Table talk

At a pub-restaurant in Berkshire, the food is terrific – but the service is a tiny bit too keen…

Michael Deacon at The Oxford Blue, Berkshire

To be clear: this is not a complaint about waiters. being a waiter isn’t easy. It can be tiring, boring, and grievously underpaid. according to payscale.com, the median salary of a waiter in the UK is £14,126. Tips help – unless, instead of leaving cash, you pay the ‘discretionar y ser vice charge’, which some restaurants simply keep for themselves. appalling. especially given that, in my experience at any rate, the standard of service in this country is good.

all I’m saying, though, is that sometimes, it can be a little bit too good.

You know how it is. The waiter is blisteringly polite, remorselessly attentive, his face a permanent dazzling beam of welcome. It’s lovely – almost shamingly lovely. You’re being treated like Saudi royalty. but after the fifth or sixth time you’ve been asked, mid-mouthful, whether everything is to your satisfaction, it starts to feel slightly awkward. like an over-eager date, your waiter is suf focating you with niceness. You find yourself longing for a bit of aloofness, a bit of disdain, even a bit of outright rudeness. oh, to be in Paris.

This was pretty much how I felt at today’s restaurant, The oxford blue in berkshire. Put it like this: it’s the type of place where you can hardly take a sip of water wit hout s omeone le api ng eagerly for ward to ref i ll your gla s s. every single thing you say – even if it’s as banal as, ‘oh, and a side of potatoes, please’ or ‘could I see the desserts?’ or ‘No, thanks’ – is hailed as ‘Wonderful’.