Lee Suckling: How to send food back in restaurants

How and when should you send an unsatisfactory dish back? Photo / 123RF

Most recognise the point in the evening, whilst sitting down to dinner at a restaurant, when your waiter or waitress interrupts your initial mouthfuls to pose a rhetoric question. "Is everything okay with your meals?"

That server, of course, isn't really asking if your food is satisfactory. "Great, thanks," you always reply, having never considered an actual answer. Can you imagine the horror on his or her face if you said "no" then reeled off what you were really feeling?

In recent memory, I've been served some pretty sub-par meals at cafes and restaurants. Cold soup in a fancy diner. Lacklustre kedgeree in a coastal café. Wilted chips at a pub. Many times I thought, "Is it ever okay to send food back at a restaurant or cafe?" But I say nothing. It's typically un-Kiwi to do so.

Last week, after being served a particularly sad $17 plate of scrambled eggs on soggy, supermarket-bought gluten-free bread, I called my waitress over and finally did it. "Excuse me," I said politely. "These eggs are a bit mushy and wet. Would you mind sending them back to the kitchen and getting them re-made?"

"I'm so sorry!" the waitress exclaimed, looking quite horrified. She whisked my breakfast away and less than five minutes later presented a much more palatable plate of protein.

We've all pondered if (and how) you can send food back. Of course, you do want what you ordered - you haven't simply changed your mind (that one is a definitely no-no). But what has been plopped in front of you isn't what you expected, and before you've even had a bite, you're angsty about paying at the end of your meal.

I spoke to a couple of chefs about disappointing restaurant food. "You must absolutely be honest when you're not satisfied," said one. "If a chef is sending bad food out, they need to know," said another, continuing: "but you have to be polite about it, and you have to be realistic.... you can't just eat a whole meal then refuse to pay."

When Kiwi politeness comes into the game, confrontation is tough - especially when you don't know if you're "just being picky" or there's actual fault in your meal. So, how do you send food back?

If we take a legal look at it, the Consumer Guarantees Act is vague. In relation to food service, the only relevant guarantee for diners is that service "must be completed within a reasonable time". The term "reasonable" is deliberately open-ended, so if a "reasonable" consumer wouldn't be happy waiting over an hour for their meal, then it should be "reasonable" for them not to pay for it. There are guarantees in relation to food quality, but again, they're hard to quantify under the ambiguity of the Act.

So let's stick with critiquing sub-par food, because legislation doesn't really have your back on this one. As per my chef friend's advice, courtesy is key. Call over your server before they come to you, and keep things quiet. The table across the room doesn't need to know your lettuce is lifeless. In a whisper-soft voice, open with, "I know this isn't your fault, but..." then state your problem, say lots of pleases and thankyous, and politely ask if the chef could make another, or if they mind if you order something else.

Acceptable issues that command a plate send-back are overcooked steak (unless you asked for it), if something is burned (except if the word "char" was weaved into the menu), and if, before you ordered it, you asked if something you can't - or don't want to - eat is in a dish (e.g. dairy, gluten, nuts) and you've found it in there anyway.

Likewise, if your food is cold, there's a hair or something else foreign in it, or it is fundamentally different to the description on the menu, it's okay to send it back. Most good establishments will then knock that item of your bill as goodwill (if you're gracious enough and they don't think you're a genuine cheapskate).

It's unacceptable to send something back if you misread the menu, or didn't ask what a foreign-language description entailed. It's not okay to say "I didn't realise poussin was a baby chicken" and send it back. If you've chowed down more than two or three bites, or you decide you "just don't like it", you also can't go complaining.

Most of the time, if you're met with an amicable response and apologies from the restaurant or café, you'll return at a later date. Good hospitality staffers know this. If you say nothing and leave disappointed, or you complain and are met with hostility, chances are you'll never go back. And you'll tell ten people how bad it was.

The moral of the story? Send food back if it's not satisfactory; not just to you, but to any other "reasonable" diner. But don't be insolent about it, lest you madden the kitchen. You don't want to risk your replacement meal being hocked with a giant loogie by the chef.