Food and Beverage Service
What the exam tests
F&B service questions test service styles, cover layout, the sequence of service and simple costing. Expect a table-set-up diagram described in words, a sequence question, and a food-cost or selling-price calculation.
Core rules and concepts
- Menus: à la carte (each dish priced separately), table d'hôte (fixed multi-course price), carte du jour (specials of the day).
- Service styles: silver/English (food presented on the left from a dish), plate/American, Russian (platters presented, plated at the side), French (guéridon, finished at the table), buffet, family, butler.
- A cover is one place setting: show plate, napkin, side plate, cutlery in order of use from the outside in, glassware above the knife, cruet and bud vase.
- Sequence of service: greet and seat → present menu → take the order (repeat it) → serve water and bread → serve courses → clear → offer dessert and beverage → present the bill → bid farewell.
- Classical rule: food is served from the guest's right with the right hand (vegetables and salads from the left), cleared from the right, and beverages poured from the right.
- The F&B control cycle: purchasing, receiving, storing, issuing, production, selling, accounting.
Worked example
A dish costs ₹120 in ingredients and the outlet targets a 30% food cost. Selling price = food cost ÷ food cost percentage = 120 ÷ 0.30 = ₹400 before taxes. If the bill adds 5% GST, the guest pays ₹420. The same formula reversed tells you the actual food cost percentage after discounting: selling at ₹360 gives 33.3%, which the manager must justify.
Traps that cost marks
Putting cutlery in the wrong outside-in order; writing "serve from the left" for all courses; computing selling price as cost + 30% (that gives food cost of 23%, not 30%); confusing cover (one setting) with couvert (a charge); forgetting KOT must reach the kitchen before service.