I refer to the report entitled MHRA Seeks Better Climate For Restaurateurs, (Business, July 6).

While the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA), through its Restaurants Sub-Committee, is about to embark on a campaign to revitalise patronage of restaurants, I wonder if a couple of comments on the present situation would not be of some help.

I believe that a fundamental distinction should be made between dining and eating. I can eat a hamburger at home or at any temporary food-stall at a village festa but if I am consuming the same fare at a restaurant, then, I am dining. And that is the operative and distinctive word. At a restaurant, be it the humblest or the most sophisticated, one expects a service commensurate to the standard proper of the status of the restaurant in question but never below the minimum required to make the customer relaxed, comfortable and satisfied.

When one goes to a restaurant, one cannot expect to dine as cheaply as when one eats at home. Even if the comparison with home is made, it is not because one expects not to tax one's pocket but rather to make a rough calculation to see whether what was offered and how it was served reflected a good value for money. The general client has no other yardstick by which to guide himself and, I am sure, he would know if over-charging has taken place especially if, to the home experience, he adds the comparisons with other establishments of comparable status, an exercise not difficult to do in today's Malta.

Two practices are becoming too common against dining at ease. First, tables for four are often too small to accommodate comfortably all the guests. The lunch or dinner ends up in a constant watching not to let knives and forks drop and in looking for a place where to put glasses and drinks without disturbing others, not to mention the absolute congestion created by condiment containers. These tables may be adequate for drinks or coffee but certainly not for lunches and dinners. The leisurely atmosphere is immediately ruined and makes one wish never to have entered the place.

Second, when one orders drinks of a specific brand (usually, beer and soft drinks), one is met by a polite no from the waiter/waitress, with an immediate suggestion of an alternative brand as a substitute. I find this to be lack of respect towards the customer who has the right to buy his favourite drinks as much as the restaurateur has a right to a decent profit.

A restaurant must stock as many varieties as reasonably possible so as to be able to satisfy a wide and vairied clientele. Otherwise, the owner risks downgrading his establishment to the level of impersonal chain eating places where this practice is the order of the day.