My experience has been about 50/50. Although there are probably more restaurants than homes that don’t have the s&p on the table.
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Yup. Hate that. Happened just yesterday at Pzeeria Vetri 
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My sister used to not use any salt, until she called me one year and asked why her (whatever she was cooking) didn’t taste like when I had made it. We went over the recipe I had given her, and when we got to the salt, she said “Oh, I left that out.” I explained that the minute quantity of salt to the entire recipe that serves 5-6 wasn’t going to kill anyone. She’s finally started to use it, although still in less quantities than I do. But she knows if she’s baking to measure everything as noted in the recipe, including salt.
And yes, I have s/p on the table, the salt usually in individual salt cellars, as I don’t have a salt shaker. I’d probably forgo asking for it at someone else’s house…except my sister’s, of course. 
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I haven’t been to Spain in ages, but noted!
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Yes, my sister is very good at baking and uses the required salt in the recipes . . . as you note, the amount of salt is miniscule. BIL is actually a very good cook, especially soups, and somehow manages to season perfectly without the salt.
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Sure it’s OK. Any host worthy of the name should want her guests to be happy with the level of seasoning. It’s basic hospitality.
I also think it’s ass-backward that anyone would get bent over such a request. Sort of on a par with interpreting a “Good Morning” to mean wishing a “Lousy Afternoon”
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That should say “pizzeria,” but I’m shore y’all figgered it oot in the meantime 
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At a restaurant I dont hesitate to ask.
And apologies … apparently the vindictive autocorrect gnome that lives in my phone and is hellbent on making the world believe that I am drunk and illiterate has gotten loose and found his way to your phone.
Feel free to send him home when you manage to capture him. 
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Yah, I could’ve asked, but why not just put it there in the first place? And ideally none of that dusty-ass, disgusting pre-ground shit that goes for “pepper” in some places.
They did ask whether we wanted parm and/or RPF 
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Totally agree with you!
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You are more flexible and charitable than I am (or I was) and I appreciate that.
Many years ago when I was new to the US as a student, I had made my homesickness meal (sambar, rice, sabzi, etc.) and a few fellow students (not Indian) also stopped by. One of them poured freakin’ soy sauce all over his plate of sambar-rice! Even before tasting it! It had never occurred to me that anyone might do such a thing! He apparently thought that you did this with all Asian food. This sounds like an episode from an Amy Tan story but this really happened to me.
I was extremely indignant then, but hope I have mellowed just a little. Especially since there have been many such cross-cultural food misprisions over the years, including students from Asian countries putting mustard and ketchup on pizza because (1) this was thought to be the correct way with American food, and (2) the pizza would have tasted bland without. This was literally the soy sauce story in reverse.
I personally would not be offended if someone asked for salt and pepper, because there is a Tamil phrase when people start eating where the cook literally asks “is the salt and spice OK?” I would offer black and red pepper.
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As a guest, I can’t imagine my asking for salt or pepper. As a host, we always offer a cellar of sea salt at our table… It is used, but I never pay attention of by whom or on what. Personal choice.
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Same here . I say if you would like some it’s on the counter. Of course you have to dip your fingers into the salt .
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I’ve heard of fancy restaurants where the chef won’t allow salt shakers on the tables. In my home I want you to relax and enjoy your meal, add ketchup, mustard, soy sauce, whatever. Once a young Indian fellow was having his first thanksgiving dinner at my home. He just could not understand how we could enjoy mashed potatoes … he thought they were so bland.
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I’d reckon that only about 50% of places that we regularly visit, here in the UK, have s & p on the table. All of them are at the very casual end of the restaurant market.
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“I’ve heard of fancy restaurants where the chef won’t allow salt shakers on the tables.”
My first thought when I saw this thread yesterday was Lenny Henry’s infamous salt scene in the britcom Chef!. I made a comment about not at Gareth Blackstock’s house and posted a link to the video. All that showed up was a FB sign in since it was by a FB user. I don’t do FB. If you haven’t seen it you can Google search Lenny Henry salt episode. and watch it there. It truly is a classic.
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“Chef” was brilliant as a take on a certain style of restaurant here at the time. It was modelled loosely on the Michelin 2* Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons in Oxfordshire (where we’ve eaten three times) although Henry’s character wasnt based on its chef Raymond Blanc. It was, however, very much a comedy take on the preciousness of an attitude amongst certain high end chefs at the time.
Nico Landenis, a 3* chef in 1990s, was “famous” for throwing people out of his restaurant for asking for salt. Then there was Marco Pierre White (2* at the time, I think) who once threw out 54 people in a single evening. And, not to miss out on being thought of, by most folk, as a complete wanker, Gordon Ramsay threw Joan Collins out one evening. Still it got them the publicity they craved and folk would go in the hope of seeing a scene
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Just off the top of my head, I don’t think any fast food (i.e. McDonald’s) or fast-casual (i.e. Chipotle) have salt and pepper on their tables.
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They always have those annoying individual packets that you have to crack open though.
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Yes, but the point is you have to ask for them.
In many ways, a fast food restaurant (like McD) operates on the same mentality as a Michelin-starred one (like The French Laundry) with respect to salt and pepper.
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