I’ve worked as a chef for many years and had my own restaurant. I find the British very uptight about all the rules and regulations concerning eating out (How to eat now: 16 rules of modern dining – from dress codes to dogs, 1 February). Personally, I like the Spanish approach: there is so much tolerance and patience involved. Obviously you ask first: “Can I come in with the dog?” Also, it’s imperative that your kids know how to eat out in a public place. It’s only good manners not to occupy a table as if it is your own private office if there are people waiting to eat. But in a restaurant you are dealing with the public, and some are enchanting – kids, dogs and all – and some are not.
Lindsey Mackay Robinson
Porreres, Mallorca, Spain
• The question “Should restaurants turn the music down?” ought to be “Should restaurants discriminate against people with hearing difficulties?” Restaurants have increasingly become no-go areas for people with hearing difficulties because of the fashion for hard surfaces and tables close together. This results in people with hearing difficulties being excluded. Music exacerbates this.
If restaurants enabled customers to talk in comfort over a good dinner, they might profitably tap into the supposedly well-off older market.
Hilary Metcalf
London
• In your article on likes and dislikes in restaurants, the one view that annoyed me most was that loud music in a restaurant is acceptable. This is nonsense. I don’t go to a restaurant to hear music, which is invariably not to my taste. I go for fine food and intelligent conversation, and any music is at best superfluous and at worst downright annoying. Ban it all.
John Holland
Herne Bay, Kent
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