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For many of us, going to a restaurant is a real treat, so you want to make the most of every mouthful. From starters to small plates, how can you ensure that you have the best possible dining experience? Restaurant critics share the insider secrets to ordering well when eating out.
Don’t overplan
“I would normally have a glance at the menu,” says London-based Jimi Famurewa, who is a broadcaster, and a columnist and restaurant writer for Broadsheet London. But, says Famurewa, a bit of mystery can enhance the whole experience: “There is something to be said for having an element of surprise, like a bistro or gastro pub where they write the menu every day. If you have a vague idea that it is cuisine you like, or you’ve seen some dishes online that look appealing, then you’ll be all right.”
Look for the anomaly
“Being able to judge from a menu whether a restaurant is worth your time is tricky,” says Jonathan Nunn, a food writer from London and co-editor of Vittles. “Most restaurants, whether they’re a local takeaway or a high-end kitchen, tend towards a template. However, one good sign is spotting something that breaks this template – the use of an unusual ingredient or cut, a regional dish, or something homemade that really doesn’t need to be. It suggests that there is someone in the kitchen who is passionate about what they do. Even if the rest of the menu has no surprises, that one thing may be a sign that the chef cares.”
“In New York, the fashionable restaurants go through phases, and all the menus tend to look the same,” says Adam Platt, the former restaurant critic of New York magazine and author of The Book of Eating. “As a critic, I would look for the strangest or most emblematic stuff [on a menu] that tells a story. If lamb is on the menu, I find it boring, because lamb has a very distinctive taste and is usually served the same way.”
Order for the table
Don’t feel pressured to decide quickly, says Famurewa, which can be hard at the start of the meal when you are catching up with someone you haven’t seen for a while and you have a table for 90 minutes. “If you see snacks or bites, order a couple of those while you peruse,” he says. “It takes the pressure off, calms everyone down, and the people you are with will be impressed by you taking charge.”
“Diners have become more comfortable with cuisines where dishes are meant to be shared, so the skill of ordering for the table is increasingly valuable,” agrees Nunn. “If you don’t have it, find someone who does and let them take the lead. If you let people just order the things they like the sound of, the meal will descend into chaos. An ideal order for a table should balance meat and fish, and different cooking techniques, along with vegetables and more delicate dishes so the meal is digestible. There is also the art of being able to eyeball, from the number of people at the table, their historic capacity for eating, and their current appetite, exactly how many dishes to order – but this is not something you can teach.”
Always have a starter
“The top of the menu tends to be where a lot of the great value and creativity is,” says Famurewa. “At Town in Covent Garden, for example, you can get a chickpea pancake, some amazing pickles, and a yoghurty dip for £4.”
“Starters are the best things at restaurants,” agrees Chitra Ramaswamy, the restaurant critic for the Scottish edition of the Times, who lives in Edinburgh. Perhaps because “when you are at that stage of a meal, you’re so full of anticipation, hunger and excitement that the food tastes its best. Also, chefs often try out things in the starter section, so you tend to get more interesting food. I would never go to a restaurant and not have a starter.”
Never copy your dining partner
“I wouldn’t dream of ordering the same thing as the person I’m eating with,” says Ramaswamy. “I am a big believer in swapping plates and trying each other’s food.”
“I am happy to share stuff,” says Platt. “In New York, Italian has replaced French as the dominant cuisine and you are always being force-fed pasta courses, so the only way to survive that is to share them.”
Don’t be afraid to ask
If you don’t know what something on the menu is, don’t get your phone out, says Ramaswamy: “Restaurants are a rare chance to resist our attention being captured by technology. There is a human standing right there whose job it is to find out those things for you. The chances are, they will be thrilled to tell you.”
“No question is too obvious,” says Famurewa. “Quite often, things on a menu will be deliberately opaque or mysterious, such as ‘holiday potatoes’ at Wildflowers in London, which are like parmentier – little olive-oil-fried roast cubes with rosemary.”
Be wary of recommendations
“You shouldn’t necessarily trust the view of a waiter on what to order in a restaurant,” says Nunn. “There are many reasons that your goals may not align.” Your server could be, “trying to push you towards a safer dish, bamboozling you into ordering an item that the kitchen needs to get rid of, or upselling you crudo you didn’t want. However, if you’re in a small plates restaurant, it is sometimes worth ordering one fewer dish than required and then asking the waiter if you’ve missed anything. The recommendation will often be a good one.”
Specials aren’t always so special
Ramaswamy admits she has made mistakes with this: “I’ve gone to a restaurant where I’ve ordered off the specials and then realised afterwards that the regular menu had been crafted by an executive chef, so it’s really well thought out and coherent. If you’re swept away by the specials, you don’t get that chef’s vision.” That said, she adds, “you can sometimes get the most fresh, seasonal and rare things on the specials board”, and these should be snapped up. “Dogstar in Edinburgh had the most astonishing mylor prawns cooked over a charcoal grill as a special, and they only had a certain amount in. As I was eating them, it was crossed off the specials board”.
Ask fellow diners for tips
It is “100%” OK to ask a neighbouring diner what they are eating, says Ramaswamy. She recalls going to Macau Kitchen in Edinburgh, where the tables are very close to each other. “That intimacy meant I wanted to know exactly what [others] were eating. They gave us a recommendation, we took their advice and it was absolutely brilliant.”
Remember that variety is the spice of life
“We all have restaurants where you always order the same thing,” says Ramaswamy. “That is fine, but there is something to be said for ordering something different from your favourite restaurant.”
“Going out to eat is such an expense now,” says Famurewa, “I would just go for what you really fancy.” He cautions against the viral dishes that might lure you in: “I would not let that cloud your instincts about what you actually want.”
Give your diet the day off
“Let go when you eat out,” says Ramaswamy. “The point of going out to eat is pleasure. You can’t control the levels of salt, fat and sugar that are being used in the kitchen. Make changes at home instead.”
Platt has a different take on this: “I used to order everything on the menu, and so now I look for things that are light. I wouldn’t order salmon as a critic, but as a civilian trying to watch my weight, salmon is fine.”
Avoid over-ordering
“It is classic to fill up not just on bread but get really excited and order loads of starters, and then run out of enthusiasm and stomach space as the mains arrive,” says Famurewa. He recently had a huge starter and then asked to switch his main to something smaller. “You don’t want to annoy the kitchen, but if you change your mind, and you can catch it before it’s made, it’s better to do that than to waste food.” While it can be difficult to undo an order, you can always order more if you need to.
Be prepared to take home any food you don’t eat, says Ramaswamy: “I grew up in an Indian household where we didn’t throw away a single grain of rice. So no matter how fancy the restaurant is, if I don’t finish, I say: ‘Can I take that away?’ The only thing that will stop a person from doing that is embarrassment, in a fine dining restaurant in particular, but in those environments it is even more important because huge amounts of work by many hands has gone into each plate.”
Don’t overdo the booze
If you are knocking back the alcohol, “you’re not necessarily going to remember the dishes”, points out Famurewa. Paired wines are the perfect example of this, he says: “It can get to the point where the end of the meal is a blur.” Instead, have “a cocktail or aperitif to start, or a mocktail or low/no option, some wine with your main, then maybe a digestif or a coffee. If you are packing in too much in each of those zones, you will probably lose the run of the meal slightly.”
End on a sweet note
“Dessert is definitely something to share,” says Platt. “I like a lemony dessert: the acid cuts through the richness. But I’ll always share it.”
You have to be tactical to save space for a whole pudding, says Famurewa: “You might have gone lighter earlier, because you’re at a place where they do fantastic desserts. But quite often a scoop of something or an affogato is all you need – just a little bit of something to leave yourself with a nice sweet ending, rather than feeling bilious and trying to force down an enormous sticky toffee pudding.”
And if you don’t like your meal …
“You should probably say something,” says Ramaswamy. “It rarely happens to me: I’m easy to please and I only really go to restaurants I know will be good. I don’t mind things like slow service or bringing the wrong dish; I think that’s par for the course. What I cannot bear is rudeness and snootiness. But things have to have been pretty bad for me not to tip.”
“If you have built up a bit of a rapport with your server, hopefully you can be fairly honest,” says Famurewa. “Say, ‘this wasn’t for me’ or ‘I wasn’t sure about the flavour’. Approach it in a gentle way, rather than making grand demands, and you’ll probably get more sympathy and more of an effort to make it right. But just remember that restaurants, particularly independent ones, are under quite a lot of pressure at the moment.”
“Don’t eat it, don’t say anything and be polite,” advises Platt. Then, “don’t go back”.
