The owner has asked for a rack of lamb carved in front of his guests, and a crepe Suzette to finish. A trolley, a burner, an open flame and eight pairs of eyes: gueridon service is theatre, and theatre that goes wrong in front of an audience is very hard to recover.
What gueridon service is
Gueridon service (French service) means finishing, portioning, carving, filleting or flaming food on a trolley or side table beside the guest, then plating and serving. The trolley is the gueridon; the burner on it is traditionally a rechaud.
Setting the gueridon
- Mise en place first, always. Every ingredient, plate, cutlery, cloth and tool on the trolley before you leave the galley. You cannot walk back for the sugar.
- Layout: heat source and working area centre, ingredients to the left, hot plates to the right, waste and used cutlery out of the guest's sightline.
- Trolley wheels locked or trolley chocked. On a yacht, a rolling trolley with an open flame is the hazard, not the flame itself.
- Position the trolley so guests can see your hands, but so that no guest is between you and the flame, and nothing overhangs the table.
Carving at the table
- Carve across the grain for tenderness; know where the grain runs before you start.
- Rack of lamb: steady with a carving fork through the fat side, cut down between the bones with a smooth single stroke, do not saw.
- Whole fish: lift the top fillet off the bone with a fish knife and spoon, remove the frame in one piece to a spare plate, then lift the bottom fillet.
- Poultry: legs first at the joint, then breast in slices across.
- Keep portions even and count them before you start. Nothing exposes an amateur like running out of lamb at the eighth guest.
- Serve the carved item to the hot plate, sauce it at the trolley or at the plate as the chef directs, and place from the guest's right.
Flambe
Flambe is burning off the alcohol in a spirit to develop flavour, not making a fireball.
- Warm the alcohol before ignition; cold spirit will not light and you will over-pour trying.
- Pour the spirit away from the flame, never from the bottle directly into a lit pan. Decant a measured amount into a small jug or ladle first.
- Tilt the pan away from you and ignite at the far edge. Keep your face, hair and sleeves back.
- Never lean over the pan. Never flambe under a low deckhead, an awning, a bimini or anything soft.
- Know where the extinguisher and fire blanket are before you light anything, and confirm the crew nearby knows a flame is coming.
Onboard Notes
- Many yachts prohibit open-flame service in the saloon entirely, and some flag and insurance conditions restrict it. Check the yacht's policy and clear it with the chief stew and the officer of the watch before you plan a flambe; do not assume.
- Motion is the enemy. A gueridon service in anything above a light sea is a bad idea, and calling it off early is a professional decision, not a failure.
- Alcohol vapour travels. Do not flambe near curtains, floral arrangements, table candles or a guest with long loose hair.
- Rehearse the whole sequence in the crew mess, including the failure case: what you say and do if the flame does not take, or takes too well.