As I teach my toddler to use cutlery, I’m reminded of a recent multicourse lunch I had at a serious restaurant. Handing me my fancy amusebouche, the waiter advised that I use the teaspoon provided. In another restaurant of ambition, a simple cup of espresso was delivered with a side of guidance – stir it, then leave it briefly before drinking. There is, sadly, no risk of my being mistaken for Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman: sizzling hot but new to salad forks. But even if I’d never been in a restaurant in my life, I’d like to think I could handle a spoon.
These infantilising incidents, which also extended to an instruction to drink a cup of consommé (rather than, say, forking it up, gargling with it or throwing it over a passing dog), are part of a ‘more is more’ trend in food and restaurants. Perhaps as a reaction against the terse dish descriptions flourishing in some restaurant quarters (‘pig part, vegetables, sauce’, that sort of thing), in others we can’t sit down without being told about the small plate concept, the organic caraway used in the house-made sauerkraut, the cow that made the milk that made the ice cream. We are warned off any secretly planned acts of idiocy: don’t drink the dry ice! Don’t eat the pebbles! And we’re not allowed to talk to our dinner companion until we’ve heard about the restaurant’s rare fermented tea. As a food journalist,
I listen eagerly – as far as research goes, it’s all gravy – but as a punter, it kills my enthusiasm. If I want to know, I’ll ask. Too much information is bad for the appetite.