Dining Tips Archives | Page 11 of 22 | The Restaurant Manifesto

Restaurants Don’t Owe You Black Napkins

It’s perfectly fine to ask if a restaurant has black napkins. It is not fine to act as though you’ve been wronged if one isn’t provided. Acting outraged is pretentious. Typically, a fine dining restaurant will offer one when a member of the staff sees a dark outfit. Otherwise, you’ll have to do with the simple white ones. Of course, they might track lint all over your beautiful black dress, but that doesn’t make it inconsiderate of the restaurant to supply only standard napkins. Look, we understand they gave you a black napkin that one time you went to The French Laundry, but you’re not in Napa Valley anymore so get over it. Restaurants run on a tight budget, and there is rarely room for providing multi-color napkins for their guests.

With the proliferation of mobile phones and smart devices, it is increasingly challenging to sit down in a restaurant for a few hours and enjoy a meal unencumbered by social media, text messaging, and Candy Crush Saga. Before even paying the check, modern diners will have “checked-in” on Foursquare, posted photos of their entreés on Instagram, and filed full-length reviews on Yelp. At Restaurant Manifesto, we want to help you dine more successfully, so we’ll give you a piece of advice: Put your phone away and keep it there! A restaurant should be a sanctuary—a place to take refuge from the tensions of the day and nourish yourselves nutritionally and spiritually. How can you enjoy the company of others with the constant bleeping of text alerts and twanging of ringtones? We know you love that foie gras dish but can’t you wait until after dinner to tweet about it? Trust us, there is no iPhone app more entertaining than a live conversation with another interesting person. Try it some time.