A Restaurant Guide

This week two otherwise educated and charming acquaintances demonstrated in all too keen a way a new horror emerging in our tolerant society. They told me they were going out to restaurant X; they asked me what I thought of the place and what they should order. Of course, given my professional reputation for “blistering honesty”, I was not surprised by their request for information. I dealt it out and off they went, I hope enlightened.

The frightening problem here it that it seems people no longer know how to use restaurants. This may be because more and more people are going out to more and more restaurants – there has been a dilution of quality, if you like. Or it could be that what with our sleepless worry over climate semi-change we have lost a sense of proper etiquette and manners. This would be a terrible shame. I’ve always thought that come the end of times such things as manners, the ability to say please and thank you, not too mention correctly adjusted neck-ties, should be of the utmost importance.

Yet back to restaurant use.

Restaurants have front doors and you should enter them that way, and boldly so. Do not linger; if you are not attended to within 30 seconds or so, leave. Go home and cook yourself a proper dinner.

Of course one can make a reservation for a restaurant table. Always book under a leading restaurant critic’s surname, or full name if you like. Yes, this is very undergraduate, but one must remember what one is actually doing – paying good money and wasting valuable time out of the home, eating someone else’s food. Only a half-drunk undergraduate would do that.

Once seated refuse any offer of the menu and ask for the wine list. Order a pre-dinner drink if you like, but please be cognisant of the fact this drink will cost more than the main course. Restaurateurs have to make money somehow.

Once you’ve had a drink, ask for the menu. Do not choose what you rather ridiculously imagine you might like to eat, but instead employ a process of elimination to find what is safe.

Unless you are in Italy, do not order antipasto. Whether in Italy or not, do not order risotto. Risotto can only be cooked at home. (The claim that risotto should not be cooked at all I can understand, but I think that’s taking things one step too far.)

Never order anything deep-fried; that is what fish and chip shops are for. Do not order anything “inspired”: Thai-inspired mussels, Japanese-inspired chicken, Spanish-inspired ox tongue. No. Do not order “signature” dishes. Never ask a waiter or waitress what they think is best. Never order a “tasting plate”, and degustation menus are for self-important and pompous lifestyle warriors – who are the people one most observes in restaurants.

Ignore the main course dishes and if the restaurant offers “shared plates”, get up and walk out. Stick to the entrees. Order a light one for the first course and a richer one for main. Women may order a dessert course, but no matter what your gender, do not order cheese. It is always too cold, unlike the beer a restaurant might sell. Speaking of drink, order a bottle of pinot noir, or burgundy as it was once called. Wines ordered by the glass are an admission of failure and a sign of general moral decrepitude. Pay by cash and always tip ten per cent. Lunch is preferable; dinner brings out the amateurs.

And the most important rule: never go to a restaurant you haven’t been to before.