A style of restaurant with formal table service by a trained dining-room team, backed by a full kitchen brigade.
Fine dining describes restaurants with a full dining-room team as well as a kitchen brigade. In the dining room, Onisep, the French careers service, describes a maître d’hôtel who welcomes guests, presents the menu and wine list, takes the order and passes it to the chef de rang and the sommelier, and may flambé or carve at the table. In fine-dining restaurants, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics notes, waiters may set tables with linens and glassware. In the kitchen, Skills England places commis chefs largely in luxury, fine-dining and gastro venues, in a brigade under a chef de partie, sous-chef or head chef.
Michelin stars measure something else. The MICHELIN Guide awards them for the quality of the food alone, on five criteria; its inspectors do not judge decor, table setting or service, which the guide marks with a separate fork-and-spoon symbol. A star says nothing about how formal the service is.
In job listings
Fine dining appears in titles such as fine-dining server and cook, and in hotel listings for chefs de rang, sommeliers, chefs de partie and restaurant supervisors, some at starred restaurants. It signals formal table service, wine recommendations and coordination between kitchen and dining room. See current dining roles.
