10/09/2024: We called at lunchtime to make reservations for the evening, a Thursday at the end of August.
We had given the list of unwanted foods to my partner and it turned out that on the menu there was only eggplant and tuna which required an adaptation of the menu.
The first course, after the second starter, consisted of cucumber water, merguez oil, diced cucumber, and three slices of tataki-style tuna with its sauce.
The tuna for my partner was simply replaced by, again, cucumbers, cut… lengthwise and cut out in a circle above the diced cucumbers… without the tuna sauce… the height of creativity… and with such a delicious dish, you can imagine that her mouth (from the cucumber) was watering….
Is it intellectually sufficient and satisfying to offer this to the customer as a dish?
As a chef, shouldn't I take the initiative myself and indicate to the customer that we have not found a solution to offer a correct dish, and therefore we suggest that the customer switch to 4 courses at instead of 6, or not to charge him for 6 services at full price.
-I offer a surprise menu for the principle of "culinary surprise" but also and above all to make my cooking profitable (let's be clear...), quite expensive menu: I still have to make the effort to find real creative alternatives to my dishes to satisfy my customers, get out of my comfort zone, especially during the week, being in the city center...easy to find fresh products with my local network...The tuna could, for example, have been replaced by oysters...(this will good with cucumber right??)
The waiter had suggested to us that we might have mushrooms to replace the dish with tuna: knowing that that evening there were barely 12 seats, so at most as many reservations, how can you not prepare in advance your service, do your briefing, and tell your customers what you can offer them as a replacement without making these kinds of light assumptions?
Pleasure counts above all and should in no way be tainted by the menu's desire for surprise.
We also have prices for food and wine pairing. When we asked the waiter why this wine and not another during the dish, his answer was: “because I think it went well with the garnish”. Well, yes, we suspect it, since it’s a food and wine pairing… You really can’t go any further in your explanations to push the culinary experience to 26 euros for three glasses?
The dishes, overall (not entirely) are quite bland, poorly seasoned, and that is the basis of a restaurant that wants to be gastronomic to have the right seasonings... and for the 6 courses, we have found that in terms of quantity, it deserved a little more generosity. There was room without denigrating the gastronomic side... We cannot indefinitely divide the quantity of dishes each time we offer additional services in a menu...
When it was time to pay, we had the opportunity to discuss it again with the waiter. While we had given our feelings during the meal on the first course, no questioning was made by the service. The waiter simply told us that this was the usual way and that people were very satisfied like that…
(addition: 190 euros)
Hats off for the questioning, for the individual consideration of the customer...for your non-commercial gesture taking into account our non-satisfaction...for not having offered to involve the chef to discuss it with him. I would have liked to talk about it with him, too bad, he brought us the appetizer, but not the main course.
01/09/2024: We had an excellent time, discovering revisited local products, flavors, tastes, wine, everything came together to make it a restaurant recognized by Gault and Milaut.
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