Pursuits: The current trend is for restaurants not to accept any reservations at all

There is something inherently civilized about booking a table for dinner.

You make your plans, perhaps you invite a friend or two to join you and then you phone the restaurant and ask for a table at, say, 8 o’clock. When you arrive, you are ushered to the table, offered an aperitif, handed menus, and allowed to enjoy your evening in peace.

 

   Right?

 

   Well, actually, no. The current trend is for restaurants not to accept any reservations at all. The trendiest new restaurants in London, New York and San Francisco, refuse to accept reservations. If you turn up and find that the restaurant is full – which is usually what happens – well then, you’ll just have to queue up and wait for a table. One mark of a successful restaurant in London these days is the size of the queue. When people discuss something like Burger and Lobster or Polpo, they don’t talk about how good the food is. Instead, they say things like, “Wow! Did you see the queue?” or “It took me two hours to score a table.” So popular is the trend that more and more restaurants are refusing to accept reservations. You just turn up and you take your chances.

 

   Why do they do this? Partly, it is a sort of inverse snobbery. They want to proclaim that they are such casual places that they don’t even have telephones. It is strictly first come-first served. Plus, there’s an element of showing off. They want to brag about how successful they are. And they measure success by the size of the queue.

 

   Speaking for myself, I find the trend utterly revolting. I am always appalled by people who are willing to stand in the London rain for an hour just to eat a crap, sauce-drenched burger at some rubbish place like Meat Liquor only because they believe it is trendy. The last time I queued up for a table at a restaurant was when I was a student and Browns in Oxford insisted that we wait for tables. But the food was good and cheap so we didn’t mind so much.

 

   Ah, students! My primary objection to the no-reservations policy is that it is ageist. As a general rule, people over the age of 30 do not like standing on the road for one hour before being allowed to eat a hamburger or a pulled pork sandwich. The only people who think that it is fun to wait for two hours in the rain for their dinner are the young. But, most of these trendy restaurants want young customers. They want to seem buzzy and energetic.

 

"I always think that the best approach to reservations is the one adopted by Jeremy King and Chris Corbin at the Wolseley in London."

   In that sense, they are not unlike the clubs that proliferated in London and New York in the 1970s and the 1980s. The trend was started by Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell at Studio 54 in New York. To enter this once-trendy disco, you had to queue up. Two bouncers stood behind a velvet rope and let you in only if they thought you were young, good-looking or fashionable enough. When the trend spread to London in the 1980s and 1990s at such places as the hideous Atlantic Bar and Grill, the velvet rope remained firmly in place and two clipboard Nazis allowed you in only if you were youthful and pretty. I found this deeply offensive and undemocratic but it had the effect of making all the velvet-rope places famous and trendy.

 

   What the new restaurants are doing is almost exactly the same thing. They don’t have the confidence to believe that people will book tables and come there for the food. So, they create an artificial buzz by pretending to be egalitarian (“we are all so democratic, mate”) and claiming that everyone is equal. But frankly, there is nothing very elitist or undemocratic about allowing people the courtesy of making a reservation. In fact, it is the opposite of egalitarianism to make paying customers queue in the rain because you couldn’t be bothered to answer the phone.

 

   There are exceptions, I concede. For some years now, the Hart brothers have run a small 20-seater tapas place in London called Barafina. Everybody sits around a counter and eats the food as it comes off the plancha. I can understand why they don’t take reservations. The place is too small, has no tables and they run it like a bar. In New York, David Chang only takes reservations on the net for his Momofoku restaurants which are tiny. I can understand why places of that size find it difficult to book tables in advance.

 

   I also sympathise with expensive restaurants which work on tight margins. If somebody books a table for six and then does not turn up, the six missing covers may well be the difference between profit and loss that evening. But none of the new burger-barbeque-hotdog places that adopt a no-reservations policy operate on this principle. They just like the idea of having people queue up outside.

 

   I always think that the best approach to reservations is the one adopted by Jeremy King and Chris Corbin at the Wolseley in London. For over a decade, the Wolseley has been one of London’s most popular restaurants. It attracts celebrities and powerful people and yet, ensures that prices are reasonable. It is nearly impossible to get a table on the day and even if you book a few days in advance, you may not get a table at the exact time you prefer. So, Corbin and King have adopted a dual policy. They will only accept bookings for 75 per cent of their tables. A full quarter of the restaurant will be restricted to walk-ins, that is, people who turn up without a booking. But of course, they won’t do anything quite as vulgar as making you stand on the street. Instead, they will usher you to the bar and let you have a drink till a table falls vacant.

 

   Now, that’s what I call class. And the food is consistently good. Which is more than I can say for the new trendy no-reservations places.