The One Question I Can’t Stand at Restaurants

A man walks into a restaurant.

He doesn’t have a reservation, but that shouldn’t be a problem; there are ample seats at the bar, visible just over the hostess’s shoulder.

“Of course,” she says, smiling.

“We can seat you right away.” As she gathers menus, he absorbs the pleasant hum of a busy dining room, breathes in the tantalizing smells from the semi-open kitchen.

Then, the hostess stops, Columbo-like, to interrupt with one more question: “And what’s your phone number?” The man was me.

The restaurant was the Kingsway, a newish, Michelin-recommended spot in New Orleans.

I’m not going to give you my phone number, but I gave it to the hostess, almost without thinking.

And then, I did think about it: a lot.

Throughout the meal, and for a long time afterward.

There had been no reservation to check, no rewards program, no waiting list.

So why the automatic ask? Let me say quickly that I liked the Kingsway very much.

It’s coolly fancy, with a pan-Asian menu evoking the journey of the chef-owner Ashwin Vilkhu’s family from South Asia to the Gulf South.

The result brings to mind an earlier era’s scruffy raiding of the global pantry, but this time executed with thought, technique, and precision.

As I tucked into a tangle of Singapore-style chili-crab noodles, the term stoner soigné passed through my head.