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" In a recent article in The Guardian entitled &amp;quot;New York restaurants are like a rush-hour tube ride \u2014 but London restaurants can be almost creepily civilised,&amp;quot; London-based expatriate writer Lauren Collins makes some snarky claims about New York City&amp;#039;s dining scene as well as a couple of trenchant remarks that ring true. As someone who always enjoys dining out in London as much as in New York, let me make some observations: The forensics are simple: New Yorkers under 30, under 60 for that matter, do not patronise places with white tablecloths and real wineglasses and names whose pronunciation requires a sixth-form-level knowledge of the French language. I&amp;#039;ve no clue as to the quality of French language programs in the UK, but I do know Collins would have difficulty getting a table on short notice at high-end, white-tablecloth French restaurants with &amp;quot;real wineglasses&amp;quot; (?) at Le Bernardin, La Grenouille, Jean-Georges, and Le Cirque in New York, all packed with people in every age bracket most nights of the week.  Butcher paper and thimbles of Malbec and homey-proprietor appellations, like Schiller&amp;#039;s and Freeman&amp;#039;s, are considered much cooler, in the way of ripped jeans or scuffed sneakers. I don&amp;#039;t know many New York restaurants using butcher paper and serving thimbles of Malbec, and there is no proprietor named Schiller at Schiller&amp;#039;s and no Freeman at Freeman&amp;#039;s. But there are excellent restaurants with names like Wolfgang&amp;#039;s, Wallse, Balthazar, and Babbo. And while $300 ripped jeans may occasionally put in an appearance at such places, the footwear is far more likely to be Ferragamo loafers and Stewart Weitzman pumps. In some ways: a dinner out in New York ... often offers all the relaxation of a rush-hour tube ride to the dentist&amp;#039;s office. Well, she&amp;#039;s right about this in many cases. Mid-level restaurants in New York do tend to be deliberately loud, and New Yorkers tend to be loudmouthed. Londoners do not scream to be heard or noticed in restaurants. There are what my friend, a Londoner who has recently moved to Manhattan, referred to recently as &amp;#039;annoying New York hostess-types&amp;#039; ... who manage to make you feel that you&amp;#039;ve forgotten to floss, even if you scheduled your appointment weeks in advance and arrive 15 minutes ahead of time. Now there&amp;#039;s an extended metaphor for you. Snooty hostesses do exist in New York, as they do in snob London restaurants like Le Caprice, the Ivy, and La Gavroche, but the template for modern hospitality is very much a New York City creation, pioneered twenty years ago at Danny Meyers&amp;#039;s Union Square Caf\u00E9 and copied since in most every restaurant in America and London. Cordial greetings, attention to special requests, recognition of a past patron \u2014 these are all New York restaurant traits. In London these days, most of the waiters tend to be from former Yugoslavian republics whose Een-glish iss nut duh Kink&amp;#039;s. But give New Yorkers their screechingly loud rooms upholstered in subway tiles, and two-hour waits, and waiters who squat next to tables declaring that their name is Rob. I can&amp;#039;t think of a single restaurant in New York where there would be a two-hour wait, and only an out-of-town schmuck would wait so long for a table. New Yorkers, remember, choose to live on a island with 8.4 million citizens and, basically, one park. Please visit Mapquest to find any of New York City&amp;#039;s 1,700 parks, some even larger than Central Park. And London has, what again? Hyde Park, Green Park, and ... hands? London restaurants can seem creepily civilised. Nobody&amp;#039;s pushing you at the bar before you get a table; nobody&amp;#039;s pushing you out once you do. She&amp;#039;s right about this one, but why she finds such behavior &amp;quot;creepily civilised&amp;quot; is beyond me. Sounds wonderfully civilized to me. In London, a restaurant is a place to eat. One seeks the best meal. In New York, a restaurant is a theatre ... It&amp;#039;s the lack of buzz and gimmickry that makes London restaurants both a delight and a drag for the exiled Yank. This comment borders on idiocy, for Londoners are every bit as maniacal about the newest hot spot in their city and they arrive in droves to be among the first to get a table at a new Gordon Ramsay or Jamie Oliver eatery. As evidenced by their sleazy tabloids, Londoners are far more obsessed with celebrity sightings and buzz than New Yorkers, who see more celebs in one night in one restaurant than in any ten Mayfair or Knightsbridge restaurants in a week. We will not dwell long on the subject of London pubs, gastro or otherwise, which are delightful, and clearly superior to any attempt at recreating them on American shores. She&amp;#039;s kidding, right? The average London pub serves dreary grub and it&amp;#039;s all the same dreary grub they&amp;#039;ve been serving for the last three centuries \u2014 the ploughman&amp;#039;s lunch, shepherd&amp;#039;s pie, steak-and-kidney pie, fish and chips. London does have some first-rate gastro-pubs, like Smith, the Prince of Shoreditch, and Anchor &amp;amp;amp; Hope, but nothing like the numbers in New York, including the pioneering Spotted Pig, the Breslin, and a slew of new ones in Brooklyn serving some of the most exciting casual fare in the city. Other than that, great piece. PLUS: More John Mariani on Esquire&amp;#039;s Eat Like a Man Blog &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/restaurants/a9544/nyc-london-dining-030411/>