This was one of the biggest level-ups in my own personal cooking, realizing that salting (and to a much lesser extent peppering) to taste makes or breaks the dish. Most home cooks I know will skip that step out of ignorance or health concerns, not realizing that it will make the dish taste awful.
Why do you enjoy simple restaurant dishes (including salads) much more than your home-cooked equivalents? Salt.
I bought some truffle salt a couple years ago and now half the time I'm using flavored salts of one variety or another.
When I dry rosemary I put all the broken bits and stems in a jar with some salt and leave it for a while, then I separate them before use. I'm curious what would happen if I just put a bunch of fresh sprigs in a jar to dry them, but I would have to start gifting it to people because damn that's a lot of salt.
Why do you enjoy simple restaurant dishes (including salads) much more than your home-cooked equivalents? Salt.