Lunch? Let’s not

Not all restaurants are peddlers of pretentious twaddle, Bernard.

Lunch? Sorry Bernard, I’m busy. Really. Rearranging the sock drawer. Picture: Julie Adams

Lunch? Sorry Bernard, I’m busy. Really. Rearranging the sock drawer. Defrosting the freezer. Almost anything that suggests lack of availability, ever. Prima facie, of course, an hour over spaghetti in a nice restaurant with my colleague Bernard Salt has a lot of upside – for me, anyway. He’s charming, urbane, hugely insightful and well connected. And we are both Melburnians: I could fudge some AFL talk, at a push.

But somewhere along the way Bernard seems to have got the idea that going out to restaurants is a chore. That everyone is out to get him and that all restaurants are peddlers of pretentious twaddle; that all who enjoy dining out are drinkers of the Flim-Flam Celebrity Chef Kool-Aid.

I, on the other hand, still get excited if a reminder pops up on the phone that says “Dinner, 7pm”. All those possibilities just waiting to happen. Food. Wine. Chat. A giggle. Take me out, oh credit card, because I wanna see people who are young and alive. This is probably a response to a quiet home life, but I still see a restaurant as a pool into which you can dive for the most refreshing experience. It can also be shallow and dangerous, but it’s a chance worth taking.

But Bernard? His recent column (“I want a pie, not a performance”, Mar 18-19) made me wonder about the restaurants he goes to, and the people he dines with. About his problem with waiters who “special” him, and chefs who seek adulation with that most obnoxious practice, the table visit (I’m with you on that Bernard, unless the chef is a friend, and I don’t mean the Facebook kind).

But don’t underestimate the pleasure that great waiter interaction can bring to a restaurant experience. The insight, the advice, the entertainment. Some of us are so boring, we genuinely enjoy a chat with someone outside the family circle. And really, what’s wrong with wanting to know where your food comes from? I mean, Bernard, when a bunch of statistics lands on your desk, surely the first question you ask is, “Who produced this?”

There are still restaurants where a kind of Victorian servant/master dynamic exists, and that seems to be what you think eating out should be. Personally, I reckon those restaurants are as boring as Question Time, but each to his own. And that’s the point. You should patronise a place that offends you least and withhold your custom from those that get up your nose. Don’t return. Those places will push on regardless of your trade because they have connected with customers who actually like them. It’s about the mass, not the minority. Restaurants are not social services. As British critic Jay Rayner put it: “Beyond the legal requirement for disability access, to comply with hygiene rules and post information on allergens, a restaurant does not have to give a damn about you and your needs.”

Yes, restaurants that play the MasterChef card are a menace, with their plated up this and chef-prepared that, and gormless waiters who can’t read a table or tell the difference between red and white, but some people actually like them. Find restaurants that eschew all that BS, BS. Let your impressive (for a man of your age) hair down. Chat to a waiter. See if you can’t turn a restaurant meal into a true experience rather than a sociological experiment that leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

But lunch? Let’s start instead with some smashed avo for brekky, eh?

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