Beware of lone diners carrying clipboards
This is the time of year for nervous letters in the columns of Caterer & Hotelkeeper on the subject of guide inspectors and restaurant reviewers.
Single diners in otherwise deserted provincial restaurants can expect double portions of specially teased and tweaked grub from the management and waiting crew while their cars and bags are scrutinised for signs of Michelin, AA and Egon Ronay affiliations.
So if you are unattached, of hearty appetite, and in the mood to receive disproportionate attentions from the Uriah Heeps of our industry, then now is the time to eat out.
In fact there has been a rash of single diners at our own emporium just lately, very few of whom struck me as inspectorish. One lone woman last week, for instance, objected to sitting close by three Frenchmen on the grounds that "they all smell", so not much chance of her getting a job with Michelin.
We awaited the guides for an extra reason last year, however, after a visit from one particularly eccentric diner. The moment the fellow arrived to eat he produced an A4-sized restaurant questionnaire with little boxes to tick, and this he proceeded to complete throughout the duration of his meal, taking special care that we should see him at it.
"No bar", he wrote at the top of the form, and then, having underlined this a few times, turned the page so that our then waitress could be sure to notice. She said nothing. We already knew we had no bar so it wasn't much of a revelation.
Anyway, it was a busy service and we were all running about too much to pay any more attention. The next report from our waitress was that he was grumbling - but again not directly - while writing furiously about how poor the coffee was.
When he had gone, the mystery of the rubbish coffee was solved. He had asked for coffee and his pud - a warm rhubarb dish with orange custard - to be served simultaneously. There was thin coffee cream on the remains of his crumble and an interesting blend of custard and coffee mixed into the dregs of his cup.
I searched each guide to see where this would appear but unfortunately found no trace. Perhaps he was just a twit with Michael Winner fantasies who had taken the advice above and gone to the extra trouble of printing test sheets.
Perhaps he assumed he would qualify for some special treatment, an extra petit four, maybe, or a mint leaf on his dessert? Or perhaps he developed a taste for a coffee and orange combination by the end of the meal, and now makes it regularly at home as a speciality of the Merchant House.
We may never know.
Next diary from Shaun Hill will be on 20 March
