Pepper mills at restaurants

I have a habit and I’m not proud of it. I sit down at a restaurant, the menu arrives, and before I’ve read a single line I’ve picked up the pepper mill to see what’s inside.

In my head, restaurant pepper mills fall into two camps. The first is a small plastic thing, usually with a chrome coloured top that is also plastic, and it’s been on that table since the place opened. You turn it and it makes a noise. What comes out is grey dust. It was pepper once, months ago, before it sat in a warm room next to a candle for an entire season. It tastes so flat that I start wondering whether the “grinder” has anything left to grind. Turn it over and there’s a little barcode sticker on the bottom. It cost less than the bread.

The second kind is heavy. You pick it up and it means something. There’s a real mechanism inside, the peppercorns are whole and you can see them, and when you turn it you get an actual crunch and the smell hits you before the pepper lands on the plate. It’s the difference between fresh coffee and instant, and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.

Here’s why I care about this more than seems reasonable. A restaurant that puts a real mill on the table has thought about the one seasoning you’re going to add yourself. That’s a small decision nobody would notice, which is exactly why it’s a good signal. If the kitchen bothered with that, it probably also bothered with the stock, the salt, the oil, the things I can’t see. If they didn’t, well, I’m now reading the menu with slightly narrowed eyes.

It’s not a perfect test. I’ve had good meals with a plastic mill on the table and one or two bad ones next to a beautiful mill. I still find myself checking it before I order.

At home I use a cast iron mill from Iron Mills and I love it more than a person should love a kitchen tool. It’s heavy enough to be a doorstop and it grinds properly. Guests pick it up and go “oh”, and that’s the whole review. I refill it often, and it has made pre-ground pepper hard to go back to.

So, to any restaurant owners reading this: the plastic one with the dust in it, please throw it away. I would happily wait for a shared mill that actually grinds.