No Phones in the Dining Room?
Where they idea came from, what guests think and why it will never change.
When was the last time you sat in a full dining room where nobody reached for their phone? Not between courses, not to prop against a water glass for the light, not half-present in conversation because something on the screen pulled them back.
We introduced the no-phones rule at Bistecca when we opened in 2018. When The Gidley followed in 2019, it wasn’t a policy we carried across by default. It was a decision we made again, deliberately. We’d seen what a dining room looks like without phones in it, and we weren’t willing to build a second venue any other way.
Where it came from
The no phones in the dining room rule began with our founders, Jimmy Bradey and Wazza Burns, at a small Italian restaurant in Montepulciano. Wazza tells it best.
“We were at a little Italian restaurant in Montepulciano. Family style, each chef tucked into their own corner of the kitchen, a carafe of red within reach.. Jimmy and I were on our phones being classic tourists, looking at maps and reviews of places to go, when the owner clocked us from across the room. She walked over, looked at us both, and made it very clear. ‘Staccate i telefoni’ — put your phones away. We were taken aback at first, but deep down we both knew she was right.
“From that moment we made a decision: no phones during meals for the rest of the trip. And something changed. The venues we visited afterwards felt richer, the conversations went further, the food tasted better for the simple reason that we were actually present in the moment. The experience of eating, of being somewhere, of being with someone, opened up in a way it hadn’t before. We came home with that feeling intact, and we weren’t willing to let go of it.”
Asking guests to hand over their phones before they sit down is not a small thing, and we knew that. It was a statement about what kind of restaurants we were building, and what kind we were not.
What people say
Not everyone is on board before they sit down. The policy gets pushback, and some of it is pointed. A handful of guests have found it presumptuous. A few have left reviews saying as much.
But most describe something loosening over the course of the evening. The absence of the phone, which felt like a deprivation at the door, stops registering somewhere around the first course. By the time mains arrive, people are talking properly. Looking at each other. Noticing the room. The dinner becomes the thing they’re doing, rather than the backdrop to everything else.
Some have written to say it was the first dinner in years where they weren’t half somewhere else. Others that they’d come back specifically because of the rule. A few that they’ve started leaving their phones face-down at dinner tables elsewhere, without quite knowing when that started.
We take that as a good sign.
There are critics
But mostly positives
What we see from the floor
Julian, who runs the floor at The Gidley, puts it plainly. “It’s not intended to come across as controlling. We invite guests to put their phones in the pouch and play the game. Most walk out grateful they did. If they’re waiting for an important call, or if they have a baby at home with a sitter, they’re more than welcome to keep it on them. It’s what we do at The Gidley, and it’s part of our charm.”
The rule has its own texture on the floor. Keira recalls a gentleman booking The Norfolk Room who asked in advance whether phones were permitted in the private dining room. She told him yes. His reply: “No, please play along and don’t tell my guests. I want them to keep their phones out of sight and focus on the food.”
Kendal sees something else in it entirely. “It reminds me of a family meal. I’m not Italian, but every time I’ve eaten at Bistecca, I’ve felt like I’ve had a comfort meal at a nonna’s house.” When the table isn’t lit by screens, the room takes on a different texture. People look at each other. They linger.
Sally, who has watched more dining rooms than most, is direct about it. “I bloody love it. It’s really refreshing to see the whole venue engaging with each other, not distracted by photos or that work email that absolutely could have waited. That said, there are exceptions. We recently had a couple in on their first night away from their newborn. We compromised, mum kept her phone, and I got to see a couple of pics of the sweet baby angel.”
They got it from us
In 2019, Jimmy was dining at Eleven Madison Park, a New York institution and the world’s best restaurant of 2017. At the start of the meal, staff presented a box and invited him to place his phone inside. He asked where the idea had come from. The answer came back without hesitation:
“a steakhouse in Sydney, Australia”.
Why it’s not going anywhere
We keep the rule for a simple reason. It works.
Guests have a better experience. Conversations run longer. Courses get noticed. Tables stay later than they planned to.
The room sounds different too. Walk into Bistecca or The Gidley on a full night and you hear something most dining rooms have lost: a wall of actual conversation. Laughter, argument, the scrape of chairs as people lean in. The room is electric, and not a single screen is contributing to it.
And people talk about it. It comes up in reviews, in bookings, in the question we hear at the host stand most nights: is it true you take the phones? Eight years in, it remains one of the most discussed things we do.
Some guests bristle at the door. Some spend the first ten minutes adjusting. We’ve seen that. We’ve also seen what happens by the time the steak arrives. And the thing we hear most as people leave is some version of the same sentiment.
“That was unlike anywhere else I’ve been.”
That’s the experience we’re in the business of creating. The rule stays.