How not to drink in a restaurant
Rule number one: never, ever arrive drunk at a restaurant. It is very bad form to turn up in a state that suggests you might have to pay corkage. On yourself. At the Ivy last month, a squiffy customer parked himself at a table, ordered a bottle of Krug then shouted across the room, 'Oi! Where's my caviar?' He was out on the pavement in a blink, with the imprint of the manager's shoe clearly visible on the back of his jacket. This sort of thing just won't do. You've got to show a little respect, if not to yourself, at least to staff and other customers. At sister restaurant Le Caprice recently, two women who should have known better sailed in on a sea of cocktails. One tripped over an ice-bucket stand on her way to the loo and soaked a table of four; the other lost her credit card and said to the waiter, 'Where's my main course?' To which the reply was, 'You've just eaten it.' How, erm, appalling.
No, it is just not on. Not only is turning up drunk rude and inconsiderate, you also rob the restaurant of the opportunity to fill you up to your personal Plimsoll line with their wine list and drinks. For them, this is the fiscal object of the whole exercise. You have a duty as a customer to be fair, not fairly falling down as you crawl across the threshold, eating a bowl of pot pourri on the bar and later complaining that their crisps are damp. However, in the BBC2 reality show The Restaurant, I don't know if it was wise for Raymond Blanc to spill les haricots and tell his would-be restaurateurs that the quickest way to increase profits is to get the dummies sitting in the restaurant to drink more cocktails. I'll say!
Kingsley Amis once said that the most depressing words in the English language were, 'Shall we go straight in?' I take his point, but there are limits. How much time should one spend on pre-prandial palate cleansers? If you see the head chef roaring off into the darkness on a motorbike and the vague outline of a nice lady vacuuming around your feet, the chances are you have overdone it. Twenty minutes max and one glass of a non spirit-based aperitif is definitely the most civilised response to pre-meal liquid absorption, something Shirley MacLaine would have done well to heed when Jack Nicholson steered her towards the bar on their first date in Terms of Endearment. 'You need a lot of drinks,' he told her, as his eyebrows flew north like escaping crows.
Champagne is ideal for the job. A glass of fresh, crushed raspberries fizzed up with chilled prosecco, just like they serve at the River Café in summer, can't fail to jolly up the mood. That's exactly what you want. Something frivolous and pretty, but not too bright or strong - a Paris Hilton kind of drink, but one that won't land you in jail. For apart from the occasional Negroni, a cocktail that's almost as bitter as me, I rarely order spirits in a restaurant. It's just not right. It's not good for the palate, nor the roasted kidneys (I'm talking about my own). In Casino Royale, James Bond has another view. 'I never have more than one drink before dinner,' he says, 'but I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made.' What is that dude ordering? A fridge? Sometimes friends sharing a bottle of light wine, like the bourgogne aligoté traditionally used to make a kir, is a better, mellower and more European solution to the brashness of a Falcon Claw or, dear me, a Rebel Yell. However, be aware that if you do order kir, this is how less scrupulous restaurants get rid of their corked and leftover wines. But it's best not to obsess about that kind of stuff. Sometimes I'd like to fingerprint the cheese straws, but accept that this is an unacceptable level of restaurant paranoia.
Final rule: know your limits. Try to stop drinking in a restaurant before the claret is bubbling out of your eyes. Remember that one man's aperitif maison is another man's bucket of lager. One woman's flute of champagne is another's tuba of vodka. When Posh Spice tumbled out of Nobu Berkeley last year, I suspect she'd had a thimble of rosé, not six Tanqueray extra dry Martinis, as favoured by Ernest Hemingway. In the film Scarface, a Scotch-fuelled Al Pacino takes being drunk in a restaurant to terrifying method-acting heights as he rampages around the dining room screaming abuse at all the other customers. 'You don't have the guts to be what you wanna be,' he slurs, a lesson to all that it's best to keep your inner Scarface under control at all times. 'Say goodnight to the bad guy,' he shouts, exiting the restaurant. Goodnight.
Read Jan Moir's restaurant reviews on areyoureadytoorder.co.uk
A new review is added every Thursday
Three restaurants for top-notch drinks
Clarke's 124 Kensington Church Street, London W8 (020 7221 9225)
Every spring at Clarke's restaurant they serve their home-made vin d'orange. Seville oranges are macerated in rosé, lemon, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and eau de vie for six weeks. After this, they add a slug of rum, then strain and bottle the pretty pink drink. Summery and delicious, it is the perfect aperitif.
The Star Inn Harome, North Yorkshire (01439 770397)
There's a lovely fire in the cosy thatched bar, where you can have a glass of champagne and ponder the wonders of a crab salad that comes with a bloody-Mary dressing: starter and aperitif rolled into one. The Star is one of the nicest places I know for pre-lunch drinks and then, of course, lunch itself.
Le Caprice Arlington Street, London SW1 (020 7629 2239)
Still one of London's most urbane restaurants, where staff will bring you a perfectly constructed, classic Caesar salad while coping expertly with any in-house calamity. Their famous Martinis are a civilised, rinky-dink little size, coiled with lemon peel or a bobbing olive.