Alfons Konrad retired on June 29 from a foodservice career with Four Seasons that began as an executive chef in 1976. Three years later, he was named corporate food and beverage director, and senior VP of food and beverage in 1998. We talked to him about his 31 years with the hotel company many consider to be the finest in the world.

HFB: What is the mission at Four Seasons?
AK: Quality hotel operations with quality support activities that provide guests a superior experience at every stage, at every hour of their stay with us.

HFB: What about non-hotel guests?
AK: The people of the city judge our hotels by the quality of our food and beverage. Our prime goal is total quality hotel business, which means, regardless of the guest profile—hotel guest or city resident—I have no choice but to fulfill that goal with exceptional food and beverage.

HFB: How do you get the word out about F&B?
AK: Word of mouth primarily. You cannot live from the hotel guest only. You have a captive base, but you are lucky to get the guest for more than breakfast. Lunch? Totally local. We compete with freestanding restaurants. They attract the tourist and the businessperson. On the other hand, we attract locals familiar with the city’s restaurant market who recognize a great food and beverage product in the Four Seasons brand.

HFB: Your restaurants are as good as some of the independents in your markets.
AK: Go to the top culinarian of a freestanding restaurant. He or she tells you, “When you come to my restaurant, I give you food the way I create and prepare it.” What some people do not understand about our hotel restaurants is that whatever the guest wants, he or she is going to get. We have the ingredients and the capability to prepare just about anything.

HFB: Explain the decision to lease space in your Maui hotel to Wolfgang Puck’s Spago.
AK: Seasons Restaurant in Maui operated for 10 years but was not very successful. Our business partners gave us sufficient time to make it work but finally decided to outsource it.

HFB: Spago was the owner’s decision?
AK:Correct. Leasing space to a celebrity chef starts with the business partner. It’s what they want us to do, so we do it. Our primary business is catering; restaurant business is secondary. The restaurant provides guests an avenue that drives business to catering and convinces them not to shop with our competitors.

HFB: How does Four Seasons train its employees?
AK: Training for us is a group commitment. The best training is done through individual leadership: from the manager, the assistant manager, members of the planning committee, and the executive committee. We hire managers with the right attitude and the right behavioral management style who lead not just once, but every hour, every week. It is ongoing. All of us have a hands-on passion for supporting our employees so they understand precisely what it is they have to do. We would never ask an individual to do something awkward or where he or she looks awkward doing it. For example, we would never expect someone to explain five different kinds of Chardonnays when he or she has difficulty explaining one. The success of our training is to tune into the individual, so that he or she always has a comfort level with the position.

HFB: What are your hiring criteria?
AK: I mentioned attitude and appropriate behavior. To work for us, you must embrace basic rules of hospitality and human nature: treat each other the way you would like to be treated. That applies to relationships among employees as well as guests. If you cannot embrace those basics, you have no business working for us. We would rather go weeks or months without an employee than hire someone ill-suited for the job.

HFB: How do you delegate authority and responsibility?
AK: If a situation with a guest deviates from the norm, the employee understands that he or she can take the appropriate action to resolve the situation. They become, virtually, our lifeline. We encourage them to take positions of responsibility rather than postponing a decision because it might challenge an established policy.

HFB: How about service?
AK: Both go hand in hand. In order for us to provide a high quality of service, from kitchen to table, there must be a smooth pattern of service. It cannot be interrupted or compromised by petty bickering between those two components. Some of our servers and managers don’t know when to stop annoying guests by being overly kind or concerned. That’s a struggle. We have some individuals so impressed with the so-called formality of the dining experience that they go overboard with service essentials they feel might qualify them to become a maitre d’ or a manager. To anticipate guest needs is what we strive for, not excessive fawning or sweet talking.

HFB: What about trends: follow, ignore, set them?
AK: We watch what’s going on; we watch what our customers like and what their expectations are. We ignore some trends—molecular gastronomy, for instance—because they don’t apply to us. Customer awareness of what is and isn’t good has risen dramatically: the palate of our guests is more sophisticated and demanding, and that makes our job more difficult. We cannot provide every little detail they expect. However, the repertoire of the food we offer is huge versus the restaurateur. Our hotels have the ability to bring in talent to prepare just about any cuisine. That applies to our restaurants as well as catering.

HFB: What are your greatest accomplishments?
AK: I convinced Four Seasons to move away from the coffee shop syndrome. I implemented the two to three main course selection at banquets, where orders are taken when the appetizer is served. We were one of the first to serve food in lounges, the first to do tablecloth service at breakfast.

HFB: Mistakes?
AK: We chased ratings—Michelin and Zagat. How stupid was that? The idea is not to satisfy their criteria, but to satisfy the guest.

HFB: What have you learned?
AK: I never finish learning. This industry of ours is an ongoing evolution of food and service, a continual refinement of what exists.

HFB: Who replaces you?
AK: We need someone who understands the business of food and beverage, the designs implicit in concepts, and culinary skills, not just as each of these applies domestically, but internationally, where the criteria are far different.

Stephen Michaelides is a frequent contributor to Hotel F&B.