Waiter... there's a Cock on my table!

Waiter ... there's a Cock on my table!

by Paul Singer - MD, London Fine Dining Group

Has anyone else noticed the current tendency of restaurants to use the table at which you intend to eat as a horizontal advertising hoarding?

There was a time when the only things on the table, apart from your elbows (if you were very naughty) were salt, pepper and vinegar (ok - so I spent a lot of time in Fish & Chip shops - it was research, honestly).

Now I suppose there are those cynics who might say that Fine Dining has changed the landscape forever. In some restaurants, you are not even allowed to put your own napkin on your own lap any longer. A man with silver tongs has to pick it up for you and carefully deposit it onto your lap without touching it with his hands as you watch helplessly hoping he doesn't slip with the tongs and ruin your married life. It's a challenge you can see the waiters enjoy immensely.

And much the same happens if you have to go to the powder room. As you rise, a specially trained waiter will be lurking around the corner to spring into action and twizzle your napkin into the shape of a goose or some other amusing pattern so that when you return from whence you came your freshly twizzled napkin will be waiting for you on the table (if you are lucky enough to be allowed to touch it).

So what other etiquette awaits you? Well, there's the wine glass shuffle. It goes like this. When you arrive there will be at least one wine glass per person on the table. Someone will ask you, politely, if you want wine with your meal (sometimes before you have even chosen your meal from the menu, which is a little forward) and then if you answer incorrectly, hey presto, all the wine glasses disappear from your table. Clever. Sometimes it's fun to say no and then change your mind later. That always has them in a spin as they try to work out how to bring the aforementioned glasses back without looking as miffed as they did when they removed them 5 minutes earlier when they thought you were only having tap-water.

Then there's the wine glass multiple choice quiz game. Which shape glass will you get? The same as last time? There seems to be a fascination for unusual shapes of decanter and wine glasses. I blame Ikea. There used to only be a couple of variations on a theme: white, red, sherry, brandy etc. but now there are glasses shaped like tulips, decanters shaped like the wing of a dove and probably one in the shape of a goose, to match the napkin, for all I know.

So once you have your goose-shaped napkin, and tulip shaped wine glass, look around you and play a little game of I-spy. What else can you see on your table?

Sometimes, restaurants just can't resist the temptation to sell you something or make you busy whilst you are captive. It might be a gift voucher for Mother's Day (in December), a tempting trip somewhere far hotter than the place you are now, a chance to enter a competition to win a free meal by completing a customer comment card (but watch out, there is no such thing as a free meal) or even a chance to donate a small sum to help the homeless, which can be conveniently added to your restaurant bill.

So while your taste buds anticipate your meal's arrival, your brain can be occupied shopping or filling in cards (if you can find a pen which works). But wait a minute, is that a Cock on my table, a diner was overheard exclaiming in one Central London restaurant (not one of ours). As other diners turned and stared all was revealed. A cock had indeed been placed upon that very table for some unknown purpose other than it had a culinary twist, having been constructed entirely of used silver-plated forks and spoons bent into the shape of a cock (feathered variety).

At this rate, you might be thinking, there won't be any room left on the table for my actual meal, when it arrives, what with the comment cards, the homeless charitable donation card, the holiday offer, the gift-card offer, the Christmas closing dates card and the card which tells you what other restaurants you might like to visit, within the same group as the one you are now dining in (we plead guilty m'lud, on that count).

In future, perhaps, thoughtful establishments will ask a diner, prior to being seated, "Would Sir like the plain table or the table with accessories and amusements?".

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