Best Service – Roganic Hong Kong: ‘We find out what the diner wants from their experience and guide them from start to finish’

This is the second consecutive year that the front-of-house team at Roganic Hong Kong, led by general manager Sean Oakford, has won the 100 Top Tables Best Service Award.

“You can call the first year a fluke but winning for a second year, we must be doing something right,” says the delighted Oakford. “It justifies the hard work we have all put in. These kind of things don’t happen in our job much, but these wins reinforce what we do. The team has worked hard so it means a lot.”

Coming from an engineering background, Oakford has only been working in the service industry for about seven years, of which five have been with Simon Rogan since joining L’Enclume in the Lake District in 2016.

Oakford passes on his knowledge to become an exceptional server to his front-of-house team. 

“You find out what the diner wants from their experience and guide them from start to finish,” says Oakford. “You have guests out for a special occasion, or an agenda such as meeting someone for the first time, or they want to negotiate a business deal. Each situation calls for a completely different style of service. Then, if they are foodies, they want to talk about Simon. So there are individual motivations. My job is to get to the heart of that quickly and deliver it to them.”

Then there are basic techniques to consider when serving, such as creating a positive atmosphere.

“We can attach a positive emotion to an object; for instance, if I give a glass of wine to the guest and they really liked it, I will reference it again in conversation. Or if I see their dish is clear after a course, I will ask them if they liked the course. It all goes toward creating a positive emotion.”