Restaurant industry needs a class system

By Aidan Keane

The class system may be one of those typical archaic British institutions, but upper-, middle- and lower-class stereotypes are now widespread throughout the restaurant world

It suddenly dawned on me this very week that we need a class system in the restaurant business.

It is the only way we can possibly hope to preserve the integrity of the word ‘restaurant’, to protect its reputation and safeguard its future after most of us have gone to lunch with the big man in the sky.

I cannot believe this thought has not occurred to me before. For nearly two decades I have been naming and branding restaurants of every conceivable taste, colour and creed — and never have I questioned a restaurant’s right to use the word in its title.

But I should have, surely. After all, we expect a certain standard when mentioning the ‘R’ word.

Think about this: your best girlie friend starts to date a guy. She describes him as great fun and successful; in fact he owns a few restaurants.

A restaurateur, you all bleat — how glamorous, how now. We must all go and dine their one night. What fun. How decadent and grown-up.

So one evening, you and your friends get all dressed up and head to his restaurant.

Advertisement

But then you arrive and it is, in fact, a total hole of a place, serving nothing more than greasy kebabs and fried rubbish in a plastic tray to the scum of society.

You are appalled. You reel in shock and call for justice. Your plans are in tatters and the culprit, the killer of the moment, is your friend’s lying boyfriend.

A fraudster who has had you all; a cad who tried to gain your favour by cheating and deceit — and so on and so forth.

But he hasn’t lied, cheated or defrauded in any way, poor guy. He has done nothing but told the truth and nothing but the truth.

There is only one guilty party here and it is that word he used to describe his business: the word ‘restaurant’.

Technically, according to the dictionary definition, our imaginary chap is right to use the word, it being “an eating place where meals and drinks are sold and served to customers”.