You’ve been sitting in a restaurant chair all wrong! Etiquette expert William Hanson reveals how to sit correctly and avoid ‘dinosaur hands’

‘Please don’t be a sloucher.’

That’s a request from etiquette expert William Hanson in a TikTok video in which he explains how to sit correctly in a restaurant.

You’ve been doing it all wrong, so listen carefully.

‘We don’t sit with our back touching the back of the chair when we eat,’ he declares.

‘It forces us to have “dinosaur hands” [when using a knife and fork] and that’s not very elegant.’

‘[Sit] with your bottom pressed back into the seat as far as you possibly can,’ says William. ‘Your back doesn’t actually touch the back of the chair’

The solution?

‘Instead,’ says William, ‘[sit] with your bottom pressed back into the seat as far as you possibly can.

‘Your back doesn’t actually touch the back of the chair.

‘And we keep low wrists when we cut. Much more elegant.’

Would the correct posture for dining apply to every type of restaurant? Or could exceptions be made for somewhere more casual?

William told MailOnline Travel: ‘The context of the occasion always overrides any hard guideline, but generally it’s quite hard to eat when sitting way back in the chair and slouching.

‘It’s also not ideal for digestion. Medical bods will [confirm] that the digestive tract needs to be in as straight a line as possible, rather than hunched, in order for us to process what we have just masticated properly and not put on as much weight.’

William here demonstrates that slouching leads to ‘dinosaur hands’

Is ‘dinosaur hands’ a known issue in etiquette circles?

‘It’s certainly something my fellow industry professionals and I worry about at night,’ says William.

On the whole, are restaurant chairs designed to support the posture he advocates?

William told MailOnline: ‘A dining chair is engineered differently from a chair you may use to relax in at home or in a bar, which is why we should be able to sit up straighter more easily.’

Are there any other advantages to ‘low wrists’?

William said: ‘Yes, keeping your wrists as close to the plate as possible – except for the hand holding the fork, which conveys the food into the mouth – is generally better for easy access to the cutlery.’

Is it ok to lean right back on the chair once the meal has finished?

William added: ‘It is more permissible, especially if everyone else is doing it. But again, context matters. Are you at a very formal meal in smart clothes? Then probably don’t. But are you at your friend’s house in Elstree, having just enjoyed a microwaved meal? In which case, lean back as you please.’

For more from Mr Hanson visit his TikTok and Instagram profiles. His new book, Just Good Manners (Penguin Random House), is out on September 12, 2024. It is billed as ‘a witty and authoritative guide to British etiquette’, with William sharing ‘his definitive guidance on how to charm and delight those around you in every situation with idiosyncratic authority’.