A new etiquette question is simmering in Europe: should you be allowed to text and scroll with your mouth full?
The European Union has yet to draft regulations governing mobile phone use in restaurants, but a French restaurateur has started an unofficial campaign of shaming phone-junkie diners by banning them from his bistro. His argument – that it’s disrespectful to the food, staff and fellow diners – has inspired restaurants in other countries also to ban phone use.
In the UK, the Times’ heroically irascible restaurant critic Giles Coren has added reputational peril to the campaign, vowing to deduct points for atmosphere in his influential reviews on a sliding scale depending on how many phone users he sees.
Launching his crusade with customary understatement, he said: “If you’re on your phone, you’re not there. You are sucking the energy out of a room that was built to welcome and cherish your presence. You are disrespecting the low-paid workers who serve you and spitting in the faces of paying guests who have come to take part in an atmosphere of which you are an integral part.”
A scrupulously scientific survey by this writer in one of London’s Shard restaurants recently found every window-side diner face-down and either thumbing or stabbing at a device (depending on age) for much of their meal, despite the panoramic cityscape, the sensational tucker and the immodest prices.
Once, conviviality – conversation and savouring food and drink – was the whole point of eating out. A visitor from another planet might reasonably conclude humans regard restaurant-going as a tedious chore on a par with commuting or languishing in an airport gate lounge.
Alas, the ban movement faces a commercial and populist obstacle. Restaurants are increasingly placing phone-thumbing at the heart of their trade, using QR codes – scannable apps, usually on each table – in place of menus, and even as tools for ordering and prepaying. They save printing and staffing costs, and have the public health bonus of eliminating the yuck factor of food-splattered bits of laminate or cardboard.
The codes are usually optional. Customers are allowed to order the old-fashioned way, but newer premises are increasingly shifting to QR-only systems. This is particularly efficient for businesses with high take-out as well as eat-in services, because the automation sends clear, time-specific instructions directly to the kitchen.
Further field research by this (ever-expanding) writer has found this to facilitate brisk turnover without necessarily denoting a place providing a below-average scoff.
Even in regions with a longstanding tradition of characterful, family-run restaurants, such as Italy’s lake districts, the QR is catching on. It makes it affordable to offer multilingual explanations of ever-changing menus, sparing waiting staff from charades and misunderstandings with overly demanding or clueless foreign customers.
A conspicuously successful exponent of QR-ease is UK pub-restaurant chain Wetherspoons – founded by New Zealand-educated Sir Tim Martin (and named in honour of an idealistic but unsuccessful physics teacher, whose unrequited efforts Martin later felt guilty about). Its fare will never trouble the Michelin star panel, but the chain is ubiquitous and, despite some snooty mocking, much appreciated for its cheap, reliable pub grub and remarkably affordable alcohol.
The phoneless can still order and pay at the counter but online accessibility is such that if a customer’s friends know they’re at a particular Wetherspoons, they can log in and order them a drink from afar, even abroad – surely a nice evolution of the personal touch.
One suggested compromise between brute commercial reality and Coren-esque romanticism about traditional dining: EU-mandated provision of diners’ email addresses so wait staff can regularly interrupt people’s online feed with inquiries as to whether everything is okay.
