Everything about Service La Russe totally explained
Service à la russe (
French, literally "service in the Russian style") is a manner of dining that involves courses being brought to the table sequentially.
It contrasts with
service à la française ("service in the French style"), in which all the food is brought out at once in an impressive, but often impractical, display. The Russian Prince
Alexander Kurakin is credited with having brought this practice to
France in the early 19th century, and it later caught on in
England. This is now the style in which most modern
restaurants serve food (with some significant modifications).
Place setting and service order
For the most correct
service à la russe, the following must be observed:
The place setting (called a cover) for each guest includes a
service plate, all the necessary
flatware except those required for dessert, and stemmed glasses for water,
wines and
champagne. Atop the service plate is a rolled napkin, and atop that's the
place card. Above the plate is a
saltcellar,
nut dish, and a
menu, which must be handwritten.
The flatware to the right of the service plate are, from the outside in, the
oyster fork resting in the bowl of the
soup spoon, the
fish knife, the
meat knife and the
salad knife (or
fruit knife). On the left, from the outside in, are the
fish fork, the
meat fork and a
salad fork (or
fruit fork). (If both a salad and a fruit course are served, the necessary extra flatware must be brought out on a platter, as it's bad form to have more than three knives or forks on the table at once.)
Guests are seated according to their place cards and immediately remove their napkins and place them in their laps. Another view maintains that the napkin is only removed after the host/hostess has removed his or hers. In the same manner, the host/hostess is first to begin eating, and guests follow. Then the
oyster plate is placed atop the service plate. Once that's cleared the soup plate replaces it. After the soup course is finished, both the soup plate and service plate are removed from the table, and a heated plate is put in their place. (The rule is as such: a filled plate is always replaced with an empty one, and no place goes without a plate until just before the dessert course.)
The fish and meat courses are always served from
platters, because in correct service a filled plate is never placed before a guest.
Directly before dessert everything is removed from the place settings but the wine and water glasses.
Crumbs are cleared now. The dessert plate is then brought out with a
doily on top of it, a
finger bowl on top of that, and a fork and spoon, the former balanced on the left side of the plate and the latter on the right. Guests remove the doily and finger bowls, move them to the left of the plate and place the fork to the left side of the plate and the spoon to its right. Guests are not actually to use the finger bowl.
Menu
A typical 14-course menu for a formal French dinner in
service à la russe style is as follows:
- Oysters or clams on a half shell. Alternatively, fruit or caviar may be served.
- Soup (each guest may choose between clear or thick).
- Radishes, celery, olives and almonds.
- Fish, with potatoes and cucumbers with oil & vinegar.
- Sweetbreads (or mushrooms).
- Artichokes, asparagus or spinach inside a pastry.
- A roast with a green vegetable.
- Frozen Roman punch.
- Game with salad.
- Creamed sweet (such as heavy pudding).
- Frozen sweet.
- Cheeses with biscuits and butter.
- Crystallized and stuffed dried fruits served with bonbons.
- Coffee, liqueurs and sparkling water.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Service La Russe'.
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