I could have made this myself

What’s the worst thing you could say about a meal out?

“I could have made this myself.”

It doesn’t mean that the meal is bad, but it’s a notch down from damning with faint praise and is one of the most disappointing feelings you can have about a much-anticipated night out.

Bad food can often be easier to cope with. You can complain.

A dish that tastes like something that comes off your stove at home on a particularly uninspiring day leaves you feeling like you are wasting your time and money. You eat it, sometimes plough through it, then pay the bill and leave with an unsatisfied sensation that ends up spoiling the rest of the day.

The prime culprits are chain Italians – Ask, Bella Italia and even Carluccio’s, but strangely not Zizzi which always impresses me. It must be the familiarity with that type of cuisine that does it. We almost all cook Italian and feel that we do it to a reasonable standard. The best Italian food is often the simplest, so when presented with penne in a tomato and sausage sauce which is undeniably good, you know that you could make it just as well at home as it had five ingredients and no processes of note. Like a diving competition where the judges’ scores are multiplied by the difficulty quotient of the dive, the enjoyment of a meal can be a factor of the execution and the complexity of the dish.

If you are going to serve something as simple as grilled ciabatta as a starter (Carluccio’s – this is you I’m talking to), it had better be a really good version.

Perhaps the chain Italian restaurants are on a hiding to nothing then – maybe all Italian restaurants are.

And when I have spent 2 years perfecting my Mexican repertoire I’m sure I’ll be saying the same thing about Mexican restaurants as well.