Customer demands leave a bitter taste for pub chefs
As well as the clear inconvenience of tearing a dish apart and rehashing it, I feel sorry for the waiting staff.
They have to relay the customers’ whims to an increasingly irate chef during a busy Saturday service. Yes — I recall the downside of waitressing!
Are diners entitled to be so demanding, or has “the customer is always right” mantra gone mad? On one hand, they have chosen to dine in that establishment, so if there is nothing they can eat without making changes, maybe they should have chosen somewhere else.
With (most) pubs having embraced social media and websites, diners can see menus beforehand.
On the other, it is their cash to spend as they like.
Perhaps dishes are too complex in some cases, comprising too many ingredients and scaring people off. There will always be fussy eaters, but the best that pub chefs can do is, in Gordon Ramsay’s oft-uttered words, provide “good, simple, honest food”.
