 

Clearly, I observed, it was edible to some degree. I comped it, because I can't be arsed arguing the toss, and I want to make my front of house's lives as simple as possible. The haddock had been delivered that morning. The fryers had been cleaned that morning. The batter had been made that morning (and it's very good batter, ask me nicely and I'll give you the recipe some time). The fish and chips was identical to the other 27 portions I'd sent out on that lunch service, all of which had come back more or less hoovered up, we have have a (justified, if I do say so myself) very good reputation for our chips. But it was, apparently, "inedible".

When it comes to complaints, less is more. If you use a hyperbolic word like that, I'll switch off, you've marked yourself as a rube, a chump, I'm not going to take your complaint seriously. If that fish had come back with someone saying it was overdone, that the batter had broken, that the plate wasn't hot enough, the plate was too hot, the tartare was too chunky, the tartare wasn't chunky enough, the chips were tooo crispy, the chips weren't crispy enough, I'd have listened, I'd have cared. But inedible? Pfft. It's clearly not. We sell a LOT of fish and chips, not every one will be perfect, but most are as pretty close as we can get them.

After more years than I care to remember in this industry, I actually have a fairly nuanced view of complaints. Some of them are useful, you can't personally be everywhere, and having customers highlight aspects you might have missed can be helpful, I like this but I don't like that. But I'm always wary of reading too much into them. By their very nature they are highly partial, highly individual, and if cooking professionally for has long as I have has taught me anything, it's that you're never going to please everyone.

This is proven in the latest issue of an industry magazine, featuring an interview with Tom Kerridge wherein the writer describes eating at the Hand and Flowes and observing a customer haranguing the front of house manager at length, saying that the meat is better at Costco.

Now, I have eaten Kerridge's food, and I have shopped at Costco. That customer is, in 99% of cases, incorrect. Kerridge may have a slightly irritating level media saturation, but the man's food is, by and large immaculate. However, it's possible that in this instance he was served a bad meal, or, at any rate, less than perfect. It happens, a hot spot in the oven, too heavy a hand with the salt, a plate slightly too hot when the sauce hits it, a hidden seam of connective tissue in the meat that hasn't quite broken down, a million other things.

Mistakes do occur, the problem with bad bad reviews and complaints is that they extrapolate this to cover the business as a whole, rather than the individual instance of their dish. Our inedible fish guy from the top dined with two other people, one of whom also had fish, they both cleared their plates and really enjoyed it. But people tend to take things personally.

And this is something else to bear in mind when dealing with arsed customers, you don't know what sort of day they're having originally what's going on on their lives. This doesn't mean you should accept rudeness or poor behaviour, but it does mean that complaints should be treated with caution, rather than as holy writ. Unfortunately in service industries, you do come across people who will take the opportunity to exert this one small bit of control they have in their lives, law of averages, serve enough people and you will serve some arseholes, as well as some nice folk who are just having a bad day.

For the record, we offered to redo it, we offered alternatives, he wasn't to be placated. Sometimes you have to just go okay man, fine, whatever, I think this is a you issue.

And yeah, we got a stinker of a review off him. These things happen, best not to take it too seriously. Bear that in mind next time you're browsing TripAdvisor or whatever.