7 things you shouldn’t do when dining out but probably do
Dining out: I can hardly think of anything more enjoyable. But what do you know? Something as seemingly simple as a restaurant visit suddenly turns out to be a minefield full of inappropriate behavior. Are you guilty of any of these too?
An evening out at a restaurant should be a celebration — especially considering what you pay for it these days. Literally, but sometimes figuratively too.. Because some guests make the restaurant experience slightly less enjoyable — for the staff and for other diners. Here are seven common restaurant blunders that are best avoided.
7 things guests often do in restaurants (but really should stop doing)
1. Coming in wearing too much perfume
Do you love perfume? So do I! But maybe not yours, and vice versa. And such a cloud of perfume is genuinely unpleasant when you’re eating. Not only for guests, by the way; chefs and servers can suffer from it too. It’s not for nothing that restaurant Toscanini in Amsterdam made a special request during online reservations: ‘We want all our guests to have a great experience, but sometimes this is made more difficult by excessive use of perfume. We would therefore kindly ask you to take this into account by wearing perfume more subtly.’
2. Being unable to make a decision
There are three types of people when it comes to dining out: those who have thoroughly studied the entire menu before their visit and know exactly what they want, the quick-scanning guests who make a choice after a fleeting glance at the menu, and those who treat the menu like an ancient parchment containing hidden messages. The latter group asks endless questions such as: “What do you recommend?”, “How is this prepared?”, and, truly, one I’ve actually heard: “Does the chef eat this too?” Make things easier for yourself and, above all, for the staff: just choose something and let yourself be surprised. Or go for a shared dining menu so you can try different things. There’s bound to be something the chef eats too.
3. Switching tables
The restaurant has been carefully arranged and tables have been assigned, but then you walk in and decide that you’d actually rather sit by the window. And if that spot isn’t available, would you perhaps prefer that quiet corner after all? Or wait, no, outside is actually quite pleasant too. The worst part: once you’ve sat down outside, had your first drink and then still move to that quiet corner. Arghhhhh!
4. Paying separately
“Can we all pay separately?” was always a heart-attack-inducing moment when I worked in hospitality, especially when closing out the till at the end of the evening. On top of that, nothing delays your work as much as this little stunt, except for everyone ordering a different complicated coffee (and an ex walking in with his new girlfriend, but I’ll save that story for later). No, people who want to pay the bill separately are seriously irritating. Just have one person in the group pay and send each other a payment request afterward.
5. Taking photos of everything
Look, taking a quick photo of your plate before you start eating is understandable, but if you hold a full-blown photoshoot, including different angles, turning on the flash and even standing up to get that perfect shot, you are officially that annoying guest. Because while you’re looking for the perfect Instagram lighting, your food is slowly going cold. Maybe, just maybe, it’s more important that it tastes good than that it looks nice online? And maybe, just maybe, my dining companions have told me that very often too? Oops…
6. Saying you have an allergy when you don’t
Food allergies are serious. And it’s great when restaurants treat them that way. But if you lie about a ‘gluten allergy’ while happily eating that baguette with herb butter, you drive chefs and servers crazy. They go to the trouble of accommodating your ‘allergy’, and then you make fools of them. It’s not nice, and it makes it harder for people with real allergies to be taken seriously. Be honest: if you simply prefer not to eat something, say so. It saves the kitchen a lot of stress.
7. Helping to clear up
Oh no, yet another thing I’m guilty of too! Helping clear the table — it was really drilled into me when I was younger. But guess what? As helpful and tidy-minded as this is for your housemates, it’s not helpful at all for restaurant staff. They know much better than you how to stack all those plates, saucers, bowls and pieces of cutlery most efficiently so they can take as much as possible to the dishwashing area in one go. Incidentally, whether leaving a table tidy is a good thing or not is an interesting topic for a generational debate.
So the next time you dine out, do yourself and everyone else a favor: skip the perfume, just choose something tasty from the menu and leave the crockery where it is. Or don’t — but we warned you.
Read also:
- 10 seriously irritating things everyone in hospitality recognizes
- 10 culinary destinations Michelin says you should visit this year
- How companies like Nestlé and Unilever are profiting from the Ozempic diet trend
