Last week we posted an article about bad restaurant manners, but neglected to mention maybe the biggest sin of all: the restaurant no-show. It is hard to think of ruder behaviour than reserving a table at a restaurant, a table that equates to money and livelihoods, and then deciding to just not show-up without having the decency to inform the restaurant. Maybe these people do not realise how much empty tables at a restaurant can cost a restaurateur. It could be fatal to a small restaurant who can have their half their tables empty due to no-shows - half tables empty means half the takings for the night gone. The attrition rate for restaurants is high and the margins are very tight. Rent, utilities, produce and salaries all need to be paid - if only the no-shows would consider what it would be like paying their bills if their salary was greatly reduced. It is even harder for newer restaurants who are still finding their feet and dealing with the initial start up costs. In Dublin chefs running young small restaurants have been dealing with this since they opened. This problem needs to be addressed by the whole industry, but what can be done?

Confirming Reservations
Now this doesn't always help and some restaurants that are suffering from no-shows do actually call the guest to confirm the reservation. But it is a minimum and gives the guest an easy way to cancel. Maybe making the call a bit personal, asking about dietary requirements, special occasions etc may help build the relationship between guest and restaurant. But of course with most people who confirm the reservation and still don't show up this probably still won't help.

Over Booking
We bet most restaurants already do this, such is the problem of no-shows. Overbooking by a couple of tables each night may help offset the damage caused by having empty tables.

Credit Cards
Asking for a credit card when taking a reservation, along with having a clear cancellation policy, could help curb this problem. It is common enough in other cities to do this. When booking, a credit card is supplied and the cancellation policy is clearly communicated to the guest. It would usually be: cancelling with less than 24 hours would incur a cancellation fee. The restaurant would then ring to confirm the reservation 24 hours before the booking to allow the guest to cancel with incurring a charge. Asking for a credit card to secure the booking will make diners more likely to honour it. This is common enough with well established fine dining restaurants - Patrick Guilbaud is the only restaurant in Dublin that we know of that asks for a credit card at booking time. The bigger the reputation of the restaurant the easier it is to implement this system. Last time we booked Restaurant Gordon Ramsay the cancellation policy was £150 per person for not cancelling in time. It is not as usual for a new or casual dining restaurant to ask for a credit card, but maybe it needs to start be the norm. It is understandable that new restaurants don't want to ask for credit cards as they don't want to appear standoffish or unapproachable when they first open. But certainly group bookings should have to be secured with a credit card or even a deposit.

Online Booking
Online booking facilities, such as OpenTable, can make asking for a credit card easier as they are supplied through the online booking form. It also makes it very easy to clearly show the cancellation policy, both at booking time and in the confirmation email. These can be easily integrated in to a restaurant website, but the downside is that this service does cost. In many cities online booking is the standard, but for some reason this has never really been adopted in Ireland, although a few restaurants are starting to use it. Also OpenTable will cancel a user's account if they no-show 4 times within a year.

Easy Cancellation
Making it as easy to cancel as possible may result in more cancellations and less no-shows. An online booking system might  help this as the reservation can easily be cancelled online. People may be more inclined to cancel online rather than have to ring up and talk to someone.

Name And Shame
Maybe restaurants should start naming and shaming guests who no-show. A sort of blacklist could be maintained that all restaurants can easily access. This may make people think twice before deciding not to show up. Even a twitter account that tweets the name of the guest who made the booking and didn't show up may help. This has been done in Montreal with the twitter account "NoShowsMontreal". Even better would be an association maintaining a database of serial cancellers. Restaurants could check names and phone numbers against this list at time of booking. At a minimum restaurants should keep their own list of no-showers so they can catch them when they try to book again.

Ticketing 
Currently there are very few restaurants in the world that would get away with a ticketing booking system, wherein you pay for the meal when you make a booking and receive a ticket for the reservation. Alinea in Chicago were the first big restaurant in the world to adopt this, but it could be about to spread. The inventor of the ticketing system that Alinea use, Nick Kokonas, is launching a system that can be used by any restaurant. It may be the future, but probably only for the small amount of restaurants around the world that are big enough, like Alinea, to have a huge demand for reservations.

There maybe no perfect solution to this problem that doesn't have a downside, but it is a growing issue and needs to be addressed before it actually kills a restaurant. Communicating a clear cancellation policy, confirming reservations and taking credit cards or deposits for group bookings is a minimum. People may not realise what it means to the restaurant when they don't show up for a reservation. If you are reading this and you have not honoured a restaurant reservation before, maybe think about the consequences before doing it again.

As we enter the last few months of the year and plan our next restaurants outings we thought we would jot down a short review of some of the restaurants we have visited over the last few months but never wrote a full review of. As for the rest of this year, we have a visit to London next month and then a return to Copenhagen in November to look forward to and we will post some reviews of these trips when we return.

Restaurant FortyOne
An excellent restaurant that cooks consistently good food. The food has steadily improved since our first visit a few years ago. It is uncluttered, showing clarity by usually having just a few ingredients on the plate. It is sophisticated, and shows an understanding and appreciation of the ingredients. Most dishes were in keeping with the season and the weather. The best dishes on our last visit were: courgette flower stuffed with langoustines, which was fresh and light; asparagus, with wild asparagus and roe was beautifully delicate; the dessert, a let down on previous visits, of passion fruit sorbet was of high quality. The most disappointing course was foie gras served with almonds - the foie gras lacked depth and as a consequence was overpowered by the almonds. Chef Graham Neville's food is developing an identity and is becoming recognizable as his. It is an quality restaurant and we will be interested to see if Neville's food continues to improve. We will write a more comprehensive review after our next visit.

Ananda
A very good Indian restaurant, but maybe not as good as it once was. The tasting menu we had was a slightly bizarre experience as each course was a-la-carte size and the matching wines were also far too big. This meant the last couple of courses were impossible to eat, especially since the last savoury dish was served with a large portion of naan bread. The food itself ranged between very good and distinctly average. The best dish was a game platter, and the worst being a dish of pork vindaloo which, as well as being farcically large, was boring and a bit of a mess. The meal was decent, but the whole evening lacked any refinement.

Saison
A decent start for this newcomer on Dublin's Kildare St. Some courses on the tasting menu were good, the best being beautiful and tender halibut that was poached in red wine and a perfectly cooked duck breast served with smoked prune. Warm Camembert with ceps and truffle was delightfully rich and had a rustic but smart feel. Two courses were let downs however. Fruit De Mer had a langoustine that was not de-veined and an extremely overcooked piece of fish. By far the worst dish was the dessert though, which in truth was a complete train-wreck. An icicle filled coffee parfait which tasted of cheap instant coffee, heavy doughy doughnut, gloopy ganache and terrible brittle. If this is the best they can do on desserts a pastry chef is needed quickly. It was a good meal, but currently lacks the attention to detail to be more than that. It would be nice to see some more innovation too - disappointing to still be seeing scallops with black pudding on a menu. But it is excellent value, with good food and a very nice dining room, so not a bad way to spend an evening.

There are a lot of things that can be annoying when eating out; bad food, rude service etc. We could write many articles about it and maybe we will. But below are some of the gripes we have with the lack of manners that we have seen more and more of over the last few years. Who would want to work front of house these days, eh?
 
Phones & Cameras
It doesn't cease to amaze the number of ways phones and cameras can be annoying in a restaurant. We long for the days when people would sit down for a meal and just enjoy the food and the conversation. Now though it is customary for some people, when taking a seat at the table, to place a mobile phone to the left or right of their place setting so that any calls, texts, tweets, emails can be noticed and responded to immediately and the world will not have to be deprived of their attention for a couple of hours. A table of two or four can now grow exponentially as each diners telephone contacts take their place at the table. At a meal in Bon Appetit earlier this year a couple sat pawing away at their phones through the whole meal, not looking up once, even when the server was putting down their plate and explaining the dish. Taking phone calls at the table should be punishable with a surcharge on the bill – maybe called a ‘manners tariff’.

If using a phone during dinner isn't rude enough, it is now becoming fashionable to tweet a review of the food during the meal. It is no longer necessary to sit down to enjoy the food, savour it, engage in conversation and then, maybe after some reflection, write a fair critique of the dining experience. Now each moment of the meal can be shared with the world and even reviewed live from the table. 

If all that isn't annoying enough it can be taken up a notch with the addition of the camera phone. Why settle for texting or tweeting every detail when a picture can be added? This is bad enough when you see diners taking pictures of every dish put under their nose, the cutlery, the glasses, the paintings on the walls, the menu, and occasionally even the restrooms. This of course is crucial to share as many people do base their next restaurant outing on the quality of the paintings and the colour of the bathroom door. But when they start bringing the waiting staff into their photo shoot it is hard to take. I have seen brilliant waiting staff asked to pose with food, pour sauces slowly or stand for a photo like they are performing seals. Soon dining rooms will just be full of people tweeting, emailing, texting, snapping and posing and occasionally maybe remembering to do some eating.

The Loud Expert
Everyone at some point has sat close to someone who not only thinks they are experts on all things food, but insists that the whole restaurant should hear their critique of not just every dish put in front of them, but spew out every food related thought they have ever had, adding as many culinary terms and clichés as they can remember from the previous nights viewing of Masterchef. Of course there are some people who do know about food, but as usual in life, it is generally the loudest people who have the least to say and it is quickly quite obvious to all around that the loud-mouthed expert really doesn't have a clue. On our last meal in Restaurant 41 two halfwits sitting at the next table not only loudly and laughably analysed each dish, but described in detail their own dishes that they cook at home. If that wasn't bad enough, they repeatedly called each dish they were served that night “de-constructed”, of course not one of them was. Then there is the wine expert who likes to impress his or her fellow diners with their exaggerated read of the wine menu, all the time just looking at the prices of course, maybe rolling out the one or two wine facts they have learned off, the long look at the bottle, the swirl of the glass and a wistful look of pondering and nodding after tasting a sip, all before turning back to the waiter and saying “Yes!”. These people seem to be often the most likely to try get the attention of the waiter while he or she is dealing with another guest.

The Attention & Freebie Seekers
“We have a food blog”. “We write reviews”. “We post on Tripadvisor”. These are phrases that front of house staff are hearing more and more often when greeting guests at their restaurant, uttered in the hope of some special attention or, even better, something free. It must be so tempting for the waiter or restaurant manager to respond with “good for you”, or “who doesn't?”. The irony is that if the person was serious about reviewing restaurants properly they would want to do so without seeking undue attention and certainly without getting free food or drink, so they can review impartially the dining experience of an average guest. It isn't just amateurs of course, as some professional critics will partake in this also. It seems now you don’t even need to go through the trouble of setting up a blog to get this level of service. No, simply send a tweet to the restaurant a few hours before your reservation to tell them how much you are looking forward to the meal and you never know, perhaps there will be a glass of bubbly waiting for you on arrival. And if this doesn't work try tweeting during the meal “in @Restaurant. Food is amazing blah blah”, maybe then the restaurant will finally acknowledge you!

The Fussy Eaters
Some people have the odd ingredient or texture they don’t like to eat and that is perfectly fine – just don’t order it. The gripe is with the people who are so fussy and so unadventurous that they try to create their own menu. They will usually order something like this, “I will have the chicken, but without the carrots and instead of a garlic sauce can I have a mustard sauce instead”. Or the old chestnut of ordering meat cooked “well done” and complaining that is overcooked. A menu isn't a suggestion or a rough guide of what the chef could make. If you want a bespoke dishes with exactly the ingredients you want, cooked exactly how you want it, then stay at home and cook it yourself!

Click here for a more recent review of Amuse

We usually don't go to a restaurant for at least several months after it first opens. It takes a new restaurant time to find it's feet and iron out the creases. There are few businesses in any other industry that would be expected to run a perfectly smooth operation when they first open, so reviews of a restaurant on opening night or even in the first couple of weeks are hard to take seriously and criticism of food or service may be unfair. Visiting a restaurant which has had time to develop, polish its operation and hone the dishes gives a clearer picture of what the restaurant can offer. Even elBulli, which was only open for six months a year, was described by Ferran Adria as being a lot more organised and rhythmic near the end of their open period.

Saying that though, we broke our rule slightly when we visited Amuse on Dawson Street in Dublin after being open for only two months. It wasn't planned, but in desperation of a feed and without a dinner reservation we found ourselves in Amuse, which thankfully had a few openings. Had it been a bad experience or we had many criticisms we may not be writing this review and, instead, we would be going back in a few months, but since the experience was positive we figure a review isn't out of order.

Amuse may be described as "fusion", one of those overused culinary terms, as it incorporates both Asian and European ingredients and techniques. This is nothing new and although the term 'fusion' originated and was popularized in California around the 1970s, cultures have been fusing cuisines long before that. This is especially true when countries were colonized and two cuisines and cultures were thrown together. Due to French colonization of countries in South East Asia the French influence is still very obvious there. Cambodia's national dish of Fish Amok is steamed with egg to soufflé it, Vietnam's national dish of Pho is thought to have origins as Pot Au Feu and a consommé and baguettes are still eaten in both countries, albeit a bit sweeter. Of course, the spread and availability of spices could also be seen as one of the earliest forms of simple fusion cooking.

A lot of restaurants opening in Dublin at the moment are looking for a trend or a niche. The dining room, the setting and the theme are paramount and the food, which often isn't bad and can even be good, comes second. Amuse isn't like that though and, after a meal there, it is obvious that the food comes first and serving this style isn't a gimmick or an attempt to find a hole in the market. This is evident in the simple dining room with influential cook books, such as Michel Bras and Mugaritz, displayed on the walls. It comes across as if the chef, Conor Dempsey, is cooking the food he wants to cook and there is excitement in his food as he starts out on his venture.

We had the 7 course tasting menu and, first and foremost, a quick read of the menu showed it was actually 7 courses, i.e. it was 7 courses, not including the amuse bouche, pre dessert or coffee as many restaurants are selling their tasting menus as these days. So off to good start, before any food was tasted.

There was a lot to like in the food with many dishes showing a lightness of touch and balance of interesting flavour combinations. In the wrong hands ingredients such as yuzo, daikon, chocolate, coconut, kohlrabi (all of which appeared on savoury dishes) combined with fish, shellfish and fowl could be calamitous and it takes skill and an accomplished palate to get this balance right. On the whole the food tasted clean and was refreshing, while at the same time being moreish. The first two courses, which were the best of the night, demonstrated this well. Mackerel ceviche followed by a serving blue-fin tuna with radish and samphire. 

Other courses were also very good and highly enjoyable. An interesting serving of perfectly cooked squid served with coconut and cauliflower was interesting, but a bit overpowered by white chocolate and the dish may have worked better with scallops. A beautiful piece of hake served with a consommé that was slightly too salty. The dessert was a beautiful plate of summer fruit and shortbread that we would have gladly eaten a bucket-load of, but was served with a raspberry sorbet and chocolate pavé which were both a bit diluted and they turned the dessert into a sort of random assortment instead of dish. There was only one dish that we were not too keen on: egg yolk, mushrooms, fennel and hazelnut wasn't harmonious and a little bit cloying.  

The amuses bouches, pre-dessert and petit fours were top quality and the service was professional, friendly and knowledgeable.

Overall it was a very good start and we are really looking forward to going back in the hope that, with a bit of polishing, this restaurant could be one of the best in the city. Currently there is a slight inexperienced feel that may be because the restaurant is still new. Despite being a 7 course tasting menu a couple of dishes were still a little bit small, and we left feeling something was missing. Some of the dishes are just a little bit short of perfect and need the odd tweak.

It is great to see a restaurant in Dublin that is trying something different that isn't for the sake of being trendy. Amuse is offering something different purely on the food and this should be applauded. We left the restaurant impressed.