Seven Signs You Are About to Have a Terrible Culinary Experience at a Fancy Restaurant

You can usually tell before the food arrives. Here is what to watch for, in the order you will encounter it.

golo 3 September 2026 5 min read Comment

Ofada Rice and Jollof Rice Photo: Major Lyte (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The tragedy of an expensive bad meal is that you know early. You know at the door. You just do not act on it, because you have already parked, already dressed up, and already told someone you were going.

Here is the sequence, so that next time you can leave while leaving is still cheap.

Not “prices on request”. Simply absent, as though asking would be vulgar. It is not vulgar. It is the only unambiguous thing that will happen to you all evening.

2. There are more staff than tables

Six people will greet you. None of them will be your waiter. Your waiter will be located later, by a seventh person, after a search.

3. Something is described as “deconstructed”

A deconstructed dish is a dish that was assembled somewhere else and then taken apart on the way to you. You are paying for the disassembly.

4. The plate is enormous and the food is central

Ceramic is cheaper than food. Watch the ratio.

5. The music is louder than the room needs

This is not atmosphere. It is a way of making a half-empty room sound occupied, and it means the room is usually half empty.

6. Your water arrives and then nothing arrives for nineteen minutes

Nineteen minutes is the threshold. Before nineteen, the kitchen is busy. After nineteen, the kitchen has not started.

7. The waiter asks how everything is before you have eaten anything

They are not asking. They are closing out the interaction early, because they know they will not be back soon.

None of this is about price. Some of the best food any of us have eaten cost four hundred naira and came in a nylon bag. It is about whether a place is confident in the food, or confident in the lighting.