Shocking news everyone: Restaurants are out to get you. According to a new book by Imogen Edwards-Jones, best known for her series of 'Babylon' exposures (as in 'Hotel') the restaurant world cannot be trusted and is simply out to hook 'em, catch 'em and fry 'em (in nobody's parlance).
Papers this weekend have revealed 20 top industry secrets apparently garnered from actual industry insiders who see absolutely no reason whatsoever to protect the hand that feeds them in this precarious economy, instead salivatingly doing a kiss 'n' tell on their own employers - possibly no awards there for loyalty. 'Secrets' include: the second cheapest wine on the list (chosen by tightwads and/or bargain-seekers) is marked up for precisely this reason; pizza, veggie dishes and side dishes are the cheapest to produce and have the biggest profit margins; Specials of the Day are often the food chefs want to get rid of; your unfinished (...? ...No. No comprendey) bottle of wine will be used for wines by the glass the next day; you may be charged a 'table fee' to make up in lost revenue from the free tap water. Staggeringly all this reveals is that restaurants need to - duh - make money to -double-duh - stay open to feed their paying customers.
There have been other salacious, publicity-generating details aired which have lubricated the journalists' writing implements. Issues of hygiene are always a crowd-pleaser: chefs not only double-dip the spoon they use to taste your food with, but they may use spit to stick things to the plate.... Now we're pretty sure there may be fuel for the fire in the former claim, but... spit... really? Table allocations and menu design are also interesting: allegedly menus are designed for women as it's mostly women who book. Ah. That would be why some restaurants persist in those special 'women only with no prices' menus then.... or feature egregious amounts of red meat which women are famously unable to consume without pink feathery trimmings. Furthermore - if you're hot, you get the hot tables. Celebrities, hot women, hot men - come sit in our premium spaces because if we put the man with the drippy nose and brown raincoat in this window seat, customers will surely surge through the doors - not. (NB we think many of us can claim to be THAT shallow).
So all in all is this in fact THE great exposé? Some of this we already know; the fact is restaurants do have to make money otherwise they won't be there any more. Hygiene practices should - no excuse - be absolutely rigorous, but when it comes to it, actual people are preparing actual food and there will always be errors (although, please, away with the spit-glue). The more worrying issue is that this could put potential customers off eating out (curiously on many of the comment pages in the online papers, a lot of people attributed the bad practices to restaurants and advised "sticking to pubs".... The mind boggles, but hey, "GOOD LUCK PUB INDUSTRY"....). Would you buy this book to find out more? Or would you hope and trust for the best when you eat out? Or - no, let's go there - do you even think pubs are better than restaurants? YOU DECIDE.
