Etiquette For Diners

I have been interviewed for a YouTube video which will appear soon.
Etiquette is changing, because we are living different lifestyles.

Here are some of the questions I was asked:

1 Q On which side of your dinner plate is your bread plate?
1 A On the left. You reach for the glass with your right hand, because most people are right handed. Therefore your left hand is used for your bread on the left.

2 Q What should I remember to keep other people at the table happy?
2 A If you see a jug of custard or cream, make sure you don't take most of it, leaving insufficient for the others. Always check the number of people who are sharing food before taking your share.

3 Q Should you wear your napkin in your lap or round your neck?
3 A It's usual to wear your napkin on your lap in a restaurant if you are over the age of five and have normal adult intelligence. Unless you have a fancy silver clip which holds up a napkin round your neck. Then you are deemed to be so rich that everybody else will copy you and think you must be right.
At home you do whatever suits you, especially if alone. When I'm alone and dressed up for a special occasion, if I have to eat first, I protect the front of my blouse or dress. An apron, - especially an apron with a waterproof back, is good. If you've been cooking in an apron, just keep it on until after you've finished the washing up.

4 Q When you have have lots of knives and forks, do you start on the outside or the inside?
4 A You start on the outside. If the first course is soup, you can see the soup spoon on the outside. In England the bowl of the soup spoon is rounded. The dessert spoon is oval, and often goes at the top of the plate out of the way. If in doubt, ask the waiter. Most waiters are delighted to show off their knowledge and help.

Any more questions, just ask me.
I am the author of several books of etiquette and have lived in the USA, Spain, Singapore and the UK.

Angella's Restaurant Rating - Ten Point See-Saw Guide

Who Am I?

Nearly 60,000 readers have looked at my reviews of restaurants on Trustedplaces.com. (Actually 59,000+ clicks - which is reader looks - which could mean one person who does nothing but read my reviews. But they don't count me because I log in and out and that doesn't count.) However, it will reach 60,000 by the end of the week I wrote this.) On day one I had only one review. I now have about 170 and I'm aiming at a nice round target of 200. And more. Not just restaurants. I'm sure somebody must have read my review of the Sex Museum in New York. And I got a comment on my review of Hyde Park station in London. Somebody was amazed 

Trusted Places expanded their rating system from a general star rating to the multiple verdict on decor service and food, rather like Michelin. (I suggested that because I went to places which had brilliant decor but indifferent food or wonderful food in basic surroundings. They'd probably already worked it out on their own and were just waiting for the funding or technical people to catch up with the list of improvements. I am now trying to develop my own ten point checking system - which will probably grown to thirty. (Years ago I was once briefly trained on hotel inspection by the Consumers' Association. I know that garages have a check system on returned hire cars. The MOT (for American readers that's the UK's mandatory annual car check for roadworthiness) also has a checklist.

I and members of my family have always joked about the glass of water test. Another make or break tests in the past has been smoking (which is now banned in the UK - alas not yet banned in Switzerland - where a member of my family who has cancer has been working). Another make or break test is sitting where you want. My thirty point checking system would include: (Non-smoking - always OK in UK, most USA restaurants, Singapore, France.) 

1 Novelty 

(Decor. Or food. Maybe a real chef providing dish of the day or month  

2 Exterior Decor 

3 Warm Welcome 

4 Choice of Seating 

5 Privacy 

6 Healthy Food /Vegetarian options 

7 Price Control Set meals (as is compulsory in France) or cheaper options and printed price lists for drinks. 

8 Ingredients explained. 

9 Pleasing Sound level

Music /entertainment.  

10 Service - customer is right.

Three and ten are most important. They can overcook the food but if they ask if everything is all right, or notice that you haven't finished it and ask what's wrong, then re-heat or change the food, add yogurt to reduce the spiciness, provide more veg to go with the meat, pack up the leftovers to go, take the price off the bill, or bring a free dessert or after dinner drink, apologise with a good excuse and a smile - act like it's their fault rather than yours, and hope you'll come back so you know that despite your complaint you are still wanted - yes they can recover what they have lost and more. 

Angella's See-Saw and Must See Again Guide

It's a see-saw guide. You see it and like it. You judge it after you've seen it. What tips the balance? Even if they get something on the down side, they can tip it back the other way.

The ultimate is the manager who shears a complaint and says, 'Thanks for telling me.'

I often feel so sorry for a manager or owner who has put hours into the most beautiful decor and has no idea that a server has done everything wrong - or just one tiny thing.

Favourite Restaurants In North West London

Angela Lansbury Author Blog Favourite restaurants

I write up my favourite restaurants on Trusted Places. 

An anonymous reader wrote to me on Trusted Places asking my recommendations for a restaurant in Edgware for four or five men in their late forties, eating out together while their wives had a girls’ night out at another restaurant. 

Not Italian food because they did that last time. Not Indian food because one of their group won’t eat Indian.  (Why don’t Indian restaurants have an alternative menu for people who don’t like Indian or can’t eat spicy food?) The group organizer for this month's meeting was considering Chinese food.

I had to write back and ask their budget. Their spending was £20-30 per person. 

Edgware? Half the restaurants are Jewish. But they obviously weren't only eating kosher or vegetarian food. I had to play a lot of Sherlock Holmes before being able to answer their questions. Were they Jewish? At least one of them is Jewish. So they won’t feel out of place in a restaurant with a Jewish menu and clientele. But they've probably already tried all the Jewish places and want something new. There are three Chinese and Jewish or kosher restaurants, the long-standing Kaifeng plus two others I have not yet tried. I understand they are quite pricey. 

The group's proposed location was Edgware. Second email they said or Finchley.

It would have been helpful if they had told where they lived and the furthest they would travel - in case I knew somewhere nearer them.

I would have liked it if they had told me the last three places they ate at, and if they liked these venues.

The kosher restaurants are obliged to close on the Sabbath which varies according to dusk at that time of year. So if you are eating out Friday or Saturday evenings you need to check their opening hours.  For those of you reading this who like Jewish style food and don't mind whether it is supervised and strictly kosher, Jewish but not kosher eating place has home made or bought in kosher food but more flexible opening hours.  

My favourite NW London restaurants for them:

1 Finchley - Delisserie.

2 Mill Hill Delisserie. 

3 Edgware - Aviv - Jewish I think they are kosher - suggest you check opening times. 

4 Edgware Ralphys - Jewish - can't remember whether kosher - suggest you check opening times. 

5 The Hare, Blubeckers, Harrow near Bushey.

6 Zaza Rickmansworth 

7 Hatch End: Sea Pebbles. 

8 Hatch End Rotisserie 

(Italian Fellini Hatch End, Mascalzone Edgware; Spanish La Giralda Pinner Green).

That's it. Would love to have your restaurant feedback and questions on Trusted Places if you want to be anonymous, or direct of you can track me down. Don't all shout at once. Answering individual queries is terribly time consuming. But I'll do my best for you.

The above was written 2008

Update in 2014

I'm really sorry that La Giralda has closed down.

My latest favourites are:

For Special Occasions:

Hawtrey's Restaurant at The Barn Hotel. (Gourmet.) Next to Ruislip station on the Piccadilly line on London's underground railway. 

Gilbert's at Grimsdyke Hotel. (Gourmet.)

Dona Teresa in Hatch End. (Italian restaurant.)

Fellini in Hatch End. (Italian caffee and restaurant.)

Orama. (Was Van Antoni.)

Black Pepper in Hatch End.

Collettes at The Grove hotel. (Very expensive.)

Oxo Tower, central London. (Two restaurants - great views of the Thames, very expensive)

B & K Hatch End or smaller branch Edgware. Jewish style filling food with deli take away counter.

La Fromagerie., Marylebone. Near Baker Street station. Daytime only. Breakfast, lunch and tea. Cheese shop attached. Grocers at the front.

Incanto, Harrow on the Hill. Tourists love Harrow on the Hill with its famous school. Expensive. Cheaper caffe at front during daytime.  I have several restaurant reviews with photos on my blogs - see also the blog on travel. I also write on Tripadvisor.

Hatch End Restaurants

HATCH END RESTAURANTS
Al Dente
Black Pepper
Fellini
Hatchets
Hatch End Tandoori
Mango
Rotisserie
Sazio
Sea Pebbles
Sugar Snap
Van Antoni

Pub
Moon & Sixpence (Wetherspoons)

Sazio
Tuesday
Eating with my son.

Recently opened. We'd previously eaten in their other branches in Pinner and Rickmansworth.

Attentive service. Gleaming new. All shiny black surfaces and dark mirrors like the Rotisserie nearby.

New and gleaming clean.

My son thought it was very smart. I liked the white oblong paper napkins laid out diagonally with cutlery on top. Tres chic.

Menu suited my son who loves pizza. I'm a chicken or veal and potatoes person. I found the menu a bit like Ask - too much pasta with pasta shape pieces of mangled meat, not enough of a complete piece of chicken nor a whole baked potato.

I chose chicken with saute potatoes and rocket. The chicken was in one piece but looked like pieces stuck together, as if the poor chicken had been beaten to death.

To my amazement it tasted lovely and I ate every scrap.

My son had the early evening two course special, a starter of garlic bread followed by pizza of ham and pineapple. Too much bread for me.

The baked cheesecake sounded good but I ate out Thursday and Sunday. I'd have opted for a fruit salad, aiming at my 5 portions of fruit a day, but they did not have one. All the desserts contained sugar which I try to avoid because my late father had late-onset diabetes which is caused by an over-sugary diet.

I wanted to sit longer. So I ordered another double espresso. I put in a packet of brown sugar.

Yes, time for a bit of a diet. At least we finished before 8 pm, so I have time to walk it off during the rest of the evening.

The bill for two was about £36. Eighteen pounds a head. And my son had a little of the pizza left over to take home.

Mascalzone Edgware

Jolly, echoing Italian
Large so we could always get a table. Though we tend to book.
Our dark-haired waitresses admitted she is not Italian but Romanian.

Best dishes
Starters:
Melon and ham. Large portion.
Smoked salmon.

Main courses:


Desserts:
Cassata Siciliana. Delicious green marzipan coating. Looks small, but one portion usually satisfies two of us.

Worst dishes:
Main courses:
Bread-covered veal. Meat the same thickness as batter. Unlike Wiener shnitzel. Batter cooked to a crisp. Not healthy.
Granny sent it back. Replaced by thick piece of salmon. No charge for the rejected meal. They still have our goodwill.

Bill for three, around £76 including service charge so about £25 a head including a couple of drink (red wine, rose wine, by the glass) and three coffees.
I drink double espresso before the meal so it doesn't keep me awake all night.

Restaurant Crockery and Cutlery Etiquette

Crockery
The jug and cup should be placed on the table with the handle to the right, on the assumption that the customer is right-handed.

To put the cup down with the handle to the left, or the top, so that the customer has to move it, is sloppy and insulting.

Cutlery
England is the only country in the world which has soup spoons, a friend told me. That explains why the overseas staff nowadays hand you a soup spoon with your dessert.

Just in case any foreigners are reading this and want to know, the soup spoon has a circular bowl.

England is also unusual in preserving the custom of a dessert fork to go with the dessert spoon.

Restaurant Seating

Can The Customer Choose A Table Or Booth?
USA
   In America you are often held by a barrier with the sign Please Wait To Be Seated. After driving forty miles through the night, dying to sit down, you are forced to stand clutching the heavy bag you did not want to leave in the car.

   The 'host' gives out tables so that each server gets a fair share of tips which range from 15-20%. When living in the USA I once went to a restaurant overlooking a spectacular view and although the place was nearly empty we were told to sit at the back.

   I was a travel writer and was going to take a picture of the view and write about the restaurant. They did not let me sit where I wanted. I did not write about them.

   Looking at the Yahoo answers page, it seems that in some states there is a minimum wage, in others not.

UK
   In the UK staff are paid a minimum wage and a ten per cent tip is usual.

INVISIBLE STAFF
   In the UK it is more common for you to go into a restaurant run by invisible staff. They don't notice if you walk out and they don't notice if you sit down. If you are desperate, you sit down at the nearest table. Then you move to whichever table you fancy. Then, getting impatient, you move to where you think you are most likely to be seen or heard by staff.

   You imagine they standing behind the door to the kitchen, peering through a spyhole. Or maybe they are sitting on the floor behind the bar playing backgammon or making love.

   Waiters should not ignore you. They should smile and nod and call the maitre D, manager or owner.

ALCOVES
   I may want to sit in an alcove. If I'm with a lawyer or accountant or discussing finance or on a blind date, I don't want to be overheard.

   Who else likes alcoves?

   You might have to wait for an alcove.

   Some people prefer tables. But I hate being in the centre of the room with people passing either side. People knock into you.

   With children who are likely to race about, I want to sandwich them between me and the wall.

   If you don't want to serve me at ninety-nine tables out of a hundred, I'll go next door where they say, 'Where would you like to sit, Madam?'

   I want the privacy of the alcove. I might want to be private, alone.

   If I have a smart coat and bag I want them tucked between me and the wall. If my handbag was once stolen in a restaurant, I don't want to sit in the middle with my bag on the back of my chair.

  If granny has wobbly ankles and a stick, we don't want to be up the step which trips her.

   I want the big booth table, not the tiddly table for two which makes all the cutlery fall on the dirty floor.

   The booth has wider seats. Frankly, those teeny chairs pinch me. They also give me backache.

   If I'm pregnant, or elderly, I may need to be near the loo.

   However, my husband might feel that near the loo or clattering kitchen door is sordid.

Tables
   The customer is always right. Every table should have good service.

   What are the empty tables doing? I might not want to sit by the window looking at traffic, hearing sirens.

I might prefer a window seat. I might have chosen the restaurant because of the great view. I might want to watch my car outside the window.

   I expect to be asked where I'd like to sit, or told why a particular table is good, away from a rowdy party about to arrive. The restaurant has to please the customer. Nothing should be too much trouble.

   A restaurant with little tables for two can push two tables together to make a bigger table if they are not busy. Or until the restaurant gets full later.

   The customer is always right. The customer is paying your wages.