Tomato Pet Peeve

I can't understand why restaurants insist on refrigerating tomatoes. The first time I went to Naples I had a caprese salad which brought tears to my eyes. The room temperature tomatoes were bursting with flavor, the olive oil was delicious and the buffalo mozzarella? Unbelievable.

I ordered a caprese when I got back home and the cold tomatoes were tasteless and ruined the dish. Now I only eat a caprese at home. Living in Los Angeles I'm lucky because we get great tomatoes all year long at the farmers markets. I once brought one of those tomatoes to a friend's Italian restaurant and asked if the chef could make me a caprese using my own tomato. He did and it was great.