Restaurants - pet hates

Finding myself near a large group out on a works do, hen night or similar. As the alcohol flows, so does the screaming and shouting. Combined with modern uncarpeted floors (yes I know they’re unhygienic) and minimalist furniture, I can’t hear myself speak.
In fact I really hate the unwelcoming modern/brutalist design of many restaurants these days. Cosy they are not. On this, I’m with Laurence Llewelyn Bowen, who likes his rooms “full fat” and not minimalist.
Loved an Italian restaurant in London with walls dripping in ivy, shutters and flowers everywhere, over the too but gorgeous.

Sago Like you I hate seeing restaurant staff sporting tattoos. Somehow it always makes me feel the establishment has very ĺow standards.

I hate taster menus which usually cost a fortune and consist of plates with a lot of swirls and about two peas and a leaf.

Pretentious menus, I don’t want jus, I want sauce, using a French term does not make food taste good.

The condiments arriving after the food, I always ask for mustard, horseradish etc to be on the table before the food.
It rarely happens.

I have a passion for food and love to cook at home, eating out is something we tend to do for a special occasion and I want it to be special, better than I can produce or at least as good, I am often disappointed.

Staff should be very well presented, a lot of piercings and visible tattoos are not appealing.

I wish there was proper training or maybe a qualification for waiting staff, they are undervalued.

I know this is really a first-world problem but - espresso made in a cold cup. There's a thimbleful of liquid and, no matter how hot it starts out, it's going to be cold in seconds...

Children who are allowed to run about in a restaurant whilst parents ignore their behaviour. I feel so sorry for staff carrying hot plates of food whilst trying to avoid these children. No doubt parents would be quick to seek compensation if any accidents occur. This is especially annoying when you have been looking forward to a quiet meal in a restaurant. Loud music so conversation is difficult is also a pain.

Geekesse I am hard to please I admit it but not without reason. I have in the past noticed certain habits in some restaurants. Being pregnant given seats by toilets being older sent upstairs or again by toilets not the main seating area.
I have also had food poisoning it did put me off eating out for ages.
We live a mile from an affluent village famous for so called Celebs. One year a famous loud mouth chef did a makeover well overdue in one of the little restaurants. The chef did a very good job and it paid off for a while always booked up. However the owners returned to their penny pinching ways. Giving out meagre portions and bad quality food which was overpriced with very poor service.
There are a few restaurants I do eat at and I am confident to do so I like polite service good honest food in clean and cosy surroundings. The best food I experience is going to my DD in Lancashire. I think she is really fortunate having a good choice of places to eat at. I am envious of the delicious proper pies and meals in lovely country pubs and restaurants.

Service charge being added to the bill, that gets deducted, many restaurants just pocket it.
Salads served in bowl - it makes it difficult to eat with a knife and fork.
Obsequious waiters

I hate sitting in a restaurant and, having ordered food, watching three tables of people who come in after you being served before you.

In America they come and put the bill on your table before you have asked for it and before you have even finished eating. Thank goodness that doesn't happen in Europe. Why the hurry?

Cold bread rolls

Hovering waiters, and slow service.

Waiting staff who keep "casually" strolling past, waiting to pounce on the first empty plate.

Couldn’t!

I went to the Bees Tea Rooms near St Paul’s Cathedral a few years ago. A beautiful tea but we had to be ask the waitress to turn down the music several times. I don’t usually mind music, in fact I have Radio 6 Music on almost constantly, but this was LOUD and my sister and I could hear ourselves speak!

Loud thumping music is a huge turn off for me. It often appears to have been chosen by the young staff for their own enjoyment. Requests to turn it down are usually ignored, or it's just turned back up 10 minutes later. Particularly annoying if you've been given a table beneath a speaker. I always ask to be moved.

Surely music in a restaurant is meant to be a background unobtrusive sound.

Recently in a restaurant there was a 15% surcharge which is a lot on a £50 plus bill. Also the app thing we paid on that but then you just walk out of the restaurant which didn't feel right and the waiter looked at us. I know what he was thinking. I shall ask for a bill in future.

The bill arriving before you have finished your meal and the awful added 12.5% service charge.

Lincslass I always ask, but half the time they just don't know because its bought frozen in bulk and not made there.

Savvy

Not stating whether the desserts are veggie friendly or not. I'm protein intolerant so I really need to know if they contain anything that's meat, fish or eggs, and that includes gelatine, food colourants of insect origin and non milk fats. I know I'm being picky, but I don't want to end up in hospital.

Surely it up to you to question the menu, if it doesn’t state, as regards any allergy or intolerance, as my daughter does. She never leaves it to them to mention.

Redhead56

I do not like slates I ask for a plate I ask for a clean glass if there are watermarks on my glass. I don’t like gravy or sauce poured over a meal. I like a little jug of sauce or gravy so I can pour it on my meal myself. I don’t like a mound of food on a plate it’s off putting.
If it’s just me and DH I do not like being sat at a table for four. I refuse to sit near the toilets. I don’t like going upstairs to eat as I am not good on stairs.

Redhead56, do you ever find a restaurant that you can enjoy?

I go out for a meal often with family and friends. The real joy is having a leisurely meal with good wine, chatting and catching up, with someone else doing the cooking and washing up. I’m not a huge fan of slates, wooden boards or desserts served in kilner jars, but none of those things take anything away from the sheer pleasure of going out for a meal, having a great evening laughing and chatting and coming home, well fed and full of joie de vivre.

I hate food on slates or wooden platters as well! Surely we’ve moved on from that!

Also hate it when restaurants announce that you have a 2 hour slot for your table. 2 hours is never enough when out with friends. I don’t go back and let them know why as well.

It only happened once, but in a relatively expensive restaurant where we were treating 4 old friends to dinner, after dh asked for the bill, the waiter actually stood at the table and read the total out loud!

We had never encountered such a thing before.
Dh phoned the next day to voice his disquiet. There were fulsome apologies and the promise of ‘re-training’.

When I order fish and it comes with a small sliver of lemon that’s impossible to squeeze. I always ask for a bigger piece, i.e. at least a quarter.

Restaurants where everything comes with chips, potatoes, pasta or rice! Also when they plonk a huge plate of food in front of you, so wasteful and off putting. We met friends for lunch the other day and I struggled to choose something off the menu, I don’t usually eat lunch and wanted something light, I eat low carb. I asked if I could have a poached egg instead of fried with the gammon as they used vegetable oil, no, not possible. Ended up having a huge ploughman’s but left half of it, too much bread and pastry. Not going there again!