The lot of a restaurant critic: a diet of words. Photograph: Brian Hagiwara/Getty Images
Restaurants are my favourite things on the planet. I love them to an unhealthy extent ? literally: you should see my cholesterol levels. Years of working in the industry haven't dampened the love, nor has writing about them, nor eating out more than any normal person has a right to. But, for me, restaurants are about more than just the food.
Of course, it's hugely important ? bad food is generally unforgivable ? but there's something unpleasantly "nom nom nommy" (argh!) about the navel-gazing deconstruction of dishes, the over-chewing, the fork-prodding. I can do it ? if some websites are anything to go by, can't we all? ? but I'm too interested in, well, having a good time. And eating. Unless you're there for business only, isn't that what restaurants are all about?
Extraordinary food doesn't always equal bliss: I've railed in the past about those overstuffed, Michelin-frotting joints where the cooking is exquisite but you reel out into the night overfed, hundreds of quid lighter, vaguely vomitous, and wondering if you'll ever get those four hours of your life back again (yes, French Laundry, I am looking at you).
Warm, savvy staff ? and not the "hi, my name is Gervaise and I'll be squatting by your table" school of front of house ? can contribute to dining out happiness. And that unquantifiable thing called "buzz". I've had wonderful experiences in places where the food was the least memorable component: the sensory onslaught of Chinatown in Flushing, New York; bottomless fondue in old Soho warhorses; chicken livers on toast surrounded by original Hockneys in Marylebone. And in the case of the late and (by me) much-lamented Gasworks in west London, the food was laughably awful, but the night would always be like something dreamed up by Jan ?vankmajer.
There's a whole cadre of restaurant obsessives who feel validated only if they're given a personal body-rub by the chef at the end of the evening. I can't imagine anything worse. I have nothing but serious admiration for chefs' work, but I'm more than happy for them to ignore me altogether and stick to the kitchen ? another of the many reasons I'm keen to remain incognito, even if it does mean I'll never get a decent table at The Delaunay.
Of course, the principal reason is that you simply can't expect to get an accurate reflection of what a place is like if the entire staff recognises your mug as soon as you walk in the room. I know: I've been the "dining companion"; it all gets a bit clenched. In his excellent book How To Eat Out, Times reviewer and TV personality Giles Coren has a pop at anonymity ? he thinks we're "weary old Trots who bang on about the unfairness and elitism of the Establishment". And "dumpy hacks" who "skulk in the shadows". I am so pwned. Meanwhile, he admits it's tough to give a stinker of a review when you've met the chef and been given an offer to "take sexual advantage of his eldest daughter at my earliest convenience". Well, quite.
Once, during a dinner shift when I was working as a waitress (always want to add "in a cocktail bar" there), one of our regular customers died. She was 83 years old, celebrating her birthday, and her big, raucous table of friends and family thought she was simply having a little snooze. She had to be ferried out through the back entrance, chair and all. In the shocked aftermath, all I could think was "that's the way I want to go."
Every day I wake up, I'm looking forward to the next restaurant; that little frisson of excitement as the menu arrives ? it gets me every time. Sure, there are worthier passions, but this is mine. I hope we can share it.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/aug/31/marina-oloughlin-cards-on-the-table
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