In service of excellence

Even from across the crowded courtyard at Spago in Beverly Hills, all it takes is the lift of an eyebrow and Oscar Rios is at your side.

Orchestrating a team of servers -- back waiter, captain and sommelier -- Rios waits for the right moment to have each course cleared, to have wine glasses refilled and tepid water replaced with cool, fresh glasses. Fish knives are delivered one beat ahead of the line-caught striped sea bass with black truffles. Slightly nibbled parmesan cracker bread is replaced with crisp new triangles before they’ve gone even slightly soft in the damp night air.

And, because this is L.A., Rios has to sustain his clairvoyance while shifting gears between tables of stiff-suited businessmen, movie moguls dressed in T-shirts and jeans, tattooed basketball stars and the ubiquitous finicky movie star glammed out for a night on the town.

Rios has made a career of making sure that, at least for the few hours they spend with him, none of these people wants for anything.

He’s a waiter.

Practicing a dying art in a city served by undiscovered actors, Rios has risen to the top of his field, serving the prized inner circle of heavy-hitting regulars who command the coveted tables in front of the courtyard fountain at Spago.

Waiters are born, says Spago’s Wolfgang Puck. “We can teach technique,” he says. But seriousness and extreme dedication to their work? That’s another matter.

And although plenty of delightful wannabe movie stars have done a smashing job of delivering chef Lee Hefter’s foie gras mousse on quince tartlets at Spago, there is something special about a waiter who aspires to be the best at that job.

Career waiters are the backbone of the fine dining experience at gastronomic destinations such as Bastide and Sona, where well-traveled diners have experienced the high-level service common to Europe’s and New York’s finest restaurants. The pros may be even more valuable at middlebrow showbiz hangouts like the Grill on the Alley in Beverly Hills, where how you’re treated speaks volumes about your place in the world.

Naturally, L.A. has its own definition of great service. It’s less formal than it is in New York or Paris. And there’s more room for personality. But there are certain qualities that a consummate waiter in any town possesses. Speed, certainly, along with sensitivity to the rhythm of the room. But beyond that, and more important, a great waiter has to have the psychological acuity to read a table -- to know, somehow, whether to offer an aperitif before handing over the menus or whether the table is anxious to get on with it; whom to chat up and whom to give some space.

The top waiters -- overwhelmingly male -- have little in common beyond taking pride in delivering a memorable meal. They may come from New York with resumes as long as Valentino’s wine list, from Paris or a small town in rural North Dakota. They may have trained on the job, working their way up from a coffeeshop, or attended a tony service school in Switzerland. In any case, without them, L.A.’s restaurant renaissance would quickly fade.

A diner’s perception of a restaurant begins at the door but is sealed at the table. Certainly it’s important that the food be outstanding. But the dining experience -- which is largely defined by one’s interaction with the waiter -- lets you focus on the pleasures of the table. That pleasure is diminished if the waiter is trying to slip you his head shot.

“I’m committed 100% to my waiting job,” says Rios, 38, who initially chased restaurant work for the quick money he needed when he arrived in L.A. at age 20 to check out the music scene and “to improve my English.” A few busboy shifts at Michael’s in Santa Monica led to a management job there.

To get his foot in the door at Spago when the Beverly Hills location opened in 1997, he went back to busing tables. But within a month, Rios again was climbing the ranks, this time sticking with the most lucrative work, waiting tables. Rios not only mastered English, but his French pronunciations now are spot on. And he knows enough about wine to suggest a Chateaunef-du-Pape with the spicy beef goulash.

At restaurants like Spago where service teams do not pool their tips with other teams, the rewards for top-notch wait staff can be substantial. Rios makes as much as $100,000 a year. “That’s how you keep the best waiters,” says Puck.

Speed and personality

Career waiters know that every restaurant has its own service style that suits its clientele. At lunch at the Grill on the Alley in Beverly Hills last week, Warren Beatty and media mogul Barry Diller were entertaining Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) when in came deposed California Gov. Gray Davis, sans reservation. With such wattage already commanding the coveted booths, Davis was relegated to no-man’s land in the middle of the restaurant. How to salve the pride of the former governor? The Grill sent James “Big Jim” Marx to be his waiter.

Although the basics of seamless service are the same at every good restaurant, the emphasis at the Grill is on speed and personality.

Many of the Grill’s regulars specifically request Marx, 51, who gets many of the most demanding customers, says Bob Spivak, one of the founders of the restaurant and chief executive of the parent company, the Grill Concepts.

“People really appreciate his dry wit,” says Spivak. Marx, a big man whose jacket sleeves never quite cover his long arms, isn’t a slapstick funny guy. He just seems to arrive at tables at the exact moment when the group needs a wry observation.

Marx’s no-nonsense personality matches the place: clubby, chatty and not easily impressed. Waiters don’t last at the Grill, Marx says, if they don’t mesh into the fabric of the place.

The wait staff is what keeps a restaurant together, according to Brad Metzger, a former waiter and founder of the employment firm Restaurant Solutions. “That’s what makes an amazing restaurant: the teamwork, the syncopation with each other.” Ambitious waiters network through headhunters like Metzger.

Other waiters follow a favorite manager to a new restaurant. But mostly, they rely on word of mouth. After their night shifts, they unwind -- and trade news of openings -- at late-night spots such as Grace, Dolce and Jozu -- or even an IHOP.

Although scouting rival restaurants for serving talent is considered a serious faux pas (“It’s kind of poaching,” said Tracy Spillane, general manager at Spago), the grapevine is also vital to chefs and restaurant managers who need to beef up their staffs.

“L.A. is a real networking town,” says Michael O’Day, the headwaiter at Table 8. “I guess it’s a trickle-down effect from the entertainment industry.”

O’Day was happily ensconced as a waiter at A.O.C. when his former boss, Chadwick’s chef Govind Armstrong, happened to sit at his table. O’Day respected and enjoyed working with Armstrong before Chadwick’s closed. He let the chef know he’d come back. Now he’s headwaiter at the Melrose Avenue hot spot, practicing his own brand of service. “He’s really good at being able to read his customers,” says Armstrong.

By some measures, O’Day breaks every rule in the waiters’ handbook. A true believer in the personal touch, when addressing clients he lightly touches them on the arm or shoulder.

“I know a lot of managers say you shouldn’t do it because you’re going into their personal space,” he says. For him, it works. But that’s not all. Like Romeo proposing to a hungry Juliet, he gets down on bended knee to take orders.

“I’ve always done it,” says the 56-year-old. “It gives you that more personal contact. I say there is no such thing as ‘proper’ service. Proper service is whatever the customer needs.”

Sometimes that means telling them what to order.

“It’s your job to introduce them to something new,” he says. Request a standard Chardonnay, and he’ll urge you to try a more interesting Riesling.

“If you don’t like it, I’ll take it back,” he promises.

Caroline Styne, who co-owns Lucques and A.O.C., says she looks for waiters who were trained in Europe because, she says, “they definitely take service more seriously there.”

That’s why she appreciates Ralf Kindler, a German-trained waiter, who works at both of her restaurants.

“He can look at a person coming in the door and tell you when they ate [at the restaurant], what they ate and what his conversation was with them,” says Styne.

Such personalized information -- the kind that restaurants use computer programs like Open Table to track -- is essential to keeping regulars pleased.

When he’s not working his pick of dinner shifts at Lucques or A.O.C., Kindler is reading food magazines, cooking or dining out. He’s even helped chef Suzanne Goin test her cookbook recipes. “Next to the mortgage, my second biggest expense is going out to eat,” says Kindler, 47.

“All of my best waiters are extremely passionate about food,” says Styne. “They go out and dine. They taste wine. They absorb the whole experience. If a server knows the food and wine well, he is able to sell it well. And you’re happy to buy it because it represents an enhanced experience.”

And, waiters know, that’s the money moment. A good regular customer may leave as much as a 30% tip. Most elite career waiters can expect tips between 20% and 25% consistently -- $50,000 to $65,000 per year for a 30-hour workweek, twice that for those who work both lunch and dinner. Add flexible hours and exposure to great food and wine, and it’s no wonder the top waiters aren’t going to cold-call auditions.

Despite the oft-heard lament that great career waiters are a fading breed, there are signs of a new generation entering the ranks.

At Bastide, general manager Donato Poto sorted through 300 resumes to find the right waiters when the restaurant opened in 2002. Out of that pile, he recruited 25-year-old Thomas Laret, a lanky Alaskan who prizes his position. Referring to his co-workers as “wine savants” and “masters,” Laret believes he is gaining invaluable training.

Perhaps. But to enter the leagues of Rios and Marx and become a true career waiter, he’ll also need another decade of experience.

Times staff writer Corie Brown contributed to this report.