The customer is always right: ‘Even the couple who had sex in our laundry room’

Simon Bonwick

Chef-owner, the Crown, Burchetts Green, Berkshire

Back when I started as a chef, I saw someone flitting, like a shadow, down the long back corridor from the kitchen. It scared me right up to my tonsils. I discovered a man who was very fatigued, scuffed, and sunburnt. He looked very down on his luck. In a posh voice he asked: “Can I have a drink and something to eat?” I took his stinking coat, hung it up, helped him into a lovely white starched coat and trilby I had spare, then filled him up with grub. The poor bugger asked my name while I put loads of biscuits in his pockets before he left. Thirty years later, after the Crown won a Michelin star, a very smart couple started coming in, then one Friday they left a letter in an envelope under a napkin, which began: “You’ll not remember me, but you were the young chef with a Ready Brek smile who helped me out when I was at a real low point.” Beside the letter, there was his gift of a very generous cheque.

I’m very appreciative of most people, even the couple I kept finding in our laundry room, having sex.

Gary Usher

Executive chef, Sticky Walnut, Chester, and Burnt Truffle, Heswall, Wirral

I was at another restaurant of mine but got a call saying that Jay Rayner had just walked into Burnt Truffle. I jumped in my Tesla and drove over as fast as I could. I missed his starters but I managed to cook his main course and desserts. Afterwards, a customer, a very smartly dressed woman, came up and said: “I don’t know who panicked more – you or me. Rayner was with a female friend and I went to the ladies’ room before my lunch and someone had made a mess in there. I was so worried the woman would have informed Rayner and you’d get a bad review that I hunted for the toilet cleaner, the brush and everything and cleaned your toilets.” She made me realise that I had an amazing following.

Then there was the guy who wanted to bring his own cake in. I said that if he consumed it on the premises there’d be a charge, like with wine. The charge is for the knife, the plates, the time, the electricity and not selling a cake. He got annoyed with me and then rang up the next day to repeat how annoyed he still was. I repeated our policy and said I’d not got much more to say about it. He kept phoning, then said he wanted to meet me at an industrial park in Chester for a fight.

James Lewis

Director and head of front-of-house, Gauthier, Soho

We have a wealthy gentleman who comes here with his girlfriend whenever he stays at the Ritz. He books a private dining room and uses the florist from the Dorchester to decorate it, vividly, like a lush greenhouse. The chef prepares a special meal, he always has caviar and tips generously. It’s quite a performance. When he departs, he likes to pop a £20 note in the top pockets of staff members and I’ve seen him doing that to a random customer walking past reception.

One gentleman – who’s not Asian – eats everything with chopsticks. Various condiments – sliced ginger, a lemon and a bottle of tabasco sauce – must be on the table when he arrives. He never reads the menu – a chef must discuss and adapt his meal for him and he must have his wines served literally in mouthfuls, as he likes every sip to be like his last.

There’s a woman who wants to be moved halfway through every meal and her reasoning is that the people on the next table are too loud, although she’s the loudest customer I’ve ever heard.

One gentleman won’t sit with the bust of Napoleon, which, as a French restaurant, we place on each table. He wants a bust of Mussolini, which we keep in the cupboard for when he visits. He may be taking the mickey out of our Napoleons.

Stephen Terry

Chef-owner, the Hardwick, Abergavenny

Many of the most outrageous things happened back at Harvey’s [Marco Pierre White’s restaurant in Wandsworth]. In the days when you had to lug quite a big phone around if it was mobile, a customer said he wanted to use the restaurant’s phone in reception and was a bit rude. Marco – who’s very much into his Ps and Qs and politeness – was sat on one of his tub chairs out there and refused. The customer tried to throw a punch and a fight broke out. I heard Marco call “Gorrrr-dunn!” and Ramsay raced out of the kitchen. People were flying over tables. It was like something out of a western.

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Andi Oliver

Chef, judge on The Great British Menu and presenter of Beat The Chef

There was one diner who was convinced her sea trout was salmon, despite being shown the packaging, and started stomping up and down shouting: “This is salmon, this is salmon!” And once I had a vegan in who didn’t like vegetables. It was Mother’s Day and she was making such a fuss. I said: “Right, what do you want me to feed you?” Her mother and brother whispered to me: “Thank you so much for coping with her.” Finally I got her to eat a bit of gravy and a few peas, then made her a roasted plantain which she ate a bit of, and then she left saying: “I’m going to come back all the time!” I thought: “Please don’t. I don’t have the energy.”

Fred Sirieix

General manager, Galvin at Windows at Park Lane Hilton and maître d’hôtel on TV’s First Dates

I remember an off-the-scale wealthy and eccentric man who’d always park his Rolls outside, after arranging a certain table which had to be laid exactly to requirements. He’d order everything off the menu for himself and his wife and sometimes his male lover would join them at their table, which everyone had to stand around. He was very nice though.

Rose Ashby

Head chef, Spring, Somerset House, London

There was a homeless woman who came in, ordered three lovely courses, ate them very slowly with wines, then went to the toilet and did a runner. We have dinners for homeless charities and do our bit for the community, so we got over it fairly quickly.

The other day a lady started eating our ricotta tortellini with pesto, then welled up and wept. Her friend explained that it had been like a warm ricotta hug for her. That sort of customer means a great deal.

I have a maybe not-so-wonderful story, of a couple who dine with a puppet which the woman made, in the shape of a mole. They request a high chair and get really annoyed if one isn’t spare for the puppet. They come in for the mole’s birthday and always order an ice-cream with a candle in it. It might be a sad story. Why do they love that puppet so much?

Jeremy Lee

Chef-proprietor, Quo Vadis, Soho

We were seconds away from serving very beautiful sirloin at an important dinner – which we’d been told would be followed by speeches – and a woman got up and gave a very long speech in honour of the woman being celebrated. Then the latter spoke for 40 minutes thanking her, followed by another person who gave a very long speech about something which had been mentioned, and so on. The main course was sitting for at least an hour and a half. And yet it all went like silk – the steaks were of such quality that they benefited from it.

A famous artist was eating a plate of the special ham we’d secured from Spain, then immediately ordered another. While he awaited, a waiter cleared up another table and walked past him with two dirty plates. The artist said “Give me those”, grabbed them, consumed all the scraps, then said: “Take these back and get me more.” Other customers saw this and afterwards we did a roaring trade in bellota.

Shauna Guinn

Chef, Hang Fire Southern Kitchen, Barry

Previously I was a child protection teacher and officer. I’m quite happy to hug anyone who comes in the restaurant and needs one. A woman walked in once and as soon as she opened the door, I felt just drawn to her. I gave her a big hug, I explained the menu, she had a lovely meal and five minutes after she left we received an email saying: “Thank you for the hug which was so appreciated. I’ve been the victim of domestic violence for quite a few years and it was my birthday, but I had so much anxiety about coming out to a restaurant because I haven’t been allowed out of the house for two years. I finally plucked up the courage to leave a violent person and your welcome restored my faith in humanity.” That was both sad and uplifting.

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Oisín Rogers

Landlord, the Guinea Grill, Mayfair

I have wonderful, magnificent, eccentric, brilliant, loving customers. Some give me gifts like gallery prints and socks. And I have dickheaded customers too, but the regulars of any form are the lifeblood, adding colour, patina and flavour. As the landlord I’ll notice regulars when they enter and I’ll whisper in someone’s ear: “Look, you’re sitting in X’s chair and they’ve been coming for 15 years. You weren’t to know and of course you’re very welcome here, but if you’ll move over there, I’m going to get you a pint.”

But I think a customer who molests members of staff is beyond the pale. There was an incident in which a member of staff was touched inappropriately by a customer and her response was: “If you do that to me one more time, I’m going to chop your arm off!” He came to me to complain, but I completely and absolutely defended her. I’ve been in this business for 30 years and I recognise most people I’ve barred. I remember them even more than those I haven’t barred, frankly. It’s a mental photofit that never fails. So, don’t get barred from here.

Romy Gill

Head chef and owner, Romy’s Kitchen, Thornbury

I’d say 97% of customers are very pleasant and I cherish the memory, for instance, of the woman who ordered a chicken makhani and was delightfully proposed to over it. The really bad customers, who I always laugh about, are a couple who came in and ordered chicken and an Indian smoky roasted aubergine, the contents and style of which were on the menu and fully explained by an intelligent and sweet waitress. When the aubergine came, the husband devoured it, but she walked up exclaiming: “What is that?” She effed and blinded and said: “We don’t pay for this meal!” They’d had starters and drinks, a bottle of white and beers, and walked out without paying a thing. I was £85 short. I should – or could – have phoned the police, but how then do you feed 58 other customers, while making naans, with them on the scene? Next day, the woman, as I expected, went on social media and wrote two pages about how she’d been served “a mash”. It was laughable but pathetic.

Peter Gordon

Chef co-owner, Providores and Tapa Room, London

I once single-handedly fought off a gang of youths who’d come in and then wanted to steal customers’ wallets and handbags. I stormed out of the kitchen, shouted, “What the fuck are you doing?” and pushed them all down the stairs, where they pelted me with plants and rocks in the lobby. I was the “Kiwi poof” who dealt with those thugs while the strong butch waiters hid upstairs.

Clare Smyth

Chef-owner, Core, Notting Hill

I don’t really have bad guests, but you can tell when they step in whether they’re in a mood. They’ve already decided they’re going to be miserable and the challenge is to turn them around, to find a way past that.

Most of my memorable guests are people in their 80s and 90s. They have a lifetime of eating and fine-dining, and make a real choice when eating out. I find them very inspiring. A lady came in once and said: “I’ve got cancer. But it’s OK. I’m going to go to Austria and I’ll deal with it and then come back.” And she did, on New Year’s Eve, when she had a couple of bottles of wine and danced until 3am.