As I mentioned, last Saturday I ate an extremely fancy dinner at The Greenhouse in Mayfair, a place which has two Michelin stars (edit later — apparently it’s only one. Maybe they lost one.) This is not my normal sort of eaterie. In fact it marked a rare occasion where, during my dining, someone called me “sir” and didn’t follow up with “you’re making a scene” or “would you please leave without making a fuss?”. In any event, it was quite the experience.
This picture was the most impressive aspect of the service (well, except for the head waiter’s impenetrably French accent, which left me and my foodie mate going “eh? what? what was that ingredient?” when he described the courses).
Knowing next to nothing about wine, we left the choices to the sommelier. We ended up with a half-bottle of white, a glass of sweet dessert wine (served with the foie gras course, unusually, but it was a delicious combination) and a bottle of red. Halfway through the meal, it occurred to us to ask him to write the wines down, so we could find them again. He gave us an envelope, which we didn’t really think any more of until we opened this at the end of the meal.
Yup. We asked him to quickly note down the wines we’d had, and he gave us an immaculately typeset printed list on headed notepaper. That’s either amazing service or amazing showing off (I think the difference is more in the head of the observer than the actual behaviour).
Incidentally the white wine on that list (the Cervaro) was beyond excellent. The Australian red was merely very good.
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