A food critic’s guide to eating out: No loud music, pretensions or touching. Don’t seat me near the loos, and cook my steak however I want!

For a dream dining experience, it’s not just what’s on the menu that counts. Our critic looks at the features that can make or break a meal, from condiments to cleanliness and service

Dining out can be a wonderful experience, but it can be ruined in so many ways. Illustration by Eoin Flynn

Lucinda O'Sullivan

First impressions are last impressions, they say, and I wasn’t overly impressed when arriving at a new restaurant, an unsmiling young lady, after checking off our name in the bookings, dragged the menus off the rostrum and said, “We need your table back by 8.45pm (90 minutes — and 15 minutes less than the allotted time on their booking platform).

To add insult to injury, she tried to pawn us off with a tiny table, squashed in a corner on top of a party of eight, who didn’t look thrilled at our impending arrival either. Demurring, we were finally relocated to one of the many better empty tables where, shortly afterwards, a couple beside us were told their time was up. Needless to say, their now vacant table remained so for the duration of our meal.