While we’re on restaurants, I like French waiters and waitresses. The French, like most Europeans, recognise being a waiter as a proper job which commands respect. This is why you get older waiters who know their stuff, rather than our endless stream of often clueless 22-year-old Australians and Latvians who do it for a year or two. It’s also why the waiter-customer relationship is so different. French staff know the customer isn’t always right and I rather I enjoy their snootiness. The thing is, companies are always banging on authenticity and I’m pretty sure that the disdain my French waiter has for me is authentic. By contrast, the plastic, Americanised bonhomie of their British counterparts almost certainly isn’t. It also makes me a little nostalgic: not so very long ago we too had snooty waiting staff. Now, we have a second-rate imitation of American service.