1. Not getting your drinks straight away. Where’s that beer, glass of sparkling or G&T you wanted to drink while looking at the dinner menu or, more importantly, that first coffee that’s essential so you can clear your head and consider whether you want the smashed avocado or the chia and acai bowl for breakfast.

2. Ongoing confusion/sneakiness over water – the loaded question of “Still or sparkling?”. Are you charging for still? Does still mean tap water? Are you offering me tap water?

3. Herald Sun and delicious. On Sunday Melbourne reviewer Megan Miller also denounces sneaky charges for water – like when you order a 1L bottle and your water glass is constantly refilled but you’re not told when a new $12 bottle is opened.

4. Given all the concerns with the ecological impacts of what we consume maybe restaurateurs should, more importantly, be asking whether it’s all that responsible to be selling imported bottled water anyway.

5. Waiters who don’t pour wine by the glass at the table, and just bring you the glass of wine is a big one for many on the panel. As The Advertiser’s Simon Wilkinson points out, how do we know it’s actually what we asked for?

6. “A dated charade”, that’s how one of our panel slams the rather fruitless act of offering a taste of a bottle of wine they just opened for approval… when it’s been sealed with a screw top or sealed under Stelvin. Assuming the seal hasn’t been compromised, it should be fine. On the other hand, do offer a little taste of a wine you’re pouring by the glass. As Herald Sun and delicious. On Sunday reviewer, Dan Stock points out, good waiters and good places do this. In return, we promise not to abuse the privilege.

7. Please can we rein in those fancy sommeliers who want to give you the life history of the wine before they pour it. It’s like them standing by the table with the steak you ordered in their hands and proceeding to tell you that the cow’s name was Kevin, he ate grass in the summer and hay during the winter, and that he preferred to sleep on the far side of the slope on rainy days. Just tell us, quickly, why you picked it to go with what we are eating and be done with it!

8. Never, ever tell us about the wine after the food has hit the table. We want to eat our food while it’s hot and enjoy each other’s company, that’s the whole point of eating out, after all.

9. We are bamboozled by the trend for that very modern tautology, “non-alcoholic spirits”. It has more than a few of us scratching our heads, voicing suspicions that this a sneaky way of charging $20 for a cordial, or just wondering if we are just not millennial enough to understand it.

10. Enough with those giant round ice cubes in cocktails that bounce against your nose when you are drinking that negroni. It makes at least one of my good mates feel too much like a performing seal.

The panel
Kerrie McCallum (the boss), Anthony Huckstep (national and NSW reviewer), Dan Stock and Megan Miller (Victorian review team), Anooska Tucker-Evans (Queensland reviewer), Simon Wilkinson (our South Australian food guru), Kate Gibbs (the other boss), John Lethlean (guest food expert, old mate and national reviewer) and myself.