There’s nothing worse than an entitled restaurateur

Going to restaurants used to be fun. So much so that in the first two booze-sloshed decades of the 21st century, restaurants were the key setting for most of my social activity. My friends and I, living in pretty nasty rented rooms, spent our disposable income on two or three meals out a week, where we ordered decadently and drank plenty of wine. Even if the food and service weren’t always stellar, it was generally possible to relax. Waiters were friendly, if a bit remote. They didn’t breathe down your neck, and they let you focus on each other and your food, not them. 

But amid a generally precipitous decline in hospitality staff’s understanding of the customer-purveyor relationship, plus a steep rise in prices that is ruinous for mood, those days are fast disappearing. Which is why the rude, entitled comments made by an obscure north London Anglo-Irish restaurateur ended up on front pages this week.