I had a maitre’d who was straight out of central casting. He wore an ascot beneath his open white shirt and sport coat when he wasn’t wearing a tux. He smoked Chesterfield cigarettes placed in a black cigarette holder he gripped in his teeth as he spoke to you…with a flourish he would use the same phrase in a moment of joy, surprise, anger or frustration:  “Fuckinghell!”  He was a Lothario – well past his prime – and he knew it. His hair was wispy and combed back on both sides, but not as a comb-over on his balding pate. He was European – a refugee from Poland where he had fought the Nazi’s and the Russians as a fighter pilot in WWII – first from his homeland and when Poland fell, England for training and as an extension of the R.A.F. in Squadron 318 based in Egypt.

Walter Brachmanski RAF 318 Squadron

After the war he found himself in London, a trained gentleman without country or a way to make a living.  He took a job as a bus boy at the famed Dorchester Hotel – in one of the lesser dining rooms.  Eventually he earned his way up to waiter before meeting his wife and moving to America.  His name was Walter Brachmanski – called “Walter-Walters” by all who knew him – and after moving to the Seattle area, holding down a a regular 9-5 job for more than 20 years and raising a daughter, essentially living the post-war American dream, his desire was to return to the elegant theater of the fine dining room.

Hired by a little hotel restaurant called “Jonah & the Whale” in Bellevue, he  enhanced the culinary experiences of patrons in that emerging city of wealthy businessmen.  Walters was old school elegance and he loved to enchant the ladies as a way of building the egos of the men who squired them to the restaurant. The same men – different ladies.  On Saturdays it was dinner with the wife, but on week nights it was usually someone a bit younger and more exciting. Walter taught his waiters in the art of discretion – how to acknowledge the arrival of a guest they’d served only the night before at the same preferred table – but as if they hadn’t been seen for months.  The men and their expense accounts loved him for it.

Walters inspired loyalty from his cadre of young male waiters; they were infused with competitive desire to please him by modeling their behaviour in the dinning room to his high standards of taste, service and elegance.  He taught us about food, service, elegance and, most of all, he inspired us to appreciate and respect his most favored love – women.  Ahh yes Walters loved women.

I still have the spoon and fork he used to teach me how to present food  on a plate in the technique often called “French Service.”  As I go about entertaining friends or even serving only myself a meal – I recall his lessons.  He taught me a great deal about table service and put up with my  23 year-old male arrogance and immaturity.  He even fired me once for not tipping a bus boy – even though he agreed the bus boy was a pig – but his sense of fair play and his memory of having started at that position years before were his justification to me.  He was in this action, like so many things, right.

As I progressed he would step aside and quietly coach me using words that sounded almost as if he were asking me how rather than instructing me – he was considerate of my young ego.  With his quiet instruction I learned how to carve ducks and pheasant table side. How to make steak tar-tar and how to serve caviar. How to make and serve a Caesar salad, flaming desserts like cherries jubilee and crepes suzette. He instructed us how to ask for help from another waiter by simple discrete hand gestures and nearly inaudible finger snaps to gain attention without disturbing the elegant conversation at the table. He taught me how to be a good restaurant patron – by teaching me how to treat patrons.

After the kitchen had closed and diners had left, he would call a few of his favorites around to his table in a secluded section of the restaurant where we would eat and drink until the late hours of the night.  He told us stories of his fighter pilot days, his lovers and of the famous customers he had served. He patiently taught us about wine, liquor and about dining. Most thankfully he taught me how to open a bottle of champagne by talking me through it one evening…

“Barry – remove the bottle from the ice with a flourish, but not too fast, and present it with your white napkin behind the bottle – show the label and it’s good to have some of the crushed ice on the bottle to show that it’s cold – then wipe it in one movement and use the napkin to cover the cork and hold it firmly between your thumb and fore finger.  Now grasp the bottle with your other hand and with strength but showing it as very gently pull the bottle from the cork, isn’t that easier to hold? The cork is so small and the bottle so easy to get your hand around. There – almost – WAIT!  Don’t let it pop! That’s barbarian.  Let the bottle slide off the cork, withdraw it slowly and let the bubbles ‘Kiss the air’ the way you kiss the cheek of your lover when you withdraw from her after making love.”

Thanks Walter.

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This post actually began as a recommendation for a primer on champagne that is posted on Epicurious.com by Fiona Beckett.  Take a look at the post here:

A Champagne Primer
A look at how and where sparkling wine is made, and how to read those mystifying French labels
By Fiona Beckett