Paris, April 26, 2000
Sir
Let me write you after a lunch made at your restaurant last April 4 (please find attached the addition of which he s 'acts). I confess
qu'alléché by what you hold in attractive magazine Palace, which you are the editor in the spring of 2000, I yielded to the desire to taste your cooking. As
read everywhere, and assumed by me, everything - or almost - in the lunch menu was perfect (except for a layer cake and uninspired ... everything sec), I will not repeat for fear of redundancy, praises the obvious that your talent deserves.
Just as I would not find fault with the service attentive and precise (without being cold or frozen, as in many large tables), nor the place (it is so rare to find in a modern setting this sober elegance, a word that taste) who accompanied us to dinner.
But what about a menu announced in a quarterly magazine to 390 francs, and charged 490 francs a month after the publication of that magazine? What about the fact that its new menu and prices do not appear on the map outside the restaurant? How to deny that the reproduction of the map of L'Arpege, coupled with the paean about you in the Palace, can - and seeks to - attract additional customers, and that the customer is deliberately misled? You probably will object
the menu has been modified. I would tell you that I have not found that new content has a new cost (unless a sudden and rampant inflation in the price of egg or onion, which would have escaped?). And this seems to me, after verification, valid for all products on your menu. I also say that it is very unpleasant to feel trapped and as you all know that when we booked a meal well in advance, we dreamed about and it does everything for that perfect moment becomes a real time, so we do not fall from the table to go after seeing the map. And we ask it even less when the question is, as I was accompanied by a lady.
Unfortunately, we were not yet out of our disappointments. The final blow came with the reading of your wine.
I remembered thinking of one of my friends sommeliers who had quarreled with a large head, partly because it is applied to the price of bottles of multipliers exaggerated. There was talk then, on bottles inexpensive coefficient 6-7, very rarely 8 (but on the duty, of course). I blessed God that this friend has not seen your book cellar. Some examples? Two small price (sic), so among the bottles that you sell 500 Francs, the least expensive: The Ebrescade, Marcel Richaud Cairanne from home, I buy my wine store to stupidly at ... 58 Franks, Clos de la truffle, Domaine du Deffends, the hills of Var Red Lanversin JS, I am sending to ... 45 francs a bottle. We then have a multiplier of 8.6 and another of over 11 on the retail price! For my part, I was recommended a Côtes de Bergerac, the Castle Tourmentine, I did not know, and which, for decency, I dare not reveal the margin that you release (also selling this bottle 500 Francs !). You probably just count on the ignorance of your customers' wines to dare such miracles.
finally understand that this is not just a question of money. The pleasure is priceless, they say. I do not wander longer to look at you. I will try to forget what seems like a sad abuse, moreover cynical.
I left for pleasure more than you knew me squeeze by deception. And I would have won more than your tarnished image and the memory of your dark eternal calculations.
One thing is sure, Mr. Passard, you're probably a great cook, but you're not an honest man.
0 comments:
Post a Comment