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L'Autre Pied: A pluckin' disappointment (or what's your grouse?)

25/9/2010

10 Comments

 
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L’Autre Pied delivered what can only be called a kitchen nightmare on our recent visit there; let us explain. John Lanchester in his brilliant award winning food-crime novel The Debt to Pleasure leads from the opening page with the following remark on the level of care required to cook successfully:

The omission of a single word or a single instruction [in a recipe] can inflict a humiliating fiasco on the unsuspecting home cook. Which of us has not completed a recipe to the letter, only to look down and see, lying by the side of the sauté pan, a recriminatory pile of chopped onions? One early disaster of my brother’s, making a doomed attempt to impress some hapless love object, was occasioned by the absence of the small word ‘plucked’ – he removed from the oven a roasted but full-fledged pheasant, terrible in its hot sarcophagus.

While Lanchester skewers the moment with comic genius, we kid you not, L’Autre Pied served up for a main course dish a grouse with feathers still on the bird. And though Lanchester’s early use of the phrase ‘humiliating fiasco’ may on such an occasion be an appropriate description for the have-a-go home chef who might forever after hang up his apron in favour of some other pastime, how should we think of any professional kitchen that lets such a feathered fiasco be served to a diner, let alone a restaurant that possesses a Michelin star? Sadly, it doesn’t end there.

When the Maître d came over to see what was wrong, pointing at one of the sauce covered feathers we asked ‘what’s that?’ Part of the bird he explained, ‘perfectly normal’. Yes, it is part of the bird, it’s the feathers, and while it’s perfectly normal for a bird to have them while it’s skipping around the Scottish moors without a care in the world, it’s not perfectly normal once it exits a Michelin starred kitchen. Or perhaps it is at L’Autre Pied.

He took it back to the kitchen and offered to have another cooked but why in the face of such negligence we would want the kitchen to send us anything else? The Maître d was losing interest now guessing (correctly) that he’d lost credibility and the initiative so life would just be easier if we now left further guessing (correctly) that we would not be returning customers anyhow so perhaps it didn’t matter. We said the chef should explain himself, the Maître d said we should send him (the chef) an email. Hang on, isn’t the chef 20 yards away behind that wall? From grouse to chicken it seems.

Fuming, the meal ruined, we couldn’t wait to leave and asked for the bill. While the grouse was taken off the bill, they included a service charge; jokers to the end. We refused to pay the service charge at least. They charged us for both starters, the other main and the (unfinished) bottle of wine that we ordered to drink with the meal that was left uneaten with the Maître d saying that charging for these other items was ‘only fair’.

While putting our jackets on to leave, the chef eventually came out. ‘What can I say’ he said. Sorry would be a good start and grovelling wouldn’t go amiss either. Refunding the whole meal would be a minimum and an invite to return with a guaranteed ass kissing might also be a step in the right direction. Ketner’s in Soho once comped a three course meal for a table of four when, on one occasion, they forgot to put my fish pie in the oven and it was served at the table cold; they turned a difficult situation round losing money on our meal but not our respect; everybody makes mistakes.

With the chef though on this occasion lost for excuses and ways to make up for it, we pointed out that this grouse had moved through prep, then taken out the reach in, cooked in the pan, sent to and looked at on the pass, then sauced and then sent out. Anyone, bird still has feathers on, gonna say something?  Seemingly not.

So incensed at not only the fiasco meal but of the Basil Fawlty school of customer care that we then received, for the first time ever following a bad meal experience, we decided to take it higher. Accordingly we phoned the Pied à Terre, the 2 starred sister restaurant, and asked to speak to the group manager. To their credit, the manager invited us to stop by, sat us down with a glass of champagne, offered the potential explanation of the feather being embedded because of the impact of shot, and on being told that this was not the case, accepted their mistake, apologised profusely and promised an investigation. We also said we wanted to cancel an October booking we had made at Pied à Terre but she said she’d hold off from cancelling the table, said that she hoped we might reconsider and that she would look after us personally on the night. She did okay under the circumstances.

Everything else now about the meal at L’Autre seems inconsequential, like the DFS circa 1960s style laminate wood table with the embedded acrylic place mats; all scratched and soiled as table cloths are absent. My first thoughts on entering the place was that it was not a good interior but that didn’t matter because this is a restaurant where the food speaks for the venue; sadly I was right. The amuse bouche of a sausage roll for example was totally bizarre, is that really how the kitchen wants to first present itself to guests?

The chef can cook clearly but this whole episode was something else, somewhere between laziness or negligence, perhaps a mix of both. We hardly need to add a conclusion for the sum of what happened is clear; while most blogs we post might talk of taste, texture or balance, we never even in our most out the box/drunken moments thought we’d ever write up a restaurant (Michelin starred or otherwise) where our lead would be that they hadn’t plucked the bird properly before serving. Accordingly, everything about L’Autre Pied can be summed up in a single word: unacceptable.

L'Autre Pied on Urbanspoon
10 Comments
Lucy link
7/11/2010 12:44:38 pm

"They charged us for both starters, the other main and the (unfinished) bottle of wine that we ordered to drink with the meal that was left uneaten with the Maître d saying that charging for these other items was ‘only fair’."

But you ate the two starters, the other main, and ordered a full bottle of wine? What restaurants charge you for just the wine you drink? I'm genuinely interested - it's not something I've ever come across before...

Reply
thecriticalcouple
7/11/2010 12:49:29 pm

Lucy,
true, they are within rights, but if you buy a bottle of wine to drink with a main course of grouse and can't eat the main course, unless you want to drink a half a bottle of red wine as your main, well, it's going to get left.

Reply
Lucy
8/11/2010 06:22:08 am

Or ask them to give you the cork and take it home? Just a thought.

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David
12/11/2010 04:16:39 am

I think the restaurant was totally wrong in how they charged for this fiasco. By all means, charge for two decent starters. But the point of a couple dining together is that their meal also includes them enjoying their main courses together, with a bottle of wine if they've ordered it.

So when one main course in inedible and the evening is brought to a premature and very unsatisfactory close, it seems to me quite outrageous that diners should be charged for a bottle of wine they couldn't enjoy together and one of a pair of mains. If I buy a pair of shoes and one is unwearable, I don't expect a shoe shop to charge me for the other shoe because I could "enjoy" that on its own - or for the shoe polish I now can't use on them. And a "pair" of main courses are the same.

So for what it's worth, I think they could have reasonable charged for two startes and anything you'd finished together, but not for the wine or either main - and I'm surprised that the group-level manager didn't simply refund whatever you has spent without question, when she invited you in to see her.

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David
12/11/2010 04:20:59 am

...and just to deal with that final point Lucy made, if I order wine in a restaurant, at restaurant prices, which I can't drink, I most certainly don't want to take the unfinished portion home on the Tube or in my car with a cork stuck in it. Not an option.

Reply
thecriticalcouple
12/11/2010 04:24:59 am

David,
thank you for your comment. that's very much how we felt. It was a very disappointing day where we went out to enjoy a meal and a bottle of wine together and were unable to.

Reply
Paul link
14/4/2011 04:21:19 am

A sad tale, with the amuse bouche of sausage roll particularly shocking!

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That Hungry chef link
9/8/2011 06:18:26 am

Sympathise with you. Had a disappointing meal there as well on account of the food, but service was pleasant. Won't be going back though.

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zak
17/10/2013 07:14:12 pm

sometimes i would love you bloggers to do a service.
especially the ones who seem to have the money to dine at michelin-starred establishments each and every day.

don't get me wrong, i wouldnt wish a bad meal on you but there is a tone in a lot of your texts (especially in the gidleigh park-review) that's extremely snobbish and sort of suggests that you think that your opinion is of real value.

this is towards most bloggers in general. marcus eaves will continue to win accolades and rave reviews, work hard every day and plate up amazing food while you'll write about that fabulous meal you had the other night...

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Andrea Petersen link
13/5/2015 07:08:47 am

Oh my actual goodness, I cannot believe you were 1) served food with feathers!!! and 2) the way they handled it is absolutely preposterous!!! I actually visited for dinner on Monday and thankfully didn't receive this kind of treatment, otherwise they would have had another incredibly irate and persistent unhappy customer chasing them. Well done you for your arguments and follow up. I still can't quite believe it... I hope this doesn't taint my own blog post now, haha! Lots of love, Andrea xxx

www.andreaspassions.com

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