Can restaurant apps make splitting the bill a thing of the past?
The system, which means diners can walk out of an eatery at any point and pay automatically, is currently being trialled at a branch of PrezzoName: Dine & Dash.Age: Imminent.Continue reading...
View ArticleThe Red Lion, Soham | Grace Dent’s restaurant review
This refurbished pub in deepest Cambridgeshire will satisfy locals and unpretentious day-trippers alikeHeading to the Red Lion (closest station Ely) on a Saturday lunchtime, the train falls utterly...
View ArticleDo restaurants really make staff pay when customers do a runner?
The waiter tells a believable, if outrageous story, and the restaurant chain vehemently denies it. What is the truth?The waiter at the airport restaurant appeared relieved when I finally found him...
View ArticleFarm Girl Café, Chelsea: ‘We don't stay for dessert, because we have suffered...
The food was so bad, a nearby Yorkshire terrier started to look more appetisingFarm Girl Café, 9 Park Walk, London SW10 0AJ (020 3674 7359). Meal for two, including drinks and service £110The menu at...
View ArticleStubbing out in the health food restaurant - archive, 13 March 1968
13 March 1968 Feeling healthy and virtuous after a vitamin bursting meal, a Guardian correspondent gives up smoking - for a dayI noticed first the light, airy, I scrubbed-pine-and-cane appearance of...
View ArticleIf you want to eat out, you should fork out
Don’t moan about the cost of a restaurant meal – unless you don’t care about paying the chef and the waiter properlyHow much are you willing to pay for someone else to cook your dinner, bring it to you...
View ArticleRomy’s Kitchen, Thornbury, Bristol: ‘Not too hip, not too laboured, but...
Modern but faithful Punjabi-Bengali cooking is the secret to Romy Gill’s welcoming neighbourhood stop-offHaving dipped in and out of Bristol for the past 30 years, I’ve always thought the place a...
View ArticleWe restaurateurs are all hopeless optimists. But this is a cry for your help
Award-winning chef Jackson Boxer explains why beleaguered restaraunts are under threatThere’s a specific feeling, not unlike vertigo, when it suddenly hits home, mid-service, that you’ve been...
View ArticleUnited Chip, London: ‘Brilliant sauces and rather good chips’ – restaurant...
Opening a fully sustainable chippy could so easily come a cropper. But this place is spot onUnited Chip, 5 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1M 5PE (020 7490 0069). Meal for two, excluding drinks: £25 (at...
View ArticleThe great British chef shortage: why eating out is under threat
We are in a golden age for dining out – but now there aren’t enough trained chefs and waiters to go round – and Brexit is not going to helpIt was, says chef patron Alexis Gauthier, “not the last...
View ArticleService charge: how do I know if the restaurant staff got my tip?
I was told my tip would not go to the restaurant staff. If I’d known I would have paid it in cashIn January I took my family to the German Gymnasium restaurant at King’s Cross, London. The food was...
View ArticleGo big or go alone: how to bag a table at the hottest restaurants
The Lost Kitchen, a vastly oversubscribed restaurant in Maine, is taking only handwritten postal bookings this year. But not every in-demand eaterie requires you to put pen to paper – here are eight...
View ArticleSabor, London W1 | Grace Dent’s restaurant review
A new Spanish restaurant that continues the fine tradition begun by the same team that set up BarrafinaSabor has taken root on Heddon Street, W1. If you know London only as a tourist, however briefly,...
View ArticlePrezzo to close almost 100 restaurants with loss of about 500 jobs
Chain becomes latest in casual dining sector to undertake company voluntary arrangementAbout 500 jobs are to go at Prezzo after the restaurant chain agreed a restructuring plan that will lead to the...
View ArticleTrue or false? ‘If you do a runner, the waiter has to pay your bill
Do restaurants make staff pick up the tab if you don’t pay your bill? We try to get to the factsSo do restaurants make waiting staff pay when customers leave without settling their bill? A fortnight...
View ArticleStudio 88, London: ‘Of course the cooking is going to be a disaster’
Gaining entry to Studio 88 is tricky, but once in you’ll love it. Just don’t go for the foodStudio 88, 47 Whitcomb Street, London WC2H 7DH (020 7889 1966). Meal for two, including glass of prosecco:...
View ArticleFrench waiter says firing for rudeness is 'discrimination against my culture'
Guillaume Rey filed a complaint after being dismissed from a Canada restaurant for being ‘aggressive, rude and disrespectful’A French waiter fired for being “aggressive, rude and disrespectful” says...
View ArticleVive l’indifférence: why rude French waiters should be celebrated
Who says restaurant staff, such as the Gallic waiter who was sacked for rudeness, must fawn over customers? They’re there to serve you food, not be your best friendThere are, famously, many intonations...
View ArticleEating out increases levels of phthalates in the body, study finds
US research discovers 35% increase in levels of chemical linked to disease in those who dined at restaurants the previous dayEating at restaurants and fast food chains may increase exposure to...
View Article20 Stories, Manchester: 'This will doubtless be one of my favourite dinners...
Food served at the top of tall buildings tends to be expensive and loveless, but this place breaks that mouldAs I booked 20 Stories in Manchester, it was with some concerns. 20 Stories claims, at its...
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