Eating out is for everyone – even cloth-eared bints like me

MY LAST supper in London before I moved to the country took place in The Wolseley, on Piccadilly. It’s a cavernous brasserie. It’s fashionable, and therefore packed to the high rafters with extroverts.

I sat opposite my agent, the only person who had turned up, and told him the reasons I was leaving. I wanted peace and quiet. I’d be fine driving 500 miles to and from work. The locals will love me, as I’m an animal lover.

I could see his mouth moving but I couldn’t hear a word, given the din from other diners, the clattering of cutlery on polished tables, the braying, the scraping on plates, and the fact that I’m also profoundly deaf.

I couldn’t lip-read, given it was so gloomy, and so had no idea he was imparting dire warnings. Only five years later, when my house had been shot at and my car pelted with eggs, did he say: ‘Well, I did try to warn you.’

I blame noise in restaurants for my downfall. If only Action On Hearing Loss, which yesterday revealed plans for a mobile phone app to enable diners to record dangerous decibel levels in order to name and shame restaurants, had acted sooner.

The campaigning charity found that a lack of sound-absorbing curtains, carpets, tablecloths and even cushions has made eateries louder. I’d add to that list the fact that children are allowed to run around unfettered. Last Sunday, I was forced to sit outside an Italian with my three collies – no dogs were allowed inside the premises – while packs of feral children circled my table, screaming.

Unwanted noise, such as piped music, raises stress levels and blood pressure, but it’s also isolating, and makes the hard of hearing among us appear stupid.

I remember sitting at a table of 15 or so at a restaurant for a boss’s leaving dinner. I was next to a young, ambitious male political writer and opposite a bitter Left-wing female columnist, the type who orders as much alcohol as possible to cheese off the newspaper proprietor picking up the tab. When I asked him what car he drove, he mumbled something, so I said: ‘Is that an Aston Martin?’ ‘No, it’s an Audi! Jesus.’ They soon, thank God, turned to their companions, abandoning me to stew in a soup of half-caught gossip.

And it’s not just other diners who become enraged – it’s the waiting staff, too.

Having brunch at the Ivy in Chelsea a few Sundays ago, the waitress read out the specials. It was so noisy – given that the doors were open, the other diners there were so successful that they were not inclined to whisper, and the young woman’s accent was so acute – that I was forced to make her repeat them four times.

FINALLY able to make out the word ‘kedgeree’, and telling her, ‘None of that’s any good to me, I’m a vegetarian,’ she rolled her eyes, exasperated. I wrote here a couple of months ago that I’ve actually been barred from an establishment – a Michelin-starred gastropub stuffed with overdressed women and boastful men celebrating birthdays and anniversaries.

I could not hear a word uttered by the French waiter, who actually chased after me and my boyfriend as we left, telling my partner – the waiter had learned there was no point addressing me, as though we were suddenly in Tehran – that ‘she’s been ignoring me all evening’.

‘She’ had, in fact, informed the maitre d’ and a waitress upon arrival that ‘she’ is deaf.

Perhaps when the maitre d’ imparted this warning to the waiter, who’s obviously far too thin-skinned to work in the service industry, the Gallic ghoul misheard him, given the racket.

You might say, ‘Well, why doesn’t the cloth-eared bint stay home’, but unfortunately a lot of my work takes place in the newest, hottest and therefore loudest eateries.

The trend for casual, clubby dining is Kryptonite for the hard of hearing. At the Hospital Club a few weeks ago, a small group of us – a PR, a star, an agent – had dinner, but given that we were reclined on sofas around low tables, the distance rendered me mute, uncomprehending.

I was once interviewed by a journalist from Stylist magazine for a cover story in a place so noisy we might as well have broken flatbread at a table on the second runway at Heathrow.

Moro, in Exmouth Market, has one of those open-plan kitchens to enable you to glimpse your food being prepared, accompanied by much clattering and shouting. I couldn’t hear a single question the young woman was putting to me: this is probably one of the reasons I always get such a bad press.