Lovely loos

I have always maintained that the state of a restaurant's loos are a good indication of how the place is run.

Let me give you an example. My other half has a favorite restaurant. The atmosphere is great, the service is fantastic, the speciality drinks and wonderful and the food is ... OK. But I really don't like going there.

The reason is, quite simply, the state of the ladies loo.

It's never quite clean, there are usually used paper towels scattered about the floor, the trash can is overflowing and for some reason, the floor is always wet. (This means that prior to 'taking a seat', one has to roll up the legs of one's jeans - not an ideal situation.)

So what do I always think? "If areas the public can see are this bad, what on earth are the areas we can see like? Such as the kitchen..."

Contrast this with a late-lamented Las Olas restaurant I used to go to often, where the loos were spotless and always had a bowl of fresh flowers by the sink.

My favorite ever food-service establishment toilet was in Monaco. (I say "was" because the place was demolished in the name of progress many years ago. This was Rosie's Bar. Rosie's was a well-known establishment in those days. The principality of Monaco, as I'm sure you know, is famous for many things but notably for it's winter rally and it's Formula One Grand Prix. Rosie's was where all the drivers used to hang out.

It was a great place; the walls were full of memorabilia of races, rallies and drivers.

But back to the loo. In those days in Europe, people didn't worry bout separate facilities for the sexes. A loo was a loo. And to get to the loo at Rosies, you would proceed through a door to the backyard and wait your turn for the extremely small outhouse situated in one corner. And when you finally got in, forget about posh porcelain. The glazed hole in the middle of the floor had two ceramic footprints at either side. If you've never come across this before, the idea is that you put a foot on each of the ceramic footprints, squat and the, you know, goes into the hole.

But you know what? It was beautifully CLEAN. And as my dad indelicately but sensibly pointed out to me, it was a lot more hygienic that the type we are more used to, simply because no naked part of your body actually came into contact with anything that could be harboring germs.

So depite the somewhat primitive loo, I could confidently enjoy my baguette avec fromage et salade without wondering about the hygiene ofthe kitchen.

I read that the award for the Best American Restroom recently went to the Shoji Tabuchi Theatre in Branson, Mo. It has marble fireplaces, a hand-carved mahogany pool table, lion head sinks, leather chairs, stained glass and chandeliers.

That's not quite necessary but cleanliness is.

Now the WORST loo I ever went to was in a camp site in Marrakesh but I'll leave that story for another day...