Food Glorious Food

 All Dame Prue Leith wanted was a romantic dinner the night before a special day...

"No chance of that," she said, as the pair were repeatedly interrupted by a waiter with a "lecture" accompanying each course.

Leith, 85, has taken umbrage with restaurants' addiction to superfluous explanation, which she says has resulted in menus far too long to take in before ordering.

During the meal, the couple were handed a map of the location of the restaurant's suppliers and were expected to read it, she wrote in The Oldie magazine...

"Pandering to foodies, menu devisers now write essays on every course: 'Hand-dived Scottish king scallops, daily picked marsh samphire from the Solway Firth, Arran victory organic new potatoes' and on and on.

Eva's Green Apple
Otto Schade (b. 1971)
Photo Credit: Fanshaw St, Hackney [CC BY-NC-ND]

"Last week I was in what used to be a good pub and is now a gastro temple. I ordered 'sustainability-certified North Sea halibut loin, coated in tempura-style batter made from Hook Norton Ironstone lager and Billy's free-range organic eggs served with locally grown Maris Piper potatoes, triple-fried in Cotswold Gold corn oil'. Translation: fish and chips...

Isaac McHale, of The Clove Club in Shoreditch, east London said it was easy for chefs to "forget that not everyone understands the words that we use in our little world. I don't like it when menus by design become exclusionary. If someone writes 'cucumber togarashi, yuzu kosho' as an entire menu description, that assumes a very high level of understanding and makes people feel silly if they don't fully understand what those words mean.

"Not everyone knows that togarashi is a Japanese spice blend or 'seven spice', but if you write 'togarashi spice' you can describe the ingredient so someone can actually read the dish."...

The 'essays' handed to customers are not the only problem with modern dining, Leith said. "Added to the foodie nonsense is the TikTok nonsense: influencers standing on their chairs to get a photo of their food. A restaurateur friend says that's only the start. Young influencers will book a table in a Michelin-starred restaurant and order just one glass of bubbly and one first course between them - just enough to snap each other at the table, in the fancy ladies' room and outside the front door."

(Peter Chappell, The Times, 2025)

What is a symphony of seafood nestling on a bed of lettuce? (A prawn cocktail.)  A medley of root vegetables slow-roasted in artisan rapeseed oil. (Roast parsnips and carrots) 

To capture the images stand on your chair to pursue the perfect shot. Or even better, set up your tripod and lights. Why not ask the waiters to remove and re-serve your plates of food with a greater flourish. Or dim all the lights in the restaurant to better capture the flaming crepe suzette. Or best of all hire a drone to get that perfect picture from above. What a grand end that would be, Prue, to your romantic dinner.