When the waiter leads you to your table and you pass the cosy settings by the fireplace and end up with a damp trestle on the fire escape, it’s tempting to ask yourself the question: What would the movie director and restaurant critic Michael Winner do? For all his talents — film director, insurance salesman, bon viveur — it is as arbiter of the best restaurant tables that the London Sunday Times’s restaurant critic excels. Legend has it that he can even identify the best table in restaurants that have yet to be built.
On one apocryphal day, Winner became smitten with a particular table at Claridge’s in London, and wasn’t about to be deterred by the fact that a) he was dining alone and the table was for six people, and b) those six people were about to sit down at it. Winner suggested that these guests could retire to the bar and he would not only pick up the tab for their dinner, but also pay for them to drink champagne while he enjoyed their table.
Claridge’s, now part of the Gordon Ramsay empire, actually has something of a history when it comes to best tables. Food critic Egon Ronay says there is a very clear favourite — just as you go in, on the right in the little alcove.
‘Luigi, the restaurant manager, said to me once that he keeps that particular table for the Queen of Norway or the Queen of Denmark. One night the Queen of Norway was eating at this table and the Queen of Denmark walked in. She looked at the table, she looked at the Queen of Norway, she looked at Luigi and without a word she walked out.”
Although in some restaurants the location of the best table may only be known to a select few, one thing that everyone seems to agree on is what constitutes the worst. ‘One is the table by the doors into the kitchen,†says London Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner. ‘Then there’s the one behind the pillar so the waiter can never see you. The one that’s unreachable as you have to shuffle along a mile of banquet seating to get to it. And, obviously, the one by the bogs.â€
If you’re still unsure of whether you’re sitting at the best table, or merely an adequate one, there is a checklist. If the restaurant has a view, you should have unrestricted access to it. If, for example, you can only see the Eiffel Tower/Niagra Falls/the sunset if you stand on your chair, you do not have a good table. And, apart from ample elbow room, usually the best table will be against the back wall or in a corner and perhaps be slightly raised to offer you a view over the restaurant. Ultimately, the best table is often defined by circumstances. Whereas celebs might crave the see-and-be-seen tables, people on business lunches gravitate towards more secluded areas.
Most diners, however, do not voice even the merest whiff of preference when it comes to booking a table. A straw poll of restaurant managers shows that 90% of customers do not make any requests to this effect. Either most Brits genuinely don’t mind where they sit, or they’re a nation of petrified diners pathetically grateful for any restaurant that deigns to accept their reservation. The other 10% are either fussy, or of the insecure grass-is-always-greener clan.
Ronay says that requesting the best table would be futile anyway. ‘You don’t stand a chance if you say, ‘Give me the best table.’ First of all, they’ll say they don’t have one, then they’ll say you can’t book it. My advice would be to go to the restaurant early, then if you don’t like your table, simply ask to be moved.†Rayner has another suggestion. ‘Go to drama school, get the lead role in several Hollywood movies. Then phone and ask for the best table.â€
Undeterred, I call the River Café in London. I feel the spirit of Winner standing over me like a watchful, corpulent uncle. ‘And I’d like the best table please.†The words stick to the roof of my mouth like peanut butter. ‘We don’t really have a best table, all are pretty much the same,†comes the response. So far, so predictable. My Plan B is to explain what would be the best table for me (one big enough to park a pushchair next to). They say the seating plan is done on the day, but they’ll take my request into account. As it happens, we get a beautiful, bright, window table with enough space to park a fleet of prams.
Maze, another of Ramsay’s hotly tipped ventures, this one in London’s upmarket Grosvenor Square, is similarly adamant that it doesn’t have a best table. ‘We have a range of different tables. Some are on a raised platform and some are by the window.†I request one next to the window with plenty of space around it. ‘I can make that request for you, sir, but I can’t guarantee it.†Again my training pays off with what is easily the best table, enclosed by walls on three sides but close to the window. I hear my inner Winner wonder if we could move the table so I could see more of Grosvenor Square, but I manage to silence him in time.
Celeb sushi joint Nobu makes no attempt to hide its superlative table. ‘It’s in smoking, but it is a corner seat and it has a view over the front of the restaurant.†Yes, well, I would definitely like that one, I say.
Ironically, to my inexperienced eye, the table is indistinguishable from all the rest. And the view of a traffic jam on London’s Park Lane is nothing to write home about either.
Perhaps the real Winner could have spotted the best table but, frankly, if Nobu offered to feed me on the proviso that I sat at a table and chair made entirely of upturned drawing pins, then I’d have no reservations about accepting it. I’d take the best food over the best table every time. —