Published March 9
I am not a fussy eater. Really, I am not. On the other hand, I don’t care for much artifice with my food either. I like a meal to speak for itself and I like the way it is prepared and the way it is served to be in some sort of harmony.  If a restaurant serves humble, down-to-earth food then I don’t mind receiving my utensils wrapped in cellophane with tiny packets of salt and pepper (although I do abhor throwing away all that plastic). Even the occasional tooth imprint on some chopsticks doesn’t throw me off. However, when a waiter in a restaurant with what I assume has a perfectly good dishwasher leans over my shoulder after I have finished my salad and inquires, “Don’t you want to keep your fork?” Then I must emphatically say, no.

Lets start with logistics. Where am I going to put the now slobbered-upon and creamy-Gorgonzola-house-whatever-it-is-smeared fork? If one is eating in a seafood shack where the sports pages are on the walls of the men’s room and beer signs make up the majority of the décor then fine. But, I have noticed that this flatware carryover is working itself up the culinary pyramid. If you are serving more than one course and you have the capacity to wash dishes then it does not seem like too much to ask that a fresh utensil be provided with each plate. I think this argument holds on sanitary grounds alone.

My girlfriend and I recently went to dinner at a downtown establishment that I will not name but only mention that, with tip, the bill was over $150. They have chargers, the large decorative plates upon which each course, appropriately plated, is placed. They have one of those ridiculously large pepper mills that looks more like a Medieval weapon than a culinary tool. They have entrees that approach $35 a piece. And yet, they thought I might like to keep my fork.

This is the real crux of my objection. If you are going to exude competence and class (or at least pretense, which often tries to pass for the latter) then you should follow through on it, because competence and class are about attention to detail. Anyone with enough money can buy a copper-plated bar or fancy bistro chairs. With a large enough pile of lucre you can scoop up the choicest of tenderloins. But, if your patrons find themselves… oh I don’t know… eating their appetizers off of said chargers or never having that monstrous pepper grinder waved over their lovingly described salad then what is the point?

I have been in the service industry long enough to know that things fall through the cracks from time to time. This is understandable; servers are busy people. Restaurants are hectic places. But expectations about service increase in direct proportion to the size of the bill presented at the end of the meal. And when a restaurant chooses to cultivate an air of urbanity then the least they can do is follow through on it.  Do I expect warm, salted cashews and macadamia nuts when I plop down in a smoky bar and order a $2 domestic beer? Of course not, but dinner out is about the total process. If I wanted to lick my fork clean and deposit it on a table of questionable cleanliness then I could do so at home or at someplace that proudly serves off-brand ketchup as a sauce rather than Marchand de Vin.

I am not trying to single anyone out with this little tirade. More than one restaurant in Baton Rouge is guilty of it. And this is not some stuffy, elitist attack on the struggling dining spots of the world. I am quite happy to eat meat from a stick on a park bench or wipe watermarks from my knife at a luncheonette. But if I am expected to dress nicely, chew with my mouth closed and pay handsomely for a meal then please, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, just bring me a clean fork.

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