I agree, and in fact, pushing away plates or stacking them up is crass behavior in fine dining establishments.
**...pushing away plates or stacking them up is crass behavior in fine dining establishments.**
If the fine dining joint picks up plates and bowls when making way for the main course, that’s fine with me. But my wife and I like to (quietly) organize the dinnerware. If it speeds up getting a table ready for the next customer(s), then that’s a plus.
That’s true.
The definition of “fine dining establishments” is that they have sufficient waitstaff on hand that very soon after you finish your plate / soup / appetizer the waitstaff is there to whisk it away. For fine dining, that’s what people pay for. If you have time to stack plates for the waitstaff, it’s not fine dining, it’s red lobster.
That’s not to say that red lobster is / was bad, just that when you dine out there are various levels of service that are included in the meal price. If you’re paying $40 for the entree, the soup and salad should be policed before the entre arrives without having to stack the dishes and utensils. Would I still stack the dishes and utensils? Yes, because I’ve been waitstaff and want to make their lives a little easier. But no one realizes what it costs to have one waitstaff for 3 tables of 2-4 versus 3 waitstaff for 3 tables of 2-16. It’s not the same, and that “special” table of 16 probably isn’t going to tip.