Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesIn the wake of recent and not-so-recent discussions about the difficulty of finding good sommeliers, it occurred to me that problems in wine service go way beyond the individual who recommends the bottle. In fact, the issues are not simply about wine but about restaurant service in general.
Just the other week, after the New York blizzard that paralyzed so many city streets, I was in a restaurant in Brooklyn with a nearly empty glass of red wine in front of me. A waitress refilled it, but as she withdrew the bottle she sent the glass flying toward me. Somehow, I managed to catch it in midair, but not before it dumped half its contents on my lap.
I got a quick apology. Napkins appeared from all sides. Then the waitress said: “How lucky! You still have some wine in the glass!” And that was that. No offer to pick up a cleaning bill. No replacement for what I didn’t still have in the glass. No offer of a free dessert or after-dinner drink.
It’s not that I felt entitled (except maybe to a reimbursement for cleaning). The food was great, and I had such a good time with my wife and friends that it ultimately mattered little. But I do think that, at the very least, a gesture recognizing my hardship and signaling the restaurant’s regret would have been in order. In the long run, it’s much better for a business to be generous. It makes all the difference between happy and resentful customers.
That’s just a little thing, though. It pales in comparison to a story a friend told me about a recent dinner at an expensive restaurant in the theater district. I’ll condense it while trying to spare you none of the wretched details.
My friend, who is in his 50s, was hosting his mother and an elderly couple who were visiting from California. The idea was that he would order the wine, act as the host, and his guests would enjoy the company without the burden of making choices.
He ordered a bottle of Sancerre for $45, which the table loved. The waiter, after pouring the first round, placed the bottle in an ice bucket across the room. Soon, another server arrived and asked my friend if he wanted to order another bottle. Looking back at the bucket, my friend realized that his Sancerre had been poured out to another table, which had been drinking a New Zealand sauvignon blanc and hadn’t noticed the difference.
My friend summoned his original server, and, speaking quietly so as not to alert his guests to any problem, explained what had happened and asked him to bring another bottle of the Sancerre. After 10 minutes, the server returned and told my friend, loudly, that he had purchased the last bottle of the Sancerre. As a replacement, he offered the New Zealand sauvignon blanc, for $48.
My friend tasted it and found it insipid. The list offered one other Sancerre, for $66, and my friend asked if he could have that as a replacement bottle. The server said this would not be possible, and that there was nothing more he could do.
“I tried to do all this quietly and discreetly,’’ my friend told me. “The waiter had none of this sensibility and spoke in a loud, hash-house manner. Because I wanted to prevent my guests from getting caught up in this, we kept the New Zealand sauvignon blanc. I wanted us to eat the food while it was hot, and so I did not want to leave the table to look for the manager as that would really disrupt our meal and evening.’’
Later, he said, the waiter promised to make it up to him. My friend expected maybe the table would receive complimentary desserts or something. Instead, the waiter simply offered not to charge him for a cup of tea he had ordered.
“When I asked for the check,’’ my friend continued, “the waiter said, loud, ‘How do you want me to charge you for the wine?’ I replied that I did not think I should be charged. He said he had to charge me something. I suggested $25 (remember, the original Sancerre cost $45 and we only had sips). He said, ‘No, your first wine cost $66.’ I quietly corrected him and told him to look at the wine list. He came back and said I was correct, in the same loud voice though I asked him to speak quietly, just to me.
“I think you can understand why I did not want to leave my guests and the table during the meal. It did not occur to me to ask more firmly for the $66 Sancerre because I was taken aback by how loud and indiscreet the waiter was. I did not want to summon the manager as that might escalate the problem when my main goal was that my mother and guests have a pleasant, stress-free holiday meal in a restaurant whose look and style could only be in New York.’’
Whew! Well, I can tell you what I would have done. I would not have been able to restrain myself from summoning the manager once the waiter refused to offer me something to make up for the original, egregious gaffe. Any restaurant with even the pretension of decent service ought to be falling all over itself to make up for it. Appalling.
When the waiter asked what he should charge for the wine, I might have had to ask him what I should pay for a tip. But of course that would be dealing with the symptom, when the real problem was the restaurant’s gross absence of standards.
What would you have done?