As you may have guessed by now, I travel a lot. It has been an integral part of my work for most of my career, and fortunately I genuinely enjoy it. I like discovering different countries, different cultures, different food, and especially the different ways people practice hospitality. After spending a lifetime in this business, I find myself paying attention to things most guests probably never consciously notice. I notice how the door is opened, how a reservation is handled, what questions are asked, how the menu is presented, and whether the people working in the restaurant make hospitality feel natural or rehearsed.

One thing I have always believed is that information is king—or queen—but how you collect that information matters. I want a restaurant to know whether I have been there before, what kind of evening I am looking for, and whether there is something it can do to make the experience better. What I do not enjoy is being grilled by a stranger before I have had time to sit down. There is a great difference between someone learning about you through a pleasant conversation and someone conducting what feels like an immigration interview beside the host stand.

Years ago, while working a large food show in Manchester, England, I saw both the very best and the very worst of hospitality in a single evening.

The show itself was exhausting. It ran for five days at roughly twelve hours a day, and anyone who has worked a trade show knows that the hours on the schedule do not really describe the experience. You stand most of the day, talk continuously, answer the same questions repeatedly, meet hundreds of people, and somehow remain pleasant while your feet are quietly filing a complaint with management. By the end of the first day, I was tired, hungry, and in no mood to search half of Manchester for dinner.