Tipping the maitre d'

[jamesglewisf]

I got an email with the following question:When at a fine French restaurant in NY I was embarrased when the check had a provision for two seperate places for which to leave a gratituity. One, as i recall, was for either the Head Waiter or Maitre d'...I don't recall which - and the other was for, I assume, the remaining, traditional service. The total for my wife and I was over $350. I gave a total of 30%, with each "party" thus receiving 15%. What is proper in this situation?

[jamesglewisf]

My answer was:Tipping is more of an art than a science with formulas. There is much discretion involved, so don't get too worked up over it. All I present here is guidelines, not rules.

You usually tip the maitre d' a fixed amount, not a percentage. The amount varies depending upon the situation. Let's describe different tipping situations:

1. No formal maitre d' -- you get seated by whomever is at the front door at the time. You don't get a special table. No tip required.

2. A formal maitre d'. You called in 1-2 weeks in advance and made a reservation without any special requests. $5-20 depending upon how nice of a table you get and how nice the restaurant is.

3. A formal maitre d' and you called the day of the dinner and asked for a special table. Depending upon the courtesy of the maitre d' and the quality of table you got, I would say $50-60 for a restaurant as expensive as the one you mentioned. If it is a less expensive restaurant, but still special, then $20-40.

A lot depends upon how often you will go to this restaurant and whether or not you hope to establish a relationship with the maitre d'. My parents used to eat at a really nice restaurant in Dallas. It didn't matter when they showed up, they always got a special table. My mother even called once on New Years Eve and asked for a table for that evening. She got it. That was because of how they took care of the maitre d' over a long period of time. If you want this type of relationship with a maitre d' at a fine restaurant, take good care of him.

Anyhow, all turned out fine because you tipped approximately $43, which was great.

OK, if it said "head waiter" instead of maitre d', what do you do. Basically the tipping is about the same. Normally you are not going to have a head waiter and a maitre d'. It would be ridiculous to have to tip both of them and the regular wait staff. If for some reason a restaurant did have all three, I would split the tip mentioned above between the head waiter and maitre d'.

[jamesglewisf]

If this sounds excessive, then you probably don't eat very often at restaurants where you spend $350 for two people. If you can't afford the proper tip, the you probably can't afford the meal either. I have never spent that much on a meal, but then we don't drink so alcohol doesn't factor in for us.