Why it's bad news if you're seated at the back of the restaurant

If a waiter leads you to a table at the back, tucked away by the toilets, behind a pillar, the experts say it's not just a coincidence: they have decided you are too old, ugly, or unfashionable for the establishment.

The Channel 4 programme, Tricks of the Restaurant Trade, carried out an experiment to see whether this 'trick of the trade' was really true. First they sent two models to posh restaurants, where they were given visible tables by the front window, and in one case people were moved around to make room for them.

They then sent programme host Adam Pearson (pictured) to the same restaurants. Adam, who suffers from neurofibromatosis, was either led to a table at the back, or told there was no space.

His co-presenter, TV chef Simon Rimmer, said: "Every restaurant has a golden table where they sit the best looking customers. A restaurant's clientele give off a certain message about the place. Good looking customers attract more people and make you more cash, so you sit them where they can be seen."

Is this true?
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This reflects reports over the years. Back in 2013, a Parisian restaurant group was in the headlines after two former employees revealed the establishments had a policy of always sitting the best looking people at the front of the restaurant, because it was good for the image of the business.

At the time the LA Times pointed out that this wouldn't come as anything of a surprise to people in LA - where models and stars always get the most visible tables, to make the restaurant seem like it is 'happening'. It's the same reason, it said, that the Jaguars and Bentleys tend to be parked up front.

Not always...

The good news, however, is that not all restaurants work on this basis. The TV show didn't name the restaurants where they carried out the experiments, but they were clearly based in fashionable and expensive parts of London.

Elsewhere, one restaurant worker wrote on Quora, that while all restaurants want 'attractive' people to sit in the window, the definition of 'attractive' varies between establishments. He pointed out that people make a split-second decision about a restaurant when they are walking past, so restaurants want to put people in the window that will attract other customers.

In a swanky restaurant this may mean a couple of models with nice smiles will get a seat in the window. In other restaurants it might be a happy family group, or an enthusiastic couple.

And there remain some exceptions to the rule. Some top restaurants aren't interested in image, because people go for the service and exceptional food. Here, you are more likely to be seated democratically, because the restaurant doesn't need to push its image: it has plaudits and stars to do that for it.

Bearing all this in mind, perhaps in future, we need to think more carefully when we glance through a restaurant window in order to decide whether we want to eat somewhere.