For Chloe Scott-Moncrieff, just thinking about someone handing over a restaurant's menu creates a Mike Leigh scene where a toupéed folk of yesteryears would order for their wives.
And you probably thought those days will never be heard of again. As more and more people are discovering restaurants and eating out, British restaurants are also evolving. However, there's one thing that's baffling most people: the menu.
An online restaurant booking site - Open Table - has revealed that seeing jargons on the menu is what usually leaves the Brits daunted. According to them, most of the problem words are commonly coined from Gallic terms such as mirepoix, chiffonade, and beignet, then there's also an Italian term lardo and now, ceviche - the trendy Peruvian dish.
As per Open Table, they found that 79 per cent of the dining customers find these words very confusing to be understood and 51 per cent had asked for a staff to explain it to them.
A well-known general manager of a starred restaurant, Fred Sirieix, strongly belives that restaurants need to evolve. He claims that menus do still partly confuse the customers because chefs tend to use words from their school which serves as every chef's bible in cooking.
The Telegraph's leading food columnist, Xanthe Clay also believes that a thorough service must still be given to customers since their needs usually comes out as important and they shouldn't be underestimated.
Meanwhile, amidst these issues arising, Chef Isaac McHale of the Clove Club in London's East End is still using simple ways in naming his modern British menu.
But as Chloe pays a visit James Lowe's place - Lyle's - this summer, she saw the word "dinner" in the title of the menu and when she looked at the dish names, it gave her the names like "Turbot & courgettes" and "black leaf ice cream & blackcurrants".
As per Chloe, it isn't confusing at all since this is how Scottish cuisine is named and it is a culture more than just an art of putting names. Thus, she concludes that at the end of the day, it's still about the chefs and restaurateurs expressing what they do to a certain extent.
