“YOUR MEAL IS OVER”
For chefs and restaurateurs, getting customers into the seats is one thing; attracting people who actually appreciate what you do is another. That point was made by a story about the great New York chef David Bouley that circulated after he died in February.
As the tale went, Bouley – whose eponymous restaurants were central to Manhattan’s epicurean renaissance in the 1980s and 1990s – had just received a fresh supply of Copper River salmon of exquisite quality. He put it on the menu that evening and sent it out as a first course – tenderly baked and accompanied by creamy watercress rice and a puree of peas.
But to his surprise (and his staff, as well, who had been oohing and aahing over the fish), the couple they served with the dish sent it back, complaining it was fishy and could they have the shrimp instead.
The chef was furious. He tore up the order ticket for the couple’s table and commanded the flustered maitre d’ to tell them “their meal is over”. The kitchen erupted in applause. And the mystified (though apparently “surly”) couple scampered out, never to darken the portals of a Bouley restaurant ever again. Or so I assume.
I remember arriving at a favourite restaurant of mine too late to get the last order of a terrific pork chop. It went to the customer seated next to me at the bar. He was very carefully cutting away all the fat and only ate the lean meat. I was exasperated: The whole point of the dish was its unctuousness; the pig was raised for its fat.
I wasn’t the only person outraged. The server who took away the not-quite-empty plate came back with a message from the kitchen: “Sir, the chef noticed that you didn’t finish your food. Was everything ok?” The diner was nonplussed and mumbled something. It was the restaurant’s polite way of putting him on notice: Never do that again.
