Heading out for dinner is an increasingly rare treat for many of us thanks to the cost of living crisis, so when you make the trip it probably feels more important than ever to have a good time.
If you’re ever stuck for choice whilst browsing a menu, or you simply want a way to cut through the noise and pick out the restaurant’s very best dishes, TV chef Gordon Ramsay has got a full three courses of advice.
Having trained under Marco Pierre White, the 58-year-old went on to earn 17 Michelin stars across the Gordon Ramsay Restaurants group. At the time of writing, he holds eight. In short, he’s one of the best in the business, and has been for a long time.
He’s cooked up plenty of storms on the telly, too, with countless obscenities dropped across Hell’s Kitchen, MasterChef USA, and Kitchen Nightmares over the years.
Ramsay is certainly no stranger to saying exactly what he thinks. As far as critiques go, he’s also given Hot Ones a more thorough, and more sweary, review than most guests.
So, what does he recommend when it comes to making the most of your meals out?
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Ramsay laid out three top golden rules to follow. They can’t guarantee success, but they could also help you dodge a few culinary bullets.
Number one is to watch out for any restaurant claiming to have the best of anything, whether it’s the ‘best pizza in Slough’ or ‘the UK’s favourite cheeseburger’. If there’s no substantiation for those claims, give them a wide berth.
"Who said that? Who named that?" he wondered.
Second is wine-related, with a special trick for getting the best wine at the best price. Here he suggests you ask for the 'bin-end' list, made up of bottles with scratched labels or vintages that haven’t done well sales-wise.
He also set a top-end price of £24 at the time, although as that was in 2017 the ceiling has been raised by inflation. The Bank of England’s inflation calculator has that £24 at £31.44 in today’s money. Ouch.
Third and finally came Ramsay’s best tip, warning how there's one part of the menu you should never order from.
"Specials are there to disappear throughout the evening. When they list 10 specials, that's not special," he said.
And it makes sense!
After all, if it’s a special, the chefs aren’t so familiar with it. That dish might not be as refined or as consistent as something the kitchen whips up every day.
Specials are also often made up of ingredients that the kitchen is trying to get rid of - that’s not to say the ingredients are off, but more that the special then becomes something convenient for the kitchen rather than something you might actually want.
So there you have it: with a little more discernment, you can up the odds of having a good time when you dine out.
Featured Image Credit: Matt Crossick/PA Archive/PA ImagesTopics: UK Food, TV and Film, Cooking
Kerri-Ann Roper