Columbus Hospitality Group’s Approach(ability) to Fine Dining with Mark D’Alessandro, Director of Operations

While some fine dining experiences come with a side of pretension, Mark D’Alessandro, Director of Operations of the renowned Columbus Hospitality Group (CHG), sets a table that is exquisite and exceptional while remaining approachable. Mistral can be credited for being one of the preeminent restaurants that ushered in Boston’s burgeoning dining scene in the 1990s. A testament to its success, the CHG has grown to include Sorellina, three Mooo locations, XV Beacon Hotel, the Inn at St. Botolph, and Ostra – which received a five-star rating from the Boston Globe. Mark D’Alessandro shares his thoughts on how technology is (and is not) useful in restaurants and words of wisdom from decades in the business.

The “Distinguished” podcast is produced by Boston University School of Hospitality Administration.

Host: Arun Upneja, Dean
Producer: Mara Littman, Director of Corporate and Public Relations
Sound Engineer and Editor: Andrew Hallock
Graphic Design: Rachel Hamlin, Marketing Manager

Music: “Airport Lounge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Transcript

Arun: Welcome to the Distinguished podcast produced by Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. I'm Arun Upneja, Dean of the school, and I'm pleased to welcome our guest, Mark D'Alessandro, Director of Operations for Columbus Hospitality Group. The group's collection of fine dining and boutique hotels include Ostra, which recently received a five-star review in the Boston Globe, Mistral, Sorellina, three Mooo locations, 15 Beacon Hotel, and the Inn at St. Botolph. Mark was part of the opening team of Mistral in 1997 as Assistant GM, then quickly advanced to GM, and he has held positions as the Director of Operations, as Vice President of Operations for the Columbus Hospitality Group, and you are still involved after decades in the restaurant industry. If you're reading between the lines or hearing between the lines, Mark is the person you want to know if you want to get a table at some of the best restaurants in town. Welcome, Mark.

Mark: Thank you. It's great to be here.

Arun: 25 years of success for a hospitality group is quite notable. How would you describe the Columbus Hospitality Group brand?

Mark: Well, one of the things that we focused on when we first opened was not becoming an unapproachable restaurant group. Well, at the time, we were one restaurant, so not knowing what was going to happen down the road. But in addition to being approachable, we wanted to create an environment first for the employee that was respectful and engaging, but then creating an environment for the guests that was welcoming, providing great food, great service, and a beautiful space for them to enjoy all those experiences in.

Arun: How do you create a fine dining atmosphere which is also approachable and comfortable for the guests, yet they feel that they're in a fine dining environment?

Mark: It's a great question. I think the idea of fine dining in my mind has never been about being something you're not. The robotic style of service, you know, the server greets your table, tells you their name and I'll be your server tonight and I'll be taking care of you. That level of formality for me, I just never enjoyed. And I wanted to bring a part of my personality into Mistral and into the staff that were taking care of our guests in the front of the house. And creating a level of comfort and non-pretention so that the guest felt comfortable and could engage with the employee, the server, the back waiter or the bartender. And not have to worry about being so formal in an environment that was formal in itself. And I think that is what separated Mistral from so many other higher-end restaurants. Even though everybody, all the restaurants at the time, there were so many at that time in Boston.

But I think that Mistral was something that Boston wasn't really prepared for with Seth Greenberg's involvement and the nightlife scenario brought into Mistral at the same time we were trying to do fine dining. It created a totally different dynamic of a restaurant in Boston that they had never experienced before.

Arun: So if I go to Mistral, I don't have to pretend that I know all the fancy French terms that are on the menu, that I could ask the server, so what does this mean? What does that mean? And how is it prepared? And, and not be assumed that I know it or I have to pretend that I need to know all of those terms?

Mark: That's right. And I think Chef Mamano is again an understated chef. He's got a great resume, but his style of cooking is approachable just like Mistral was approachable. And I think that certainly came into play when Chef Mamano and Seth and Paul Royf, who's the third partner in the restaurant, thought about this concept and how they were going to bring it all into play, if you will. And when you look at the menu, when you look at any of Chef Mamano's menus and any of our restaurants, you do know what you're going to be eating. You recognize the items that are listed for each of the plates. There might be some items on there that you've never heard of, but you know, we make sure that the staff are well trained and well-versed in knowing the product and knowing the ingredients in each of the dishes because that's an important part of their role. You know, the menu has to be approachable. It has to be, especially in Boston, I think. Boston is an unusual town. Chefs from New York that come to Boston and try and instill the New York thinking in Boston have never done well. Bostonians are very particular about the type of food that they want, the type of service that they want, and you have to adjust to that. And if you're not willing to adjust to that, you probably won't survive in Boston.

Arun: So, this is a shot in the bow for all the Nino restaurants that are coming here. Outstanding. So, even though the menu is approachable, like you say, most people are going to understand what is written there. But if there is something that I don't understand and I ask the server, he or she is not going to be very snotty, look down and say, oh, you don't even know this? And you're coming to this fine restaurant? I mean, obviously, no one will say in those many words, but sometimes they can have that attitude in some fine dining places. So, I'm assuming that's not the case at Mistral and other fine dining places at the Columbus Group.

Mark: I would like to think so, yes. But I think it's important that, you know, that's one of the techniques and management style that is important to teach your staff. You never want to correct your guest in their pronunciation. But there is a way to let the guest know that this is how it's pronounced without making them feel badly about it. And as long as that's incorporated on some level of your training to your staff, because you've got, you know, 350 bottles of wine on the wine list and, you know, everybody can be challenged and understanding how to say, you know, one of those French wines and one of those Italian wines. And the same applies to the dinner menu. So teaching the staff the appropriate way of correcting a guest without making them feel badly is important.

Arun: But there are some people who want to be pretentious when they go to these restaurants. So are your staff also trained to handle and give them that kind of feedback loop that yes, you are in a fine dining place?

Mark: You know, one of the things that you have to understand if you're going to work with the public is you're going to be dealing with so many different types of personalities. I learned this a long time ago when I first got into the industry in the 80s. And I went to a three-day seminar in Newport, Rhode Island. And I remember the story so vividly of the teacher explaining how this gentleman drove up in a beat-up pickup truck. He wasn't dressed appropriately. He looked like a bum. Came into the restaurant and ended up spending a ridiculous amount of money. Ordered himself a nice bottle of wine, had a nice dinner. Never prejudge anyone that comes into your restaurant or any public facility because everybody needs to be treated the same. If that guest wants to behave pretentiously, I think there is a way to modify a guest behavior. But again, a lot of that comes with training and understanding how to deal with the public. And so much of the level of service that happens in a restaurant has to start from the top and how management thinks about these different scenarios that the staff are going to engage in and how you are going to deal with them as a server or back reader that you've not dealt with something like that in the past.

So you have to think about these different scenarios that might pop up. And if you can teach your employees how to deal with somebody who is a little bit more pretentious or somebody who doesn't have the appropriate behaviors that might be out of line for the behavior in public, there is always a way to fix it. And if you're not comfortable as a line employee to do that, then you need to get your manager involved and the manager will take over at that point. And that's always been a challenge for me. Not a challenge, but it's been... I like those challenges. I like to turn those situations around. And a lot of times, it's just a matter of listening to what the guest has to say and engaging them. And if their behavior is inappropriate, then again, you find a way to tell them that without being rude.

Arun: Since we are on customer behavior, I'm curious to know what kind of changes have you noticed post pandemic in customers that are coming to the fine dining? What are the changes they expect in service, in food, in the atmosphere?

Mark: And within the restaurant itself, personally, I don't think we've seen a dramatic shift in personalities, in my opinion. On the phone, when guests are trying to make reservations, there seems to be a little bit more aggression. And I guess that might come from, you know, what everybody talks about now with people on the internet. It's safer to be behind the phone or behind a computer and behave badly than it is to behave badly face to face. And again, working with the public, you know, you're going to encounter these situations. And if human behaviors have changed since the pandemic, then we need to learn how to change our behaviors and how to deal with those situations.

Arun: So first of all, congratulations on getting that five star from the Boston Globe.

Mark: Thank you. That was quite an accomplishment. I'm very proud of that.

Arun: So, can you talk a little bit about how did the different restaurants evolve?

Mark: Well, let's talk about Mistral first, since that was the first one in our group. The vision of Mistral came from Seth Greenberg, who, as you know, is a BU alumni. He liked to travel to the south of France. The lifestyle of that environment always engaged him, and he had this vision to open up a restaurant that brought that food and that lifestyle element into a restaurant. He was friendly with Paul Reuf. They talked about the idea of opening up a restaurant, sets quite a visionary. The ideas that he comes up with and how he executes them have always been wonderful and successful. I mean, that's what he did when he was a student at BU. That's how we get involved in hospitality. 

But then, they went searching for a talented chef and they found Chef Jamie Mamano, who at the time, I think he recently left the Four Seasons after 10 years, and he was working for a catering, a high-end catering company down on the South Shore. Let's see, we opened up Teatro as our second location. And that was more of a casual concept over on Tremont Street. And I think Paul Royfe, who was the main investor within our restaurant group, had a vision to... Mistral was his first restaurant. And I think he was so excited about the success of Mistral that as a real estate developer, when he sees these properties and these locations opening up, I think his next step was, you know, maybe we can put a restaurant there. Teatro was very successful for 19 years. And then, you know, looking at the Sorellina location, which was cursed, Trinity Place, the last restaurant prior to Sorellina there was Salamander, which did not do well. And everybody said, you're making a big mistake.

You don't want to open up a restaurant there. But I think the component of being successful is not so much about the location as it is about what you're offering. And this is where Jamie Mimomano comes into play, Chef Mimomano comes into play when you put together a menu that is just so wonderful and the reputation that he has. And then you get these interior designers, and these architects put together that just build this beautiful space. There are so many elements that are important into designing a new restaurant to make it successful. And if you create that dynamic, that all-around ambiance, food, service, the guest will come. You know, and the vision to continue to expand our restaurant group based off of the success of the restaurants that we had, and the restaurant group just kept growing because there were opportunities out there for us, and the ownership saw that.

Arun: To operate a great restaurant, you obviously need chef, you need name brands, you need ambiance. But there's another very critical element, which is people who work there. And you obviously want to try and attract the top talent. During the pandemic and beyond now, there is a lot of competition for top talent. Many other industries are providing a lot of benefits that are very difficult for us to provide. You know, for example, work from home. So the question is, how do you make this an attractive work environment to attract top talent?

Mark: It is not easy to attract talents to the hospitality field. And certainly since the pandemic, it's made it much more difficult for the hospitality industry. But even before the pandemic, we have seen a shift in the amount of people that were willing to work in this industry. It is a different lifestyle. You work nights, you work weekends, you work holidays. Years ago, there was this core base of people that just loved the industry because of the freedom that this industry gave you. As time went on, people's attitudes changed, all of a sudden, though, the market of available talent out there was shrinking, shrinking, shrinking. There was an article, I think it was in the Boston Globe a couple of years ago, many, many years ago, that talked about the lack of talent in this industry and how we as managers now needed to invest a little bit more time in working with these people that are willing to commit and apply for a job but don't necessarily have the experience that we might be looking for as a manager. If there is an individual that has passion and desire to be successful in this field, then the management needs to invest a little bit more time in working with that individual. 

Now since the pandemic has come, it's even changed and made it much harder. The challenges that we find now in our group is finding management talents. Eventually you'll find a talented server or bartender. They always show up, thankfully. But trying to find talented mid-level management is our biggest challenge right now. There are obstacles that we face. We've got the corporate restaurant groups that can offer a lot more in benefits than we can. They've got a lot more money to play with. They can provide 401Ks. I think our benefits that we offer as a restaurant group are some of the best benefits for a privately owned restaurant group. We offer health insurance. We've always offered health insurance with a significant contribution from the company. We offer short-term disability. We offer vacation. We offer competitive wages. But more importantly, in order to retain the talents that we hire, I think there is an overall level of respect that needs to come with understanding how to keep that individual to continue working for you. What are we going to do differently than another restaurant group in the city that's going to keep that talent with us? And I think we've been very successful in accomplishing that over the years.

Through competitive wages, through listening to the individual employee, to communicating well with the employee, letting them know what's going on within the company, engaging them, involving them in helping us to run the operation, and letting them understand, getting them to understand the importance of their role in keeping the restaurant group successful. They are the ones out there that are working hand in hand with the guest. As a restaurant group, as a manager, if you're not engaging the line employee to understand how important that role is, you're not going to maintain that level of success. So it's such a big picture of how to find the talent and how to keep them. And if you can find them, then you've got to work so hard to keep them. Because if you have that revolving door spinning, spinning and spinning and spinning, it's a lot of work trying to hire and train and get them through the first couple of months of off their training and really start to see where their passion starts to come out. And once you, I think once we get them, we get them hooked, we get them hooked.

Arun: So what is the role of technology in a fine dining atmosphere? Is it all behind the scenes or are you also thinking of ways in which can be incorporated in the front of the house atmosphere?

Mark: Yeah, this is something that we've struggled with as a company. We are definitely evolving into a more technological company on the back end. Most importantly because it will help streamline how we run our operation. You know, for years we did everything almost manual labor. There are so many other ways to be more effective operationally, to cut down on labor and give your managers more opportunity to do the things that they need to focus on with this new technology that's available. The things that I struggle with new technologies out there, especially in this field, is restaurants lately they don't like to answer their phone. They don't like to answer their emails. If you want to make a reservation, you have to do it online. If you want to get in contact with somebody at the restaurant, you have to email them. Picking up the phone and dialing a restaurant these days can be a challenge to get a human voice.

For me, that's not hospitality. I think that the engagement that we have with the guests from the very beginning of them making a reservation, and certainly, I'm not saying that every phone call, every guest needs to call and make a reservation over the phone. I think there needs to be options. But we have a really wonderful reservations team in our group. And I hear all the time from guests how wonderful it is to talk to an individual. And that's the very beginning of my experience with your restaurant, and how wonderful it is that that still happens. I'll tell you a quick story. I was watching 60 Minutes recently, and there was a small island up in Canada that was big into fishing. And over a period of time, they had to rethink how the business on the island, and the fishing started to dissipate because of commercial fishing. So, they reinvented themselves. And one of the women who was the daughter of one of the bigger fishermen on this island came to the States, went to school for hospitality, went back to the island, and reinvented the island, and built this beautiful hotel, started focusing on hospitality. And one of the things that she said in the story was, hospitality is the love of a stranger, and I had never heard that before. And I thought, wow, that's a very profound comment. It makes perfect sense. And if we're going to continue in that trend of hospitality, which is the love of the stranger, we have to still engage somehow.

We just can't wait till they walk through the front door and start that engagement there. I think there needs to be something prior to that. You can have them look at your website and see how beautiful your website is and see the pictures of the food and the environment. But in order to truly experience what hospitality is, it needs to be face to face or voice to voice. Without that, you're losing what hospitality is about. I was at the airport the other day, sat down at a bar, and there's two people behind the bar. Oh, just check out the QR code. You can order your drink. You can order your food. You can do everything right there. I'm like, okay, but you're standing right here. Why can't you help me? Well, this is the way we do it now. So, that loss of interaction with the individual, it's so impersonal. And impersonal is not what hospitality is about.

Arun: Outstanding. You're making it so attractive for all of us to go and eat at your restaurants, Mark.

Mark: Thank you.

Arun: For a little fun, we wrap up this edition of the Distinguished podcast with a speed down of questions. If you could have dinner with anyone in the world from past or present, who would it be? You can name up to four people.

Mark: Up to four people.

Arun: But stick to one as well.

Mark: Who would I have dinner with? Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac. I was in love with her when I was younger. I'm still in love with her in some way. Probably Danny Myers is another one because Danny Myers' book, Setting the Table, is my Bible of hospitality. A lot of what I learned, I learned from reading that book. I think he's an incredible talent in this industry. 

Arun: Now, I cannot arrange a dinner with Danny Meyer. However, he was on our Dean's Distinguished Speaker Series, and we can send you a link to that talk.

Mark: Well, that's a start.

Arun: If you could travel anywhere in the world, just leave on a jet plane right now for a quick or long visit, where would you want to go?

Mark: Portugal. I have this fantasy. I've been to Portugal a couple of times, and my fantasy is buying a home in Portugal and spending half of my retirement there. That's where I want to end up.

Arun: Fantastic. A beautiful place, and you're in luck, Mark. Portugal has a retiree visa that they give out. They have obviously a residency visa as well.

Here is the last question that I have for you. You're in a desert island meal, meaning if you had to choose a dish that you would have on repeat for an undetermined amount of time, what would it be?

Mark: Well, it has to be an Italian dish. I learned how to make the best eggplant parmesan from my mother who happens to be Irish. And every time I make it for friends, I get rave reviews. So I would have to say either an eggplant parmesan or even a chicken parm. Those are my two favorites by far.

Arun: Thank you, Mark. It was a pleasure to talk to you today.

Mark: Thank you. I had a great time.

Arun: Thank you for joining us today. Special thanks to the team that produced this podcast, Mara Littman, Andy Halleck, and the entire team at Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. To keep up with the Distinguished podcast, be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. You can also learn more about our undergraduate and graduate programs at Boston University School of Hospitality Administration by visiting bu.edu/hospitality