Written by: Velimir Cindrić
Photos: Adriana Karuza
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Finding happiness and satisfaction in continuously providing the guest with something good to eat and drink is what truly makes a restaurant good – stated once the famous New York chef and restaurateur Mario Batali.
That quote could serve as a reminder to every hospitality worker of why they joined this industry in the first place: because they love making people happy, especially when it’s thanks to a meal they enjoyed.
And one of the key people in that system is the director of food and beverages. When you add to that the work of a sommelier, you get the everyday job of our interviewee, Sanjin Ilić, who is also the assistant director of Hotel Miramare, the perfect luxury spot for a holiday, located right on the seafront in the center of Crikvenica, just a few steps from sandy beaches.
“The person who is director of food and beverages is responsible for the service side, meaning restaurants, serving, but also for the kitchen – absolutely the entire food and beverage operation. Depending on where you work, you are responsible for a large number of employees, often more than 30, and your task is to set up the whole foundation and standards of food and beverages – everything must be organized in the best possible way, with strictly defined standards and procedures. That makes everyone’s job easier.
In addition, you are responsible for the cost of purchasing ingredients and drinks, negotiations with suppliers, and so on, while as a sommelier your exclusive concern is the selection and purchase of wines and, of course – pricing. The wine list must be carefully thought out because every property is specific. It is not advisable, for example, for a hotel somewhere in the Alps to have a wine list similar to one in Dalmatia or Slavonia. In other words, you must take into account the location of the property, the profile of the guests, the culinary offer…” Ilić tells us.
He began his professional path in Opatija, working as a waiter in a five-star hotel. He made a big step forward by getting a job in the international company Carnival Cruise Line, where, between 2012 and 2017, he advanced from waiter to assistant beverage operations manager and then beverage operations manager.
After returning to Croatia, he worked as manager of restaurants and bars at Amfora Hvar Grand Beach Resort, then as food and beverage director at Hotel Pinija in Petrčane, and in 2021 he arrived at Miramare, first taking over management of the restaurant and bar, and later the position of director of food and beverages. Then, two years ago, he also became the assistant director of the hotel…
“Somehow I always had a love for the kitchen. I started cooking by myself at home, and over the years I felt I was getting better. Along with food, I was also drawn to service, to hospitality in general and especially the hotel industry, in the sense that at school my favorite part was always the practical work. Setting up everything related to food and beverages – I always liked doing that.
But my expertise definitely has its foundations in my experiences working on cruise ships. Those are huge companies with firmly defined procedures, standards, and ways of working – big systems that simply could not survive without that. When you arrive there, you first have daily programs and trainings, so it turns out that, for at least the first two or three weeks, you don’t have any free time at all. You have a series of trainings and education programs related to behavior in crisis situations, to certain patterns of conduct… So there you learn everything about the job, no matter where you come from.
On cruise ships, it was always fascinating for me to see how all employees, no matter which culture they come from, after only a few months all breathe as one. That is truly fascinating, and in essence, it teaches you how you should work one day when you become a manager” – explains Ilić, describing the experience that shaped him professionally.
Sanjin applied his knowledge also in the work of a sommelier, which is visible in the wine list of Hotel Miramare’s restaurant.
“The goal is to have a wider range of wines, meaning that the offer is not based exclusively on the food menu, but also so that a waiter or sommelier can, with a certain dish, offer a perfect pairing. At Hotel Miramare we are somehow oriented toward being local. With both food and drink. When I say local, I don’t mean just the Crikvenica area, but all of Croatia.
So we offer 95% of our wines from Croatia. And they are all premium wines from different parts of the country; we can present all our regions to the guest, and behind every wine there is a story. Of course, we also have fantastic foreign wines, but still, we try to fill the wine list primarily with ours. Because Croatia, especially in the last 10–15 years, can really be proud of excellent wines. In Istria alone, almost every year a new winery appears. And the offer and professionalism of winemakers is truly outstanding. So foreign wines we include only to ‘add some color’ to the wine list. These are well-known wines from New Zealand, the USA, France, Italy…” says Ilić.
One of the most important tasks of a hospitality professional is to make the restaurant visit unforgettable. On that, Sanjin has a very clear strategy.
“First and foremost, it’s about emotion. And that is what I try to pass on to the staff, because they are extremely important for every guest’s impression. Emotion matters because it is something the guest remembers very well, and it can, of course, be both positive and negative. Naturally, our interest is to create positive emotion for the guest, because then it becomes less important whether the hotel has golden door handles or crystal chandeliers. The guest will also not notice some possible minor shortcomings if we provide perfect service, that positive emotion. Then they will want to return, I am sure.
It’s simply about attention and care for people. The guest should feel welcome, comfortable, should feel that we are paying attention to them… Emotion can be created in different ways. For example, you can just show someone where the toilet is, or you can take one step further: escort the guest there and open the door for them… That is the difference between good and excellent service, and the difference in the emotion the guest will receive. If the guests have children, you can show attention to the kids, talk with them briefly. We must ensure a friendly approach, but on the other hand, boundaries must be clear too,” Ilić explains.
In creating a special experience, the pairing of food and wine plays an important role. In this field there are, of course, rules, but today’s wide range of wines allows the skilled sommelier certain freedoms.
“You can, for example, serve red wine with certain fish. With meat, a lot depends on the sauces on the plate, so the wine should be paired either with the meat or the sauce. Then, for example, pošip or chardonnay go well with chicken, turkey, or lighter meats, while lighter red wines can easily pair with fattier fish such as tuna or salmon, even sparkling wine which cuts the fat very well. Acid goes with acid, while wine’s sweetness reduces food’s spiciness. Even if you recommend something really interesting and seemingly unusual, the guest will remember your suggestion. From my experience, in most cases the guest will take what the sommelier recommends. That is why, as a manager, I must conduct various staff trainings, wine tastings… so that the employees have the best possible knowledge, because thanks to that they will give better recommendations.
And from the moment you give a good recommendation with which the guest is satisfied, every next time they come they will ask for your help in choosing. And once you build the guest’s trust, they are yours and you are theirs, and there we come again to that story about emotion,” says Ilić.
For success, team motivation is also important, which Sanjin says he achieves through training and meetings, showing new things.
“You know, all people love to learn, they love when attention is paid to them, and by doing so you also create team motivation. With me, every employee has the freedom to say something. The easiest thing is to be a strict manager. Then you will gain some kind of fear and respect, but no one will approach you, everyone will just work ‘robotically.’ And that is long-term harmful for the company. You must always have your office door open, it is advisable to be as often as possible among your employees. You must always be there for people and be their support, understand that all of us also have our problems,” Ilić says and adds:
“Look, for me the greatest skill is – attitude. I hire people exclusively according to their attitude. Of course, experience matters too, but if I must choose between work experience and attitude, I choose attitude. What does that mean? It means that if a person is positive, if they have the will to work, the will to learn…, we can easily teach that person. Attitude also means character, partly upbringing from parents and society,” says our interviewee.
Of course, times are changing, and today technology is changing both the sommelier’s job and managing the food and beverage sector. Although he claims that technology will not be able to replace emotion and humans, Sanjin is convinced that big corporations will use it for savings.
“If you have, say, a bartender who makes coffee, he costs you. But if you have a very good machine that makes quality coffee, there will be guests who will not mind at all typing on the machine which coffee they want. And there you save a lot. Technology is accurate, precise, recipes are exact, standards too, and that will certainly affect our sector in the next 10–20 years.
Artificial intelligence can design a wine list, help pair food and wine, perhaps even better than a human would. Likewise, AI can help with planning, quantities, ordering supplies…
Artificial intelligence can certainly help in decision-making, but I do not think it is a threat to humans and the profession. Just as companies once paid consultants, now you have that through artificial intelligence,” Ilić states.
Since, while working on cruise ships, he passed through many wine regions, we asked Sanjin which wines impressed him the most.
“Australia and especially the United States have fantastic wines. There I tasted a truly large number of them, and those wines somehow remained the most memorable for me – Californian wines from Napa Valley, especially Opus One, then Robert Mondavi’s cabernet sauvignon, Australian sauvignons… There is an aroma that is 80% of wine tasting and through which you get full information, and they say smell connects you the most to a past situation. That is the magic of working with wines, every wine we smell reminds us of a specific moment. Otherwise, I generally like stronger red wines, so I am very fond of our plavac, dingač, babić,” says Ilić.
Finally, we ask Sanjin for one practical piece of advice: which wine to choose for a private dinner with friends?
“For a larger group you can’t go wrong with some lighter or more familiar varieties such as malvazija, žlahtina, graševina…, especially if we are talking about summer days. And for red wines, my recommendation is a good pinot noir or merlot, wines that you can enjoy both on their own and with food,” Ilić advises.
