Comfort, a civilized ambience, attentive service, generosity of spirit. It seems such virtues once associated with good restaurants have been replaced by cramped, naked tables, ear-shattering noise, a “who-gets-what?” attitude and portions of food the size of a shoe polish tin.

Indeed those virtues that once distinguished the joys of dining out are now dismissed as outmoded, Old School, too fancy and too much food on the plate. Yogi Berra’s observation about a restaurant so popular that “No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded” has a double-edged wit about it: On the one hand the buzziest new restaurants are packed for a while then fizzle, while many long-established restaurants keep thriving year after year.