Phones are ruining restaurants – and chefs are fighting back

Forget obscure cuisines or advancements in lighting design or the ever-more oblique fussiness of diners. Overwhelmingly the biggest change in restaurants over the past 15 years has been the advent of the smartphone. At breakfast, lunch and dinner, they are inescapable, whether being used to take endless pictures of the food or films of themselves eating, or checked for the football scores between courses, or used to pay the bill or make a complaint on TripAdvisor. At restaurants around the country you will hear the refrain PEF: “phone eats first”.

While they have democratised praise, cutting out the middle-man, phones have done the same to criticism. Yet where an old-fashioned critic would make a few discreet notes, influencers use their phones, sometimes with flash or separate lights, which can be distracting in an intimate, dimly lit room. Unsurprisingly, chefs and restaurateurs are fighting back. At Punk Royale, a new restaurant in Mayfair in which 20 courses are served as a kind of immersive theatre, phones are banned.

“When guests are seated, we lock their phones away for the remainder of the experience,” explains head of guest experience Kat Bont. “No photos, no filming, no scrolling. Just full immersion.”

A phone lock box at Punk Royale in London’s Mayfair

She says the policy began at their first restaurant in Stockholm, 10 years ago. “It wasn’t about mystery or exclusivity, it was simply about presence. We wanted guests to disconnect from their screens, relax and genuinely enjoy themselves together with their company. It’s a reminder that a great night out doesn’t need to be documented to be remembered.”

Japanese chef Endo Kazutoshi’s stance is not so extreme, but at the start of meals at Endo at the Rotunda, his sushi restaurant in the old BBC studios in White City (temporarily closed), he would try to minimise phone use – stopping short of a ban.

“We tried to discourage our guests from using their phones with a short announcement at the beginning of the experience,” Kazutoshi recalls. “Atmosphere was vital to the Rotunda, and we looked to accommodate each and every one of our guests.

Endo Kazutoshi has stopped short of banning mobile phones, but discourages their use in his restaurant

“Sometimes it means letting those guests who wish to use their phone do so. Discretion and politeness are key in Japanese culture, and whereas I don’t find pictures and videos insulting, I feel that focusing the entire experience through a phone screen means that guests don’t fully appreciate the moment.”

Many other chefs and restaurateurs – perhaps most – would love to follow suit, but find themselves trapped between the phone’s contradictory qualities. They can be a potent marketing tool, but they can ruin the dynamic of a meal. How to balance guests feeling relaxed with creating the best environment for them to appreciate your handiwork?

“It’s a difficult one,” says Jeremy Chan, chef-proprietor of the two-Michelin star Ikoyi, as rarefied a dining experience as is available in the UK. “Phones and Instagram are pretty much the death of romance. If you see everything before you go, it kills the romance.

“I fell in love with cooking through books and using my imagination and not knowing what to expect. The phones take a lot of that away. If couples are sitting there on their phones not talking, I find that quite difficult.

Jeremy Chan, chef-proprietor of the two-Michelin star Ikoyi, believes phones lessen the restaurant experience and kill the romance - Danny J Peace

The interior of Ikoyi - Irina Boersma

“If you’re an actor in a play and you look down and see a couple on the phone [and feel annoyed], why should it be different for us? Performance is part of what we do.”

As the face of the restaurant, working in an open kitchen, Chan must also put up with people filming him at work. “People put the camera in my face when I’m talking,” he says. “Sometimes I feel like a court jester, like I’m just content, not a person.

“But I don’t want to be a dictator,” he adds. “It’s not up to a restaurant to stop people from using their phones, it’s up to the individual. A lot of our most loyal customers use their phones and I know they appreciate the food. It’s more about reminding people to be emotionally present. This is it. If you are not engaged, time is going to go by and you’re going to miss out.”

For the Italian chef Giorgio Locatelli, who has Locatelli at the National Gallery, and formerly the Michelin-starred Locanda Locatelli, phones actually impede what the kitchen is trying to do. “It’s upsetting when you have a team of 35 people who produce a dish, which needs to be eaten at the right temperature, in the right condition; and the fact you spend five minutes taking a picture is ridiculous,” he says.

“Also, eating is not just eating. There’s a sense of conviviality, the great pleasure of being together. One of my best memories growing up is sitting around with my family and my granddad talking about the war and things. The moment you put a telephone there, it’s all gone.

“It’s not my job to judge the clients, it’s the job of the clients to judge me. But it’s antisocial behaviour, which I don’t think does any good for the atmosphere or the food. If it was up to me, there would be no phones at all. I don’t allow phones on the table at home with my children.”

Persistent photo-taking can also discourage celebrity diners, he adds. “At Locanda on certain evenings we asked people not to have phones to guard their privacy. Once I had a problem with a guest who said they weren’t going to come back because someone was taking a picture. Nobody wants a picture being taken when they have their mouth full.”

Yet phones – and social media – are also a fantastic PR tool. In a previous era, restaurateurs had to rely on word of mouth or a handful of critics to build their reputation. Today, a single snap or film on someone’s phone can fill a restaurant.

“I wouldn’t have the same level of business without people using phones to take photos,” says Ed McIlroy, of the Plimsoll and Tollington’s in north London. “Viva La iPhone, Tiktok, the whole lot.”

Borough Market has enforced rules requiring people to have a licence to film on site - Moment RF

Borough Market epitomises the tension between businesses and phones. It has become a favourite destination for foodie social media influencers from all over the world, but has recently enforced rules requiring people to have a licence to film on site. Bite Twice, a food reviewing duo, were recently kicked out of the market after they had given a bad review to Humble Crumble, a dessert stall.

“It confused us, because Borough Market heavily relies on content creators and people photographing their food,” says Gerry del Guercio, one half of Bite Twice. “Nothing like this has happened before. A few times we’ve been told in restaurants or shops that they don’t allow cameras or recording, but usually that is quite well labelled. I would never go and put a camera in an employee’s face.” A few weeks after being thrown out, Bite Twice were back in the market making films again. But the phone issue will not go away.

At Punk Royale, Bont says guests have taken to their policy. “The response has been great,” she says. “People really love it, and so do we. What starts as a small adjustment often turns into one of the most appreciated parts of the evening. Guests relax, engage more with each other and rediscover the joy of simply being together.”

Enjoying a meal without a phone? It will never catch on.

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