My sense is times have changed. People demand something whose main attraction is not just the price. My parents ran a Chinese restaurant for years, and there was barely any investment in the design of the place. Same old kitsch for decades. On top of that, Chinese, just like Indian, has a reputation for not being healthy, and health seems to have ticked up as a factor in people&#x27;s choices.<p>When I was living in London a few years ago you could see things happening in the eating out business. Chains have shaken off the McDonald&#x27;s feel. Heck, even McDonald&#x27;s has shaken off the McDonald&#x27;s feel. You can&#x27;t have a cheaply designed restaurant anymore. Some goes for pubs, you want a nice fireplace and a menu that has fancy words for &quot;fish&quot; in it. The food may not be very different, but you can tell which restaurants people go to, and which ones are empty. The thing is, family places like my parents&#x27;, they don&#x27;t have the appetite to try a big redesign. Old school thinking generally means they tend to believe that taste is what matters.<p>Case in point. There&#x27;s a great place next to Euston station that sells Nihari, a Pakistani shoulder-of-lamb that&#x27;s slow cooked. I took my banker buddy there, and the look on his face was incredible. The walls were bare, the floors laminate, less pretty than a uni canteen. He wasn&#x27;t impressed. I guess modern people go out to a restaurant not just to eat, but as a sort of status thing. Now not everyone is out at the Ivy all the time, but also you don&#x27;t want to be eating where the non-professional class eats.<p>New blood is what&#x27;s needed. Those young guys in the article, I think they have a good idea of modern design is.