To many city sophisticates, the kind who are forever dropping the name of the bistro they lunched at yesterday or the smart establishment they visited in London or Rome last month, nothing could be more civilized than dining out. A recent book by the Melbourne sociologist Joanne Finkelstein — Dining Out (Polity Press, Oxford, 1989) — puts the opposite point of view, and very persuasively. According to Joanne Finkelstein, dining out actually decivilizes, whether it’s at your local Red Rooster or at Maxim’s in Paris. I first met Dr Finkelstein at a Carlton coffee-house, and asked her for some explanations.