We meet Karyl-Anh, Food & Beverage Assistant Manager at the Alt Hotel Toronto Airport, and Sarah, Team Lead Server at Terre Restaurant at the Alt Hotel St John's.

This is À la Germain, the podcast about the people who bring Germain Hotels to life every day.

I'm in studio with Jean-Yves, Clara, and Marie-Pierre Germain.

Hello, everyone.

In this episode, we'll be talking hospitality through food.

We meet Karyl-Anh, food and beverage assistant manager at the Alt Hotel Toronto Airport, and Sarah, team lead server at Terre Restaurant at the Alt Hotel St.

John's.

Before we begin our journey from Toronto to St.

John's, a little historical background.

The restaurant business and the Germain family have a long history, don't they, Jean-Yves?

Oh, yes.

And I mean, that's where the family started in the hospitality business.

My mother and father started with a snack bar in St.

Foix in the late fifties and early sixties, my father decided to do steak house.

At the time, you know, it was a kind of new things.

And we opened Le Fiac in 62, a very successful steak house.

And it was a big restaurant.

I mean, after 10 years, it was, I will say 400 seat, you know, big, big restaurant.

And after that, Christian and I, we, in the 70s, we had the Le Cousin in St-Foy and Le Saint-O in Quebec, two very, very successful restaurant.

And that's, from there, we, you know, we end up in the hotel business.

But the real start was in the restaurant business.

Let's start at the Alt Hotel Toronto Airport with Karyl-Anh.

After a few years in France, she began her career at Germain Hotels in St.

John's with You Clara before recently moving to Toronto, where she manages, among other things, the hotel's restaurant, Sosta.

She explains the different approach to guests when working in an airport hotel.

We want the customer to be happy at the end and to make a difference because usually when they come here, it's because they have a flight delay or flight cancellation, so they're already kind of mad.

So we're not here to bring them more stress.

We're here to provide them with different experience, make them feel at home and make them feel that if they want to eat food with syrup on it or ice cream on it, whatever they want, it's okay.

We can make it happen.

Here, Kary-Anh talks about going the extra mile for guests, even if it's just with a little extra syrup or ice cream.

She then shared a story with a similar sentiment.

One she had learned during a training session at Germain Hotels.

Marie Boissonneau came to train the teams about cold fruitage.

She told them about the story of the grilled cheese.

One night, a customer wanted the grilled cheese, and they asked the kitchen, but the kitchen said, no, we don't make grilled cheese.

But they had everything, the bread, the butter, the cheese, everything.

They said, no, we cannot make it.

They had to bring from outside, and pay for the customer.

But then she said, it's only bread, butter, and cheese.

You have it, we can make it.

It's not a problem.

Clara, what do you think about that?

Well, I think it's the whole point of what we do.

We're here to make people happy.

If we have whatever it is that the guest wants that will make the guest happy, I think it's just our job to do it.

And that's that kind of generosity that we see in the hotels, but that we see as well in the restaurants.

So it's great.

I'm not surprised to hear that, because when Karyl-Anh is asked where she learned this philosophy, this is her answer.

I learned this in France.

You never say no.

You don't use no.

You say, unfortunately.

And when I arrived in St.

John's, Clara was all about this as well.

She said, don't say no, but try to direct them in a way that they don't see that you're actually saying no, but you're kind of saying yes, and then you provide a different service that you can actually make it happen.

So your words don't seem to be falling on deaf ears, Clara.

It seems like it, but I'm very glad that it stuck with her because it is something that we talk about with our teams fairly often, especially when people arrive, so it's kind of their first introduction to our philosophy of service, so it's great.

Makes me very happy.

Let's go to Newfoundland and Labrador with Sarah at Terre Restaurant at the Alt Hotel St John's.

Since 2019, this restaurant has been serving gourmet local cuisine and has quickly established itself as one of the best hotel restaurants in Canada.

But does a restaurant of this calibre agree to special requests from hotel guests?

We asked Sarah.

I would be lying if I never ever said we didn't serve a Caesar salad in this restaurant, because we definitely have.

It's not like, oh my God, this is the most exciting thing that's going to happen today.

Depending on how busy and how able we can, and depending on the prep of other services, we have come through.

We will satisfy.

The Caesar salad is not officially on the menu at Terre Restaurant, but the teams are there ready to satisfy a customer's special request.

That must be nice to hear, Marie-Pierre.

It's so nice to hear, and I think what I like about this is wanting to make people happy.

And to me, I think this is something you're born with or not, and it's very hard to learn to enjoy making people happy.

And hospitality is what it's all about, is really doing that bowl of pasta that was not on the menu, or doing the Caesar salad that you don't really want to make because who likes to make Caesar salad?

But when the chef takes part in the experiment and wants to make the best Caesar salad ever, then I think we won all the way.

We spent the evening with Sarah at Terre Restaurant.

The restaurant offers an à la carte menu, but also a let the kitchen cook for you formula.

When a guest chooses this formula, Sarah plays a crucial role, as she has to be able to understand in a few questions and answers what customers like, in order to pass it on to the kitchen, which will then re-create a personalized menu.

Quail.

You would like two quail, you say?

No, we don't want quail.

We prefer the cook for you.

It's going to be no quail, and we're going to do pork chop instead.

Just pork chop.

And grilled mushroom?

Grilled mushrooms.

That's great.

And then actually we're going to do extra listers.

And I was going to do three individual cod.

Okay, that's fine.

Okay, so when my reme's at the table, I'll...

Does that make sense, cod and then pork and mushrooms after?

No, I would definitely do cod and the three little portions and then I will clear them.

And then I will...

So a fire for the meats after the fish course, you'd say?

Yeah, I'll press my call on that.

I will do course three.

It's a far cry from classic table d'hôtes.

We went to ask Sarah how it all worked.

So much moving parts.

The cookery, we have a template that we work off of, but that is always subject to change.

Once you're used to that, you just be like, okay, yeah, we can do that on a imaginary.

And it will come.

It's like, I know that they will do it, they know that they will do it, they just need to know what they have to do and I need to know if they can do it.

And usually we get there.

Marie-Pierre, this making of custom menus for each guest, it really reminds me of the personalized attention given to guests at Germain Hotels.

How does it?

I just love hearing Sarah talk about how she's building the experience and wanting it to be a wonderful experience for the guests.

It would have been a different story for somebody else sitting at a different table.

You really felt the interaction between the chef and her trying to make it the best possible and knowing that together as a team they can make it happen.

That's really, it's really great to hear.

As the evening continues at Terre Restaurant, a striking detail emerges.

All the waiters present that evening are wearing different clothes.

In particular, Sarah's colleague Brandon is wearing a handmade apron.

We asked both of them for the reason behind this.

Everybody is absolutely different.

If the service was homogenous and general like that, I think it wouldn't be as exciting for the patrons.

I think it would be difficult to create an experience that's more intimate for returning patrons especially, and also new time patrons, if you have one kind of server serving one kind of thing, whereas you have the benefit of coming back here multiple times and meeting new people and having a different kind of experience with a different kind of server, which is a lot of fun.

We have people who are from here, people who are not from here, that offer different perspectives and different kind of experiences based on what the person is looking for and also based on what we're offering in the restaurant.

So it's nice having kind of dynamics within the restaurant, you know what I mean?

And not just offering what would be otherwise a fairly homogenous experience.

So, I don't know, I like that.

I like being able to serve the way I want to serve.

I'm lucky that I get to do that in a restaurant, whereas I worked in other restaurants and no shade towards them.

Sometimes you want to give a certain experience and that's great, but I like working in a place where I can kind of be myself, but also serve and have a sense of mastery and a sense of discipline and that kind of thing, but be myself at the same time.

So, you can't have both.

You don't need to be like a server robot or be like a total goofball.

You can have fun and kind of stay in the middle and reconcile those two things.

They don't have to be completely separate, or at least that's my perspective.

And it starts with your apron.

It starts with the aprons that my mother makes for me, my beautiful bespoke aprons that my mother crafts, because working full time apparently isn't enough to keep her busy.

So is bringing your personality to work something you look for at the Germain Hotels?

I think it's one of the most important things actually, is we want people to bring their personality to work and check in as themselves, really in every sense.

So for Brendan, it's the apron.

For somebody else, it will be another value they bring to the table.

And being audacious and knowing that you can bring ideas to the table and somehow those ideas will make their way throughout all of our hotels is a great sense of ownership.

And seeing people do that is very rewarding.

Back in Toronto, it's the evening service at Sosta Pizzeria at Alt Toronto Airport.

Karyl-Anh has left her office to help in the dining room.

She spots a lone guest at the bar who is a regular at the hotel.

Good evening.

How are you tonight?

How are you?

How many days are you staying with us?

This time.

Yeah, this time.

Until Friday?

Okay, perfect.

After a ten-minute conversation, Karyl-Anh heads for the front desk and chats with her colleagues.

We went to ask her what she was cooking up.

So we were kind of talking like what we can do for him because actually they were talking, I asked them what they put in the room.

For him, as is regular, we put amenities, a bottle of water and sprinkles.

But then I was asking if we did something extra for him, so we're trying to get more information about the guests like that we can do something.

In the interest of guest confidentiality, I'll spare you all the information Karyl-Anh obtained in just 10 minutes of conversation.

But you should know it's probably a lot more than Google and Facebook know about him.

In short, his children are on different continents, he has a house in the US, another in Canada, and his work requires him to travel regularly to Toronto.

After a little brainstorming 30 minutes later, the team prepares a little comfort bag with a pair of slippers, snacks and a personalized card.

We're happy to have you home.

You're part of the family.

You do not have only two homes, but now three.

So we're just putting on a card, and we will make her a cute note, and we will bring snacks to his home.

Yeah, he's always away from family.

It will be good.

Marie-Pierre, it's great to see this communication between the restaurant teams and the front desk for personalized attention to a guest, is it not?

It's actually what strikes me in this part is seeing the way the team works together and understanding the role that everyone has to play.

So sometimes you're the one who's connecting with the guest, but it will be your colleague that will be able to continue the idea and take it a step further.

And that's the essence of what teamwork is.

It really takes a whole team to make that happen, and this is the perfect example.

And I find that there's a strong sense of empathy in that specific gesture as well.

And Karyl-Anh is from far away.

She's from New Caledonia, which is extremely far.

So you can sense, you can hear in her tone the longing to have this home, and she can probably really feel how the guest is feeling.

And I find this specific colourful touch is really showing that.

Karyl-Anh hasn't been with the hotel long, but when asked about her greatest achievement, she talks about the spirit of cooperation between the teams.

I always try to be the one, like, you need help, don't worry, I'm coming.

In the morning, for example, I know the kitchen.

They have so much order from the restaurant, but we have banquet upstairs and we need to scramble.

I will take a napkin and I will cook the eggs for them.

Nighttime, it's super busy, like the first year I came.

I don't have cutlery, I don't have plates.

It's okay, I will put a napkin and I go wash the dishes for the kitchen.

I did it.

They have pictures, they have a video as well.

Yes, of course, I'm in the food and beverage department.

However, I'm part of one team.

If housekeeping needs me, I will go help housekeeping.

It's not because I'm in food and beverage, I cannot go help housekeeping.

That's exactly the perfect example of teamwork.

And I often think that we cannot stick to what our role definitions are.

And if the phone rings, you pick up the phone.

Even if it doesn't say that, you have to be answering the phone, you know.

Everyone can answer the phone, everyone can make coffee.

And that's what hospitality is all about, is making sure we take care of the person who's in front of us.

That can also be our colleagues.

And I think that the spirit of what Karyl-Anh is saying there and how she's helping out because she feels she's part of one team.

She's taking care of the guests because she wants to make sure the guests are served, but she's also taking care of her colleagues which I think is wonderful.

Wonderful.

That is the end of our episode.

Thanks to all three of you, and especially Karyl-Anh, Sarah and Brandon for agreeing to share their evening shift with us.

See you all in a future episode of À la Germain.