FINE DINING
ETIQUETTE TRAINING

Fine Dining Etiquette

Formal Dinner Table Setting

The Etiquette....

Silverware/Dinnerware
• Use the silverware farthest from your plate first.

• Eat to your left, drink to your right. Any food dish to the left is yours, and any glass to the right is yours.
• Once used, your utensils (including the handles), must not touch the table again. Always rest forks, knives, and spoons on the side of your plate in the 4:20 position.
• For more formal dinners, from course to course, your tableware will be taken away and replaced as needed. To signal that your are done with the course, rest your fork, tines up, and knife blade in, with the handles resting at five o'clock an tips pointing to ten o'clock on your plate (4:20).
• Any unused silverware is simply left on the table.

Serving Food
• Food is served from the left. Dishes are removed from the right.
• Always say please when asking for something. At a restaurant, be sure to say thank you to your server and bus boy after they have removed any used items.
• Butter, spreads, or dips should be transferred from the serving dish to your plate before spreading or eating.

Passing Dishes or Food
• Pass food from the left to the right. Do not stretch across the table, crossing other guests, to reach food or condiments.
• If another diner asks for the salt or pepper, pass both together, even if a table mate asks for only one of them. This is so dinner guests won't have to search for orphaned shakers.
• Set any passed item, whether it's the salt and pepper shakers, a bread basket, or a butter plate, directly on the table instead of passing hand-to-hand.
• Never intercept a pass. Snagging a roll out of the breadbasket or taking a shake of salt when it is en route to someone else is a nono.
• Always use serving utensils to serve yourself, not your personal silverware. Eating (1)
• Do NOT talk with food in your mouth! This is very rude and distasteful to watch! Wait until you have swallowed the food in your mouth.
• Always taste your food before seasoning it. Usually the hostess has gone to a lot of work making sure the food served is delicious to her standards. It is very rude to add salt and pepper before tasting the food.
• Don't blow on your food to cool it off. If it is too hot to eat, take the hint and wait until it cools.
• Always scoop food, using the proper utensil, away from you.

• Cut only enough food for the next mouthful (cut no more than two bites of food at a time). Eat in small bites and slowly.

Eating (2)
• Do eat a little of everything on your plate. If you do not like the food and feel unable to give a compliment, just keep silent. It is acceptable to leave some food on your plate if you are full and have eaten enough. If the food served is not to your liking, it is polite to at least attempt to eat a small amount of it. It is never acceptable to ask a person why they have not eaten all the food.
Don't make an issue if you don't like something or can't eat it keep silence.
• Do not "play with" your food or utensils. Never wave or point silverware. Do not hold food on the fork or spoon while talking, nor wave your silverware in the air or point with it.
• Try to pace your eating so that you don’t finish before others are halfway through. If you are a slow eater, try to speed up a bit on this occasion so you don’t hold everyone up. Never continue to eat long after others have stopped.

Other Manners
• Unfold your napkin and place it on your lap within 1 minute of sitting at the table to dine. When you are finished with your dinner, place it loosely on the table, not on the plate and never on your chair.

• Keep elbows off the table. Keep your left hand in your lap unless you are using it.
• Guests should do their best to mingle and make light conversation with everyone. Do not talk excessively loud. Give others equal opportunities for conversation. Talk about cheerful, pleasant things at the table.
• Don't clean up spills with your own napkin and don't touch items that have dropped on the floor. You can use your napkin to protect yourself from spills. Then, simply and politely ask your server to clean up and to bring you a replacement for the soiled napkin or dirty utensil.

Other Manners
• Do not blow your nose at the dinner table. Excuse yourself to visit the restroom. Wash your hands before returning to the dining room. If you cough, cover your mouth with your napkin to stop the spread of germs and muffle the noise. If your cough becomes unmanageable, excuse yourself to visit the restroom.
Wash your hands before returning to the dining room.
• Do not use a toothpick or apply makeup at the table.
• Say "Excuse me," or "I'll be right back," before leaving the table.
Do not say that you are going to the restroom.
• Whenever a woman leaves the table or returns to sit, all men seated with her should stand up.
• Do not push your dishes away from you or stack them for the waiter when you are finished. Leave plates and glasses where they are

Wine Etiquette
Holding a wine glass:
There is a right way and a wrong way to hold a wine glass, and it does make a difference. Never hold the glass by its bowl, only by its stem since the heat of your hand will quickly warm the liquid
Sight:
Look at the wine - in daylight if possible. The best way is to slightly tilt the wine in the glass and hold it up to the light or look at it against a white or pale background. What do you see? Is the wine clear or cloudy? The color will vary according to what type of wine you are tasting.
Swirl:
While firmly holding the stem of the wine glass, gently swirl the glass in tiny circles on a flat surface for 10 to 20 seconds allowing oxygen to penetrate the wine. The purpose of swirling wine in a glass is to aerate the wine and release vapors, evaporating from the sides of the glass, for you to smell. As the wine coats the sides of the glass, it releases its bouquet.

Wine Etiquette
Smell or Sniff:
Tip the glass up and stick your nose in it and inhale. Some tasters claim that you can get more aroma by holding your nose an inch or so above the glass after swirling. At the top of the glass, the smells are more floral and fruity; deeper in the glass, they are richer. Try to detect the full range of scents from berry to floral to spicy to woody ... and so on. Consider intensity and appeal.
Sip and Taste:
Sip the wine, letting the wine spread across the tongue from front to back and side to side before swallowing. Carefully slurp some air through puckered lips, this slurping of air (aerating) will help to release flavor and aromas. These are few tip of how the wine will taste in your tongue :

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The tip of the tongue detects sweetness
The inner sides of the tongue detect sourness and/or acidity
The outer sides of the tongue detect saltiness