My 10 restaurant rules for the New Year

Cartoon man at table with 2018 enscribed dish

2. Leaf it out!

No dish needs prettifying with pea shoots, ornamental chives, or decorative fruits. As someone who, in 2017, was served treacle tart titivated with basil leaves (!), I am begging for a full garnish moratorium.

3. Wine whine

A wine revolution is sweeping Britain as we discover a new world of (affordable) natural, small-producer wines, often from overlooked regions. But service is patchy. ‘The expensive ones are, err… better,’ was how a novel list of white wines was recently explained to me. I had a beer instead and thought about how hip wine could wither on the vine, without some old-fashioned product knowledge to sell it.

4. I Can’t Believe It’s Not (Salted) Butter

Secretly, no one likes bland unsalted butter. Not even chefs. Let’s free ourselves of this pretentious affectation!

5. Not bowled over

While @WeWantPlates clutches its pearls over food served on shovels and in shoes, a far greater nuisance has gone unchecked. That is, serving mains in wide sloping bowls that it’s impossible to rest your cutlery against without it slipping in and getting covered in food. Bin them.

6. Tourist traps

Despite heroic work by innovative restaurateurs, those areas of Britain that attract lots of tourists are, often, terrible for dining. Dominated by chains and venues pushing pricy, mediocre food to a captive audience, they’re doing nada for Britain’s global rep. It requires urgent intervention.

7. Singular talents

In everything from staff uniforms (aprons) or lighting (filament bulbs), to food and drink (bao, tacos, craft beer), the British restaurant scene has rarely felt as herd-like. Jumping on hot trends feels kind of... samey. In 2018, therefore, let’s celebrate those maverick chef/owners (James Cross from Lake Road Kitchen in Cumbria; Sam Buckley at Where The Light Gets In in Stockport; Josh Overington at York’s Le Cochon Aveugle) running restaurants brimming with personality.

8. Goodbye-valve

‘Is there anything you don’t eat?’ asks the head waiter, solicitously. Restaurant code for: the chef will now serve you an amuse involving oysters because he is an unimaginative sadist. Why is this divisive delicacy, this briny bivalve the texture of bronchial phlegm, still ubiquitous?

9. A casual affair

I love the informality of modern British dining, but I’m sick of small plates arriving in chaotic salvos; matey incompetent service; ‘sharing food’ that isn’t (how do I split a plate of peas, curds and charred cabbage?). Casual should not mean sloppy. Restaurants need to tighten up.

10. Pie in the sky

As a nation, we’ve almost accepted that, in pubs, a ‘pie’ now means casserole topped with a puff pastry lid. Not me. I demand a proper pie. With a full pastry casing. Is that too much to ask, chef?