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£1000 tasting menu


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Obviously wary of a quiet february Vivat bacchus (claiming they are simply giving the customer what they want..mmmm) have launched a new £1000

tasting menu (including wine to match but not service...) most interesting was the

discosure that they were using Royal seruga caviar as opposed to the Royal Beluga as this "would add £400-£500 to the cost"...

I appreciate it is targetted at knobby investment *ankers with more money than taste but it is anyone else seriuosly uninspired by their choices?

So my question to you all what be - what would be on your £1000 menu......

"Experience is something you gain just after you needed it" ....A Wise man

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Utter cock

With the financial world in meltdown, a tenth rate piece of self promotion like this is as criminally ill-judged as it is tasteless.

How can the phrase...

According to Ms Strauss, London is probably the only city in the world that could support such a menu.

...make any Londoner feel other than sick with shame and embarrassment.

Thanks a bunch Ms Neleen Strauss and "Chef" Robert Staegemann. If there were any justice in the world, arsepipes like you would end up with your heads on fucking pikes at the gates of the City.

ETA: Jonathan Prynn, "Consumer Affairs Editor" and the Evening Fucking Standard also deserve special mention for passing on such a steaming pile of horseshit without irony or even adverse comment.

Edited by Tim Hayward (log)

Tim Hayward

"Anyone who wants to write about food would do well to stay away from

similes and metaphors, because if you're not careful, expressions like

'light as a feather' make their way into your sentences and then where are you?"

Nora Ephron

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Noticed this. I also noticed they didn't provide the vintages of the wines. For a grand its ridiculously overpriced unless they're wheeling out 82's or better on the claret side.

(as habituees of Petrus will know, for these sort of deals the cost is all the booze. Figure seventy five quid for the food, assume the usual 2x mark-up on wine and a grand implies the wine should retail for four hundred and fifty quid or so I assume for a bottle and a bit).

In my experience Vivat Bacchus is a restaurant which has a lot of top notch names in crap vintages at high mark-ups. I'd be staggered if they were rolling out the '82.

J

More Cookbooks than Sense - my new Cookbook blog!
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Caw wot a bunch of moaners. That looks like a right bargain. I'd pay twice as much.

Edited by MobyP (log)

"Gimme a pig's foot, and a bottle of beer..." Bessie Smith

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what is going on with the cheese, strawberries!! ridiculous. all looks pretty crap to me, apart from the ham, and why is it served on old wine boxes, have they run out of plates? is D'yquem really the right wine to match a hot chocolate pudding, surely a cup of tea would be better. the espresso is shocking but i guess the photographer chose a photo late on in his shoot, if only you could find photographers who know justa tiny bit about food.

a menu for complete chinless wonders, anyone here who likes the sound of it needs to grow up a little, a bit like me dreaming i would own a ferrari and a powerboat at the age of ten!!

rant over, back to work now

Matt Christmas.

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According to Ms Strauss, London is probably the only city in the world that could support such a menu. "Because we are so close to Europe if I run out of any of these wines tonight I can get it again in the morning."

Because London is closer to Europe than France? Hm.

Judging by the Evening Standard's current rate card, the going rate for a one-page colour display advert in the news section is £9,600. In that context, perhaps Vivat thingmy considered it good value to have spent £600ish wholesale on feeding a malleable hack and his missus.

They're wrong. Even the City vulgarati know the difference between fiscal exclusiveness and contrived expensiveness. I give the place six months.

Edited by naebody (log)
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the food looks like crap. why fuck up a nice lobster cooking it with what looks like a bland creamy sauce and pasta ?

If I were paying £1000 for a meal I'd expect a jolly sight more than that uninteresting, colourless looking selection of food. I think they coudl possibly afford to splash out on some decent espresso cups as well, that haven't got "illy" written all over them. Espresso looks awful as well - where is the crema ?

Maybe these overpaid twats should be contributing to the Northern Rock Disaster Sorting Out Fund rather than getting it in bonuses

And WOWEE a glass of Billecar Salmon Rose. They really pushed the boat out there then, didn't they :rolleyes:

Edited by Fibilou (log)

www.diariesofadomesticatedgoddess.blogspot.com

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the food looks like crap. why fuck up a nice lobster cooking it with what looks like a bland creamy sauce and pasta ?

If I were paying £1000 for a meal I'd expect a jolly sight more than that uninteresting, colourless looking selection of food. I think they coudl possibly afford to splash out on some decent espresso cups as well, that haven't got "illy" written all over them. Espresso looks awful as well - where is the crema ?

Maybe these overpaid twats should be contributing to the Northern Rock Disaster Sorting Out Fund rather than getting it in bonuses

And WOWEE a glass of Billecar Salmon Rose. They really pushed the boat out there then, didn't they  :rolleyes:

To be honest, the poor bloody photographer is the only one I have any sympathy for. He's probably used to trying to get upskirt shots of minor royalty outside Bouji's rather than this utter toot.

By the look of it he turned up and tried to do a food shoot with a bag full of papping gear. At least he took the flash off the camera but it doesn't look like he could get either a diffuser or a reflector on his bike. The ham looks sweaty, the espresso's been standing around for days and everything else has the pale blue/greenish cast of overfierce Frankenstein flash.

God help the poor bastard. I feel his pain. They're happy to hand out £1000 of free nosh to the 'consumer affairs editor' but bythe time the poor sweaty smudger turns up he gets three minutes with the leftovers and a bad-tempered waiter.

Were it not already apparent for the whole awful idea - the PR should have been quietly shot in the head for this.

Tim Hayward

"Anyone who wants to write about food would do well to stay away from

similes and metaphors, because if you're not careful, expressions like

'light as a feather' make their way into your sentences and then where are you?"

Nora Ephron

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I take it we can't look forward to a special egullet outing here any time soon then?!

A menu designed with a fourteen year olds sensibilities ('we'll have caviar, and lobster, and beef fillet, and foie gras! and we'll charge A THOUSAND POUNDS!!') for braying twats with no interest in food whatsoever, brilliant.

Even in more stable economic times this would be obscene, coming now it's crass beyond words.

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we are all talking about the place so the whole thing seems to have done the trick.

Contrary to popular opinion, there is such as thing as bad publicity. No good can surely come from advertising the fact that you're selling unappetising food at ludicrous prices specifically for consumption by idiots.

As I say: six months.

A menu designed with a fourteen year olds sensibilities ('we'll have caviar, and lobster, and beef fillet, and foie gras! and we'll charge A THOUSAND POUNDS!!') for braying twats with no interest in food whatsoever, brilliant.

Precisely. It's lobster stuffed with tacos.

Edited by naebody (log)
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Truly shocking photography; I've seen better on the menu outside chip shacks in Amsterdam, the ones trying to shepherd tourits with the munchies thriough their doors.

This sort of thing is no different to a pub up here that decided to create the world's most expensive pie.

"Stan? Oi, Stan. What's that fookin' jap beef they keep bangin on about? Wag-what? Wagyu? Yeah, how much is a pound? Fookin' brilliant, I'll have a pound of that... and ring up that nob'ead from the wine company and ask what his priciest bottle is. We'll use some o'them really poncey mushroom thigies wot get dug up by them pigs in France, and we'll use some o' that really thin gold stuff to put on the top. It'll look mint. It'll have to be jus-rol pastry though, I can't be fookin' arsed makin' that. 'Ere, fook the Oswaldtwistle Echo and Courier, get the BBC on the phone and see if they'll cover it."

.and, of course, they did.

Edited by culinary bear (log)

Allan Brown

"If you're a chef on a salary, there's usually a very good reason. Never, ever, work out your hourly rate."

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Truly shocking photography; I've seen better on the menu outside chip shacks in Amsterdam, the ones trying to shepherd tourits with the munchies thriough their doors.

This sort of thing is no different to a pub up here that decided to create the world's most expensive pie. 

"Stan?  Oi, Stan.  What's that fookin' jap beef they keep bangin on about?  Wag-what?  Wagyu?  Yeah, how much is a pound?  Fookin' brilliant, I'll have a pound of that...  and ring up that nob'ead from the wine company and ask what his priciest bottle is.  We'll use some o'them really poncey mushroom thigies wot get dug up by them pigs in France, and we'll use some o' that really thin gold stuff to put on the top.  It'll look mint.  It'll have to be jus-rol pastry though, I can't be fookin' arsed makin' that.  'Ere, fook the Oswaldtwistle Echo and Courier, get the BBC on the phone and see if they'll cover it."

.and, of course, they did.

Comedian.Do you have a dvd comin out?

Never trust a skinny Chef

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Available in a limited relase of zero, to avoid offending the human community.

I do think it's going to backfire on vivat bacchus; as has been pointed out, the dining types it's aimed at probably won't be sucked in, and the publicity will come with a spoiling dose of derision.

If it had come from Gagnaire, maybe, just maybe... but not a place headed by a chef with no marketable reputation.

Edited by culinary bear (log)

Allan Brown

"If you're a chef on a salary, there's usually a very good reason. Never, ever, work out your hourly rate."

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Heaping more on, the caviar service is silly. It looks like less than an ounce, paired with scoops of accompaniments suited for caviar dips. A nice three ounce plop of good farmed California or French farmed Osetra would cost about 80 pounds and only needs a blini or four.

Nate

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we are all talking about the place so the whole thing seems to have done the trick.

Contrary to popular opinion, there is such as thing as bad publicity. No good can surely come from advertising the fact that you're selling unappetising food at ludicrous prices specifically for consumption by idiots.

As I say: six months.

A menu designed with a fourteen year olds sensibilities ('we'll have caviar, and lobster, and beef fillet, and foie gras! and we'll charge A THOUSAND POUNDS!!') for braying twats with no interest in food whatsoever, brilliant.

Precisely. It's lobster stuffed with tacos.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm lobster stuffed with tacos......!

"Experience is something you gain just after you needed it" ....A Wise man

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