How to become a better diner – 6 New Year’s resolutions to make you the sort of guest a restaurant will love
- If you want to stay on the good side of restaurateurs this year, try honouring your reservations – put them in your calendar and bug fellow diners to do so too
- Don’t feel so entitled – bringing your own wine AND asking for corkage to be waived? Come on! Cut down on the food porn, and the post-meal social media rants
What a difference three years makes.
If you recall the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic – or rather, the point at which we were a good half a year in and it became apparent we were in it for the long haul – it was widely accepted that we needed to support each other in tough times. In particular, it was important to try to be better in every way as a diner.
That meant showing up for restaurants, and not just literally.
We believed that every little bit would help save our favourite restaurants from going under. Gift cards and vouchers were a huge deal back then, too; I think many of us really never thought about cashing them in, either.
Sadly, many restaurants did not survive the hardships of a closed-off Hong Kong and even now, with restrictions being eased, there is still a long road ahead to recovery. But the next obstacle may not be pandemic-related at all – it is bad diners.
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Now that we’ve somewhat come out the other side, shifting away from zero-Covid and getting on with our lives, some bad habits seem to have crept back in.
Stories of constant no-shows, last-minute cancellations – it seems Covid has given a rather convenient excuse, as it’s rare for a restaurant to penalise a guest for it – and cheeky requests are on the rise again, as if the past few years have taught us nothing.
In the spirit of crafting goals and resolutions for the new year, I have a few suggestions for how to avoid developing into a despicable diner in 2023.
1. Be the organised one
At a time where some restaurants require months-long waits for tables, it can be easy to forget your four-top at prime time some evening in May – and sometimes it’s not even your mistake, but your scatterbrained dining companions who let you down.
Here’s my nerdy hack: set up a date in your diary as soon as you’ve confirmed your spot, and fire off calendar invites to your diners-in-arms. Bug them until they’ve accepted it.
Embrace that nagging auntie/uncle energy well into 2023 and beyond, because restaurants will love you for it.
2. Set up a standing reservation for your favourite spots
It’s lovely to be a regular at a spot where everybody knows your name … for the right reasons, that is. I know several people who have standing reservations at their favourite places, ranging from a weekly lunch to a once-a-quarter treat.
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The principle is the same as having a non-negotiable time slot on your schedule – you work all future commitments around that, instead of the other way around. And what restaurant doesn’t welcome a committed guest?
3. Stop showing up at restaurants with your own wine
“It is tough to run a restaurant – the rent is ridiculous, profit margins are low, the pressure is high and the work is often thankless,” sommelier Yulia Ezhikova of Embla, a high-end Scandinavian restaurant in Hong Kong, once said. “In fine dining, the drink sales pay the bills.”
Put a stopper on that behaviour, and you might discover something new to enjoy (and brag about when you bring that same bottle to a dinner party).
4. Unfilter your feed
In the age of social media, I find it incredibly unhelpful to be part of the endless parade of meaningless food porn. While pretty to look at, it’s a rare thing to find genuine commentary when everything is “sooooo goooood” – no use to the diner or the restaurant, when you think about it.
On the other side of the spectrum, you might want to save your barbed online rants and give constructive feedback to the restaurant directly. “There are limited things [that can be] done after,” says Vicky Lau, chef-owner of two-Michelin-star Tate Dining Room.
She also suggests diners “take [their] photos quickly and consider other guests around [them]”.
5. Have some empathy
One sage piece of advice many have offered is to treat dining out at a restaurant in the same way as you would being a guest at a dinner party. That means treating your host with respect; showing up on time; and being kind to, and patient with, other people.
I’ve always been of the belief that you can tell a lot about someone from the way they interact with service staff. Don’t be that person who resorts to the old “Don’t you know who I am?” when things don’t go your way.
6. Be shameless about leftovers
Food waste is a serious issue, so why are so many people still embarrassed to ask for leftovers to go? Uneaten bread will often go home with me, and I’ve been known to take away good leftover uncooked vegetables and noodles from hotpot dinners before.
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I’ve thought about carrying a little jar for all that fancy Bordier butter that often goes to waste.
It’s time to embrace your inner thriftiness and ensure that no morsel gets left behind.
