In summation:
Be respectful.
Don't make assumptions.
An interesting read, nevertheless.
Be respectful.
Don't make assumptions.
An interesting read, nevertheless.
I found that interesting. Much of what was recommended was telling the young man to be very careful not to accidentally make anybody feel embarrassed or shamed.
Respect is a separate matter (as anyone who has experienced someone who doesn't like them in the south can attest)
Somebody with good manners always make you feel special and takes care of your needs ahead of theirs. Somehow or another, a ton of people grew up thinking manners and etiquette were about where the forks go at a formal dinner.
I'm stealing that one.
(But interestingly, I also discovered they're quite useful. The meal featured a bit of a messy seafood course which required eating with your hands, and they allowed a bit of a wash up at the table.)
I was very pleased, the first time I ate at a similar restaurant, to be given all kinds of tools with which to attack the large pile of seafood.
(This was in Copenhagen, but two anecdotes isn't enough to generalize.)
Once I learned (some of) the actual rules around dinner settings, that sort of etiquette made far more sense to me. Using dinner forks isn't hard, even in high class settings: you start from the furthest-out fork and move in. But setting them requires knowing what you're doing so that your guests don't need to know - the goal of politeness being that you ensure no one else is ill at ease.