🚀 go-pugleaf

Regarding complaining about bad experiences at big-deal fancy pricey
French restaurants:  I had such an experience at Le Bec Fin in
Philadelphia.  The first visit there was wonderful.  The second was a
complete letdown, including such things as being treated with contempt
by the sommelier for ordering a mere Montrachet instead of _Le_
Montrachet and being served on chipped crockery.

It wouldn't have helped to complain to the owner--he wasn't there that
night, which is precisely why service and cooking went right into the
dumper.  I wrote M. Perrier a letter, to which I never received a
response.  And I have heard that others have had the same
experience--if Perrier is onsite and supervising and cooking, the
result is heaven.  If he's not there, blow off your reservation and go
to MacDonald's--at least at Les Arcs D'Or you'll get your money's
worth and have no particular expectations that might not be lived up
to.  I have no intention of _ever_ going back to Le Bec Fin (the prix
fixe dinner is probably into three figures by now, and the risk is
simply too great to be disappointed at those prices) and I have no
compunctions about repeating my story.  (I even related it to the
restaurant maven on Prodigy, when I had a subscription to *P*, and he
pooh-poohed the whole thing.  So much for him--I bet they recognize
him when he comes in the door and make sure _he_ never goes away
unhappy.)

Perrier gets to turn away reservations every night, and his staff all
make very substantial incomes (gratuities for a waiter at such a
restaurant can easily exceed $300/night--with two sittings per evening
and some twelve people per sitting to serve, that's a bill of $2400
times a 15% tip--and serving six nights a week...comes pretty close to
$100K).  It can take a long period of slacking when the boss is away
to destroy the kind of reputation that Perrier built up.

Perhaps the same thing goes on at the Auberge.  Restaurants living on
reputations of past glory, especially fancy ones that one does not
frequent weekly or monthly, can persist for quite some time before
people give up on them and the word gets out.  (A neighborhood place
in St. Paul, MN, however, disappeared very quickly after they jacked
up their prices and cut back on the menu, service, and quality.  Some
golden geese die quicker than others.
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