'Sit up straight and relax', 'never waste any food' and 'wait for permission before you sit down'. In some restaurants it's the diners who take orders ...
A Sydney chef announced the closure of her restaurant, Wafu (purveyors of "guilt free Japanese cuisine") in a rather unusual way this week, by throwing a spectacular strop at the supposed bad manners of her customers. She apparently needs to "refresh" herself by getting away from these "inconsiderate, greedy" people.
Yukako Ichikawa found it "distressing" when people said they were full as it showed "the utterer had deliberately damaged their body by wasting food through over-eating". Waste and greed were particular bugbears: she previously offered discounts for customers who finished their food, and became incensed at those who failed to bring doggie bags when requested to, for takeaway food. "The refusal of this most simple, basic request shows that Wafu's ways are not respected. Intolerable." It was depressing, she said, "to see fast-food junkies on the street every day".
Wafu was always a funny place: those who wanted to reserve tables had first to attend an "orientation" and undergo an arduous and confusing membership procedure. This was supposed to keep the riff-raff out, and it had the effect of making Wafu one of the most exclusive restaurants in the city. In April Ichikawa posted a long list of rules exhorting her patrons to "mind your manners … sit up straight … say itadakimasu [thank you] when served … wait to be given permission before you sit down" and so on.
Some people don't like people. They probably shouldn't be running restaurants. But what happens when you have a talented chef whose food is superb but who lacks the "interpersonal skills" necessary in a customer-facing business? There was a briefish trend in the 80s and 90s, probably started by Nico Ladenis, for chefs to throw customers out of their restaurants. You did things Nico's way: if you ordered a second gin and tonic or asked for salt, you could well find yourself back on the macadam. "I remember one customer at Chez Nico sitting back in his chair with his leg cocked to one side," says Andy McLeish, who worked under Ladenis and is now executive chef at the Michelin-starred Chapter One in Kent. "Nico kicked the back of the chair and said: 'Sit properly in my restaurant.'"
All this was jolly good for Ladenis's PR, and may have helped to inspire Marco Pierre White (who also worked for him) to do similar. MPW once threw out 54 customers in a single evening, and he perfected what he called "the whoosh": if a customer refused to leave his restaurant, the waiters would swiftly take all the crockery, glassware and cutlery from the table, then the maitre d' would remove the tablecloth with a flourish.
Gordon Ramsay, who famously chucked AA Gill and Joan Collins out of one of his restaurants in the late 90s, was another chef who pursued headlines in this sort of way. (It was remarked at the time how quickly this story, along with a tale of Madonna being turned away from his restaurants, ended up in the press.)
"That was just chefs showing off," says Rowley Leigh, chef patron of Le Café Anglais in Bayswater, west London. "People would go to Nico or Marco to see what outrage they might commit, or they would go to Gordon hoping he would come out of the kitchen with a cleaver telling them to fuck off. But that sort of cheffy autocracy has disappeared." Leigh is affectionately known as a bit of a grouch in the restaurant scene but, he says, "The customer is king. We may get one or two emmerdeurs but by and large they're a decent lot."
Does anything annoy him, I ask. "Some people, especially older ones, like their food unbelievably hot, and will send it back if it isn't – even roast beef. And at least half of people never say please or thank you now. Another thing that bothers me is that people will complain to staff and say the food was the most disgusting thing they've ever eaten, but when I come out to ask what the problem is, they'll say 'Oh no, absolutely nothing.'" Off the record, a respected chef tells me that the "robotic action of throwing salt all over the plate annoys us all", while McLeish says that it's "awful and disrespectful" for customers to fail to control young children.
People who are rude or imperious towards waiters are the most depressing things in a dining room, and snobbery is always repulsive. But dinner is always a compromise between the desires of the punter and the offerings of the venue. "Never say no" is an unofficial motto of Le Manoir, at least for the time being. Most chefs recognise that it's called the service industry for a reason, and that if you want to take someone's money you'd better make nice.