One writer decodes the hidden signals used by front-of-house teams at the world&rsquo;s top restaurants and hotels.

Lunchtime. <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/travel-living/french-restaurants-nyc-dining-guide" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York City</a>. Eleven Madison Park. The maitre d&rsquo; has just handed you a menu and is welcoming you to the restaurant. As he stands at your tableside in breezy conversation, you notice that he momentarily splays all the fingers on his left hand downwards, as if showing off a phantom set of prized rings to the group. It is the work of a second, nothing more. Perhaps, you think, he simply has a cramp in his fingers from a long shift of handshaking. Perhaps he has just had a manicure and secretly hopes that you notice. But to the drinks waiter looking on nearby, the tiny signal is clear: Bring sparkling water immediately.
This is the secret language of fine dining at play&mdash;the dense lexus of signs and symbols deployed by hospitality specialists at the very top of their game. It is the lingua franca of a good time. The source code of sauciers. The bread and butter of, well, bread and butter. What to us diners looks like effortlessly seamless service is more often the result of a subtle, ongoing conversation that happens, like the sonar of bats, at a frequency imperceptible to mere humans.
It may largely remain that way. In writing this piece, I approached more than 10 people from various esteemed establishments in <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/travel-living/best-london-coffee-shops-to-visit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">London</a>, New York, and Italy for comment&mdash;and almost all of them, gregarious and hospitable though they were, declined to reveal any particulars of their own codes and dialects. (The mafia were always good cooks, too.)

The dining room at Eleven Madison Park is set for dinner in 2017. Getty Images.

But certain glossaries have emerged. The Eleven Madison Park example above comes from the excellent new book&nbsp;Schott&rsquo;s Significa by the peerless Ben Schott&mdash;king curator of the ungoogleable&mdash;and includes 14 more hand signals from the restaurant. The fingers of the hand formed into a downwards V&mdash;an upturned Vulcan salute&mdash;telegraphs that dining room guests are still in the bar. Two fingers subtly pressed to an imaginary watch, as if taking its pulse, tells colleagues to stall guests, as one needs more time. Just as notable is the subliminal highway code of the three Michelin&ndash;starred restaurant&rsquo;s floor. At intersections, staff will yield to traffic in the following order: &ldquo;Guests or someone leading a guest have the right of way, followed by hot food, cold food, empty plates, and, finally, empty-handed colleagues.&rdquo; Such clearly codified rules, Will Guidara&mdash;former general manager and co-owner of EMP, and now author of&nbsp;Unreasonable Hospitality&mdash;told the Washington Post, &ldquo;make the dining room feel less frenzied.&rdquo;
The Rosetta Stone of such lexicons is a Life magazine piece, published in 1944, on the secret hand signals at the Stork Club in Manhattan. Here, the unimprovably named founder and owner Sherman Billingsley&mdash;a former Oklahoman bootlegger in wingtip shoes&mdash;would descend nightly upon table after table of regulars for ritual back-slapping or champagne-sloshing. But such omnipresence necessitated a way of communicating with his staff while on stage, so to speak&mdash;and so a complex system of signals was developed. A scratch of the nose: Not important people, or, No need to pay attention to these folks. A touch of the left ear: Call me to the phone; I want to get away from this table. An adjustment of the tie knot: No check for this table. I got it. It is not clear how the international publishing of this private glossary affected Billingsey&rsquo;s relationship with his regulars at the club, which survived until 1965.

Stork Club owner Sherman Billingsley greets Faye Emerson, Marsha Hunt, and Elliot Roosevelt in 1948. Getty Images.

Local dialects abound. At the open-kitchened Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, in the 1980s, the chefs would subtly drag a finger across their neck to tell a waiter that a certain dish was no good and needed to be axed. At the expense-account BLT Steak in Washington, D.C., which shuttered in 2024, a sideways peace sign indicated that the table included a VIP. At The Inn at Little Washington in Virginia, the waiter pointing to his belly button signals a birthday at the table. At New York&rsquo;s Mandarin Oriental hotel, a gentle touch on the side of the table&rsquo;s gas candle indicates that a party that has just enjoyed drinks in the lounge should not be asked whether they want cocktails again in the dining room. At Chiltern Firehouse in London, the inimitable maitre d&rsquo; Max Harrison simply &ldquo;wiggles the fingers, like bubbles, for sparkling water. And for still water, I do a single chop of my hand across.&rdquo;
Leonardo Bottone, the former concierge at Le Sirenuse in Positano (one of the finest and most beloved hotels on the planet), explains how the front desk of a hotel requires constant subliminal conversation. Forming the guest&rsquo;s crucial first impression of the hotel, the concierge practices an art with swan-like finesse&mdash;sedate and elegant up top, even if the legs are flapping frantically beneath the mahogany surface. &ldquo;If there is a queue, and everyone is busy at the desk but one colleague in particular is taking too much time&mdash;you do the sign of the scissors to tell them to stop,&rdquo; says Bottone, now the general manager at the comparably lovely Hotel Palazzo Murat, just down the road. If something has gone drastically awry, for example&mdash;a lost booking, a misplaced dachshund&mdash;a concierge might place their hand on their forehead momentarily. &ldquo;That means that there is a problem. The guest will not understand this, but your colleague will, and will then come to help.&rdquo;

Chef Patrick O’Connell addresses staff at The Inn at Little Washington in 2008. Getty Images.

Restaurateur Alice Waters samples food at Chez Panisse in 1982. Getty Images.

In general, however, Chiltern Firehouse&rsquo;s Harrison believes that the best communication in hospitality is more fluid, more natural, than anything too starkly prescribed&mdash;&ldquo;not a rigid language, but more of a telepathy between yourself and the floor team,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;A lot of it is eye contact and head motion.&rdquo; Often, Harrison will simply stand in the middle of the room when he wishes to communicate something, and make eye contact with the waiter in question. &ldquo;They should know what I mean,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;It is an underline of a command, rather than the command itself.&rdquo; More codified lexicons may simply be part of the usefully baroque myth of fine dining, he says&mdash;the theatrical collusion that makes eating at the best restaurants so inimitably special. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a bit like Cockney rhyming slang,&rdquo; he laughs. &ldquo;The daily usage of it is unclear. But if you imagine that it exists&mdash;then that&rsquo;s half the fun.&rdquo;

Inside the Secret Language of Fine Dining

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