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Dining gripes: why all restaurants should take bookings
When the restaurateur Russell Norman makes a list of everything he hates about eating out, this is a giant act of generosity: the man pretty much invented the small plate (the whole grand concept of making things so delicious that you don’t mind a tiny portion). Nevertheless, I have checked the list and disagree with most of it. For instance …
The founder of the Polpo restaurants hates the question: “Do you have a reservation?” (It’s actually OK, if you still run a booking system, to ask people if they have booked); the “concept” (fair enough, but we are all humans just trying to plant a flag on the shifting soil); “artisanal”, “hand-cut”, square plates, novelty crockery (OK, granted); sommeliers sniffing corks (there is a theatrical framework to all human activity – what Lakoff would call Metaphors We Live By; sniffing stuff is merely part of that frame); waiters who go: “Don’t worry – I’ll remember everything” (but what if they can?): also, ones who say “Enjoy” (castigating expressions of goodwill is very 1980s).