Inconsistency stemming from restaurateurs’ tendency to operate purely on gut feeling and their failure to give their teams a real sense of direction is the major shortcoming of many of Malta’s restaurants, according to an MHRA official.
Noel Debono, who heads the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association’s restaurants sector action committee, hoped a new scheme awarding establishments an ‘MHRA Recommended’ label will encourage owners to take formalise quality standards and raise the bar.
The ‘MHRA Recommended’ quality scheme, launched just a few days ago, calls on restaurant owners to voluntarily put their house in order by complying with a long list of stringent criteria.
After submitting a request for participation, restaurateurs are interviewed and the entire process clearly explained. An agreement is signed and restaurants are allowed an adjustment period of six months, after which they will undergo a mystery guest audit followed by an announced assessor’s visit.
Mystery guests assigned by a specialist company often contracted by hotels will rate the entire experience offered by the establishment – from reservation to bill presentation. As seasoned diners, and guided by a “rigid” checklist, they will take into account every possible detail such as the tone of greeting, noise levels, and waiting staff competence and knowledge.
Establishments have to score at least 75 points in each of 10 areas of formal assessment which include the compilation of a staff handbook, regulatory compliance, and recipe and food presentation.
Small operations like snack bars will undergo a trimmed assessment exercise, adapted to their categories.
All documentation will be examined by an adjudicating panel which will finally award the certification. The panel will be chaired by Judge Joseph Galea Debono, a former MHRA general secretary, and composed of Charles Micallef, a former hotel manager and former restaurant operator, Tony Chircop, an ex-hotelier and former MHRA past-president, and an executive from the Malta Tourism Authority’s Quality Assurance Division.
If entirely satisfied, the panel will present an ‘MHRA Recommended’ label certificate valid for two years during which mystery guest audits will be carried out every six months. The label may be revoked.
“Malta’s future success as a tourist destination will very much depend on the quality of our services and product,” Mr Debono told The Sunday Times. “Accommodation and catering providers of whatever size and class must embrace levels of standards that compete well with other destinations in the Mediterranean.”
Malta’s restaurants – there are 1,400 catering establishments in all shapes and sizes – contributed about €35 million in VAT in 2008 and employ 8,000 people.
When asked about current standards of local restaurants, Mr Debono said it was difficult to give an overall rating to restaurants, although the majority offered “decent food at reasonable prices”.
Fine dining establishments offered avant-garde menus with excellent fare, complemented with an appropriate wine list. The service, he added, was good, but not of the same quality of the food served. Popular restaurants – the pizza, pasta, grill establishments – often saw quality oscillate from good to poor.
Mr Debono, managing director of Mdina’s Medina Restaurant, said the scheme guidelines were mainly modelled on the Hospitality Assured Scheme, introduced in the UK some years ago by the then Hotel and Catering Institutional Management Association. Mr Debono said the Medina was the first restaurant in Malta to undergo assessment by the HCIMA several years ago, and other restaurants and hotels followed suit soon afterwards.
He recalled the assessment had significantly changed his mind set.
“How many restaurateurs draw up marketing or business plans, how many hold planning sessions before dinner or debriefing afterwards?” Mr Debono asked. “After my assessment, and because my patrons are mostly conference and incentives participants, I altered many aspects of administering my own business. I still come across restaurant owners who only spend a couple of hours at their establishment in the morning to confirm orders or take deliveries and then return late in the afternoon to prepare for dinner.”
Apart from varying degrees of commitment from owners, the restaurant circuit also suffered drawbacks like lack of imagination and innovation because many operators did not keep abreast of changing trends.
Mr Debono stressed the committee believed some form of safeguard had to be introduced so that ‘cowboys’ were not issued with licences to run restaurants. It was also proposing a basic administrative short course be run for aspiring restaurant operators.
Good quality waiting staff are also hard to come by, particularly because they were considered to have less glamorous roles than kitchen staff, and many are part-timers who came from other industries.
Mr Debono said the Institute of Tourism Studies’ chairman Claire Zammit Xuereb and the new director Adrian Mamo had been very receptive to the committee’s proposals to address waiting staff shortcomings. Entry requirements for some ITS courses next year will be adjusted to encourage prospective waiting staff to enrol. The committee has suggested a short course on basic skills such as customer care, telephone manners, and serving techniques be introduced to raise waiting standards.
Meanwhile, Mr Debono said the restaurants sector action committee hoped around eight of Malta’s finest restaurants submitted a request for participation to kickstart the ‘MHRA Recommended’ scheme.