Remember what eating out used to be all about?

Everywhere I read right now, I hear the same thing: it’s all about the experience. Going out, staying out must be experience led, get this right and everything else follows.

I don’t think it’s as simple as that. For one thing, one person’s idea of a good experience isn’t another’s. And in an age where we are increasingly the effect of what we read in the press and see on social media, I think “experience” has become a much more complicated, multifaceted idea than that single word suggests.

It’s becoming genuinely confusing as to what a great experience actually means.

My North Star

My own compass for this goes right back to when I was a child, to the dinner parties my parents hosted, and to the very special occasions when they took me out. Those memories are so etched into my consciousness that fifty years later I still remember them like they were yesterday, and every one of them starts the same way: with a smiling greeting.

The warmth and geniality of a host welcoming you into their restaurant. The obvious glint of passion in their eyes, the genuine appreciation that you’d chosen to visit. A team who actually wanted to deliver something wonderful for you, full of smiles and general bonhomie, not an act that has been trained.

Sitting down at a beautifully presented table, everything just so, like walking onto a West End stage before the curtain goes up. The conversation and anticipation as you wait for the first course, a moment to talk about happy things, things you are looking forward to. And then the food itself — so beautifully presented you can see the chef’s passion right there on the plate — followed by the quiet deliciousness of actually eating it.

All of that, for me, is the experience. The team who deliver it, the food you’re served, the whole unhurried theatre of it. It’s this that creates the space for happy, optimistic conversation. That tomorrow is always an opportunity.

The world has changed

It’s with sadness that I read the opposite version of experience in the press and on social media.

It seems today what’s more important is whether a restaurant has the money to bring in one of the top five restaurant designers and be able to spend a small fortune on tablescaping.

It feels the new idea of great, must visit restaurants today are the ones that social media tell you are the best and on entry are full of twenty-somethings photographing their food.

Oh, how the world of eating out has changed.

The new battleground

The art of restauranting is being overtaken by the art of social media marketing.

We are in a bad place if serving genuinely delicious food, delivered by an amazing team that creates a feeling of real warmth and excellence in service, is not enough to succeed.

I don’t know whether this trend where social media tells us which restaurants are the ones to go to is a passing trend or here to stay but I fear that the longer it continues, the longer the list of failing hospitality businesses will grow.

Businesses that historically survived and prospered by simply getting the simple things right, now struggling in a landscape where being seen matters more than being good.

Getting the simple things right

Of course, the phrase “getting the simple things right” is disingenuous to those of us who realise the simple things are, in fact, very, very difficult to deliver, and not simple at all.

One of my greatest mistakes was thinking that running a successful restaurant with rooms was going to be relatively easy – it’s not.

I think what our team do day in day out is nothing short of a miracle and why, when I go out today and have a brilliant experience, I make the time at the end to thank a few key people in person – the person assigned to my table, the maitre d, and always the chef – make a point of this – poking your head into the kitchen and thanking them – the unseen stars of the show, they rarely get thanked and it’ll make their day.

So next time you’re deciding where to go

Ask yourself what matters to you.

Is it more important that some random influencer you’ve never met has just posted that such-and-such a restaurant is the place to be seen, a must-go, must-visit place?

Or is it more important to return to the restaurants you used to visit, the ones that just got the basics right — a warm welcome, perhaps by name, the genuine friendliness of the personal service you receive at your table, and the simple, unfussy deliciousness of the plate of food you enjoy. I know where I stand.