Off the Menu at 15 Restaurants

[macrosan]

Thanks from me too, SteveK. That's a well-balanced presentation, and certainly changes my view on the acceptability, from a chef's perspective, of the issue. It's clear that if a chef positively enjoys the challenge of off-menu requests, and revels in demonstrating his skill, then diners would be remiss in not acceding to his wishes Of course, it's clear that not all chefs do feel that way, so it becomes all the more important that someone create a list (as I suggested earlier) of restaurants who do welcome off-menu requests. Of course one can create one's own list by asking

I am still uneasy about the principle of "deliberately holding back..." which I don't think you have answered. You talk to the point about accidentally having extra ingredients or dishes, and there is no issue there. You address the point about making dishes specially in advance for known special customers, and again there is no issue there. You also discuss your willingness, on the spur of the moment, to be creative when requested by a diner, and yet again we have common ground on that.

Can you directly answer the question as to whether you think it is acceptable for a restaurant, as a matter of pre-meditated policy, to have dishes not on the menu available on request only to VIP customers (however defined) ?

[Basildog]

i have no problem with people asking for what they want, i positively encourage it.

If i have infomation from a customer, then we can act on it.

It depends on when we get the info, as to how much effect we can have.

If a customer walks in, reads the menu and asks for " the chef to cook me something speacil" then i think i would select dishes from the menu.I would also offer anything that we had that wasn,t on the menu, but i would be offering that to the guest anyway.If the guest is asking for a dish that we have on the menu, but prepared differently, then if we can do it...no problem.

If the customer can communicate what he wants, and we can do it, then thats great.Equally, advance notice helps a great deal

I only disagreed with the sugestion that kitchens keep things back for VIPs.i don't believe in VIPs.I have said before on the VIP thread that ALL customers are important.

Customers have different experiences at my place based on many factors.If i have infomation on a customer, then i can use that info to try and make their visit better.Should Martin make a return visit, they you can bet your bottom dollar that Saffron Pears will be available! Does that make him a VIP? Not to me, just a customer that i have infomation about that we can use .Cabby got the water she prefers because she mentioned it somewhere.She had extra courses because she asked.And should the egullet trip in March happen, then i could use what i have learnt about the members to improve there experience

[Fat Guy]

Yeah but Basil you've got a restaurant with like five seats -- everyone can be a VIP in your joint. It doesn't work that way if you do 275 covers for dinner.

Martin, here's a typical situation: The fish supplier shows up with the day's delivery of salmon and halibut, and also says to the chef, hey man, I can give you this chunk of super-excellent striped bass too -- enough for maybe five portions or ten in tasting-menu format. The chef says great, I also have just enough chanterelles and asparagus to do that many portions of something, I'll figure out a sauce and some other stuff and I'll use it for a VIP dish or have my servers hand-sell it to tables that might seem interested in this sort of thing.

[Steve Plotnicki]

This thread, is being boiled down to a single issue. Do you believe in VIP's or not? And I thought that Steve Klc's answer boiled down to, it's not up to the customers to decide that issue. It's chef and restauranteur driven. So now that we have gotten that part out of the way, all we have left is the morality of the VIP system. I thought that Wilfrid did an admirable job of disposing of that one yesterday by pointing out that both restaurants and customers are allowed to operate on the basis of a free market. Lots of things in a free market system seem "unfair." VIP treatment is just one more thing on the list. But fortunately, as we have pointed out to anyone who would like to partake in the custom, there is a non-monetary way to acquire this level of service for yourself. More then that you can't possibly ask for.

[Fat Guy]

As a general proposition, it boils down to something like that. And as a specific proposition it boils down to the WSJ's reporters not having a clue about the general proposition or anything related to it.

[stellabella]

Anybody can be a VIP. It is NEVER a matter of money, it is NEVER a matter of ego, it is only a matter of respecting fine food and service and communicating and thanking those who do so.

Liz, six pages reduced to two succinct and well-stated sentences. Bravo!

It's too bad that these discussions always end up with accusations of snobbery. "Elitism" is one of those words with a negative connotation--the actual denotation of the word is pretty simple: the belief that certain conditions are more suitable, more appropriate, more preferable, to others. And most of us in this community, according to this definition, are elitists. Do you think Honda makes better cars than Ford? Do you send your kids to private school? Would you rather wear a pair of Birkenstocks than cheap knock-offs from Pay-less? Do you prefer Valrhona to Baker's chocolate?

Money isn't really the issue here. It's how we choose to spend what we have. I get criticized constantly by my own family for being an elitist and a snob. I make less than every single member of my family, but I know more about food. It's hard for me to indulge my tastes for good food in their presence without offending one of them. Invariably, if I prefer to buy a more expensive bar of baking chocolate, I am "putting them down" because they opt for the bargain brand.

I hate my family, so I have to come to defense of my fellow egulleters. I don't think anyone participating in this conversation has intended to make others feel inferior. I agree with Steven Shaw on this one. I can afford fine chocolate but I can't afford to eat at Gordon Ramsey three times a week [the air far alone would be a killer]. If others do and they want to write about it here, fine, great, good. And if they ordered off the menu, fine, great, good.

I think that if Plotnicki were ever to imply that someone posting here were truly inferior to him because s/he couldn't afford to eat like he does, then he'd be out of line. But that hasn't happened. He said that a person who can afford the 1958 wine is entitled to it, and I think that phrasing was misleading. Being able to afford an expensive bottle wine depends on more than one's income--it depends on one's taste and how one chooses to spend his money. I can afford that wine, too, if I skip my trip to Mexico, or don't heat my house one month.

Is it really the income that is intimidating, or is it the knowledge? I look at my own family for the answer.

I think an interesting spin-off would be the whole notion of service: in the last six weeks I've experienced a spate of unpleasant customer-server/cashier, etc. interactions: the rudeness seems to go both ways any more. I think there's a more general problem, the breakdown of civil behavior in social interaction.

[Basildog]

Yeah but Basil you've got a restaurant with like five seats -- everyone can be a VIP in your joint. It doesn't work that way if you do 275 covers for dinner.

I'll use it for a VIP dish or have my servers hand-sell it to tables that might seem interested in this sort of thing.

Fat Guy...where is the cut off point to where its not possible to treat customers as individuals? 20...30...100...1000?

I would be offering this fantastic bass dish to everyone, why does it have to be offered to only a select few?(by everyone , i mean as the tables order untill i have sold out)

[Fat Guy]

85

[Basildog]

85 

OH GOD! 85? I am organising a wedding for 120, so it looks like 35 of them will be disappointed

[macrosan]

Martin, here's a typical situation: ...

Ok Fattus, keep talking ... (no not really, please ) You're slowly convincing me. I can't fault the circumstances you described there, and I absolutely wouldn't raise an objection to the result.

Whatever happens, I still like Basil's 5-seat place, and next time I go there I'm going to ask for .....

[Fat Guy]

Don't get me wrong, Martin: I'll be the first to tell you that plenty of restaurants are bastards about how they had out the VIP stuff. I'm just saying it's not cut-and-dry wrong to have that species of system in place.

[Basildog]

The only fault i see with Fat Guys bass dish, is that hes reserving it for VIPs

[Fat Guy]

Basil, if you have a limited supply of something you need to figure out a way to allocate it. Your system seems to be first-come-first-served. That gives what some might call an "unfair advantage" to those who dine early. Why is that a better way to allocate than, say, giving the dish to the people who have historically come to your restaurant the most often, or expressed a particular interest in food, etc.?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Or how about if we ask the following question. Why do people think that what a restaurant prints on its menu is a complete list of everything they have to offer? I mean we are brought up to believe that, but in reality it turns out that in many instances it isn't true. Why do we have such a big investment in that concept?

[Basildog]

First come first served.

It has the advantage that if i keep the bass for some dude who booked in the name of Fat Guy, but decides he doesn't fancy it, i don't have it in my fridge for another day.

[Steve Plotnicki]

So what would you do, if you had a regular customer who dropped a pretty big sum of money at your restaurant, and who also dined towards the end of the evening. Sometimes the daily special would last until the hour he dined, sometimes it wouldn't. But you knew this person liked the daily specials. Would you hold a serving back for him? And if your answer is no, what if he stopped coming as regularly because you wouldn't? Or what if you had five customers like that? Or how about if 25% of your customers were like that? Would you change your methods if you knew it was going to cost you the business?

[Basildog]

The amount of money a customer spends with me is irrelevent to how they are treated.

Regular customers know they can ask for something to be available.

We don't run daily speacils, we print menus twice a day.

So no, i wouldn't keep a dish back for a certin customer, unless they had asked for it to be available in advance.

[tommy]

this basildog is one tough nut to crack.

[Fat Guy]

But that's okay. I'm learning how to behave at Basil's restaurant in order to get the best treatment: come early, call ahead with special requests, etc. I'm open to various systems, so long as I can figure them out.

[Steve Klc]

Martin writes: "I am still uneasy about the principle of "deliberately holding back..." which I don't think you have answered. You talk to the point about accidentally having extra ingredients or dishes, and there is no issue there. You address the point about making dishes specially in advance for known special customers, and again there is no issue there. You also discuss your willingness, on the spur of the moment, to be creative when requested by a diner, and yet again we have common ground on that.

Can you directly answer the question as to whether you think it is acceptable for a restaurant, as a matter of pre-meditated policy, to have dishes not on the menu available on request only to VIP customers (however defined)."

Well, let's go through this.

I don't accidentally have extra ingredients--I intentionally have set up a kitchen with all sorts of spices, mixes, products, etc. for the cuisine that I am not using at that moment. I have three restaurants, three different cuisines, price points, styles, kitchens, equipment and staff which I create and supervise desserts for--so if I'm in Zaytinya--to continue the example I used earlier--I have different rose and rosewater compounds (and lots of other Greek/Turkish/Lebanese stuff on the shelf) even though they aren't used on the menu. This is part of embracing a cuisine, reveling in the ingredients and acting on inspiration as these sights, smells, recipes, pictures whatever move you.

Spur of the moment creativity we are on common ground--as another example of this I could take the yogurt sorbet off one dessert, sprinkle it with sumac--pulse some fresh pomegranate seeds with some simple syrup, spoon it around the quenelle of sorbet, sprinkle with pistachio powder and we have an instant VIP pre-dessert. That won't ever be on the menu but it could be plated every day at every service. Is that the same thing as deliberately holding back? (Don't think so.)

I'm (personally) not necessarily willing to be creative when requested by just any diner. We're not charging what a Citronelle charges. The existing desserts on menu are special and creative enough at their price point and frankly, I try not to be in any of the restaurants in prime time too often. I'm at home writing or reading eGullet. But take Steve P's wheat allergy thing--I find it perfectly reasonable that Steve could request a special, unique dessert from his waiter, who in turn would speak to the manager or chef at the pass--and I'd expect that chef to be aware of which of my components have wheat flour in them and which do not--and then be able to combine say the olive oil ice cream from one dessert with the Greek honey gelee from another with the dried fruit salad infused with orangeflower water from another into something unique just for him. I'd be pissed if I heard he had made just such a request and was told the restaurant or chef was too busy to accomodate his request. That would be entirely unacceptable to me. But is not offering this combination the same as deliberately holding back? (Don't think so.)

I also do think it is acceptable for a chef and restaurant to have dishes not on the menu available on request only to VIP customers--but then I don't encounter this too much as "premeditated policy." I do see it as kind of a standard operating procedure which just happens to be in flux from day to day and week to week--either re-arranging or slightly altering components as we've discussed or small amounts of ingredients get dropped off at the back door, too small to be included on the menu, the small amounts of fish as Shaw mentioned, the glorious fruit we all read so much about delivered to the French Laundry at the peak of ripeness, or weird little white squiggly eels the chef recognizes from his home but never sees regularly in markets over here. I see these as special exceptions--and I also view a chef knowingly procuring small amounts of ingredients brought in for a certain meal and/or certain customers known in advance as perfectly acceptable.

I think you're on strongest ground if you are aware of restaurants which regularly bring in say a certain cut of meat--prepare this certain amazing dish all the time--but then never put it on the menu and only sell it to VIPs who are let in on the secret existence of it. I would be pissed by this but haven't come across this how and where I dine. But yes, I would be pissed if that's what you mean.

[Steve Plotnicki]

But I asked a harder question then that. I said how would you handle it if 25% of your customers were regulars who ate at a late hour and they expected the daily special to be available for their dinner? And not having it available made them stop coming on a regular basis? Wouldn't you do something differently? Would you order more of it? Or when they reserved would you tell them the daily specials on the phone to see if they wanted to reserve it? Is first come, first serve, something that is only available to people who are physically in the restaurant? Or is on the telephone sufficient to get you a crack at it?

[Charlene Leonard]

So what would you do, if you had a regular customer who dropped a pretty big sum of money at your restaurant, and who also dined towards the end of the evening. Sometimes the daily special would last until the hour he dined, sometimes it wouldn't. But you knew this person liked the daily specials. Would you hold a serving back for him? And if your answer is no, what if he stopped coming as regularly because you wouldn't? Or what if you had five customers like that? Or how about if 25% of your customers were like that? Would you change your methods if you knew it was going to cost you the business?

are we talking about daily specials though? Aren't you talking about making a request for something above and beyond what the restaurant would offer to everyone?

Does anyone think that because one spends a lot of money that this entitles one to a better choice of food than is offered to others who spend less? Would anyone stop going to a restaurant if he/she thought that the 'daily special' wasn't being held back for him?

[tommy]

Does anyone think that because one spends a lot of money that this entitles one to a better choice of food than is offered to others who spend less?

i do. although your wording is a little strong.

edit: "strong" as in the choice of words or implication was a bit strong. but i have no problem with a good customer (repeat customer who spends gobs of money) having different opportunities than a first-time customer, or a customer who doesn't show any interest beyond the printed menu.

Edited February 18, 2003 by tommy (log)

[Basildog]

But that's okay. I'm learning how to behave at Basil's restaurant in order to get the best treatment: come early, call ahead with special requests, etc. I'm open to various systems, so long as I can figure them out.

Fat Guy...if you are calling ahead with special requests, then it doesn't matter what time you come does it?

[Bux]

The only fault i see with Fat Guys bass dish, is that hes reserving it for VIPs

If I've never been to a restaurant, I really doubt that I am going to truly miss not eating a dish that's not on the menu. On the other hand, if I am a regular and have probably eaten everything on the menu in one form or another at least twice, I'll be in a much greater position to appreciate something that's never in reliable enough abundance to ever make the menu. I've also never run into a restaurant that didn't try to offer something special to a customer it recognizes as a regular. That includes some soup noodle dives in Chinatown where the something special is no more than a big smile and a warm greeting. At the more expensive levels, this is an old tradition that becomes more complex and as others have noted, the issue of the article cannot be removed from the concept of vip treatment.

Perhaps I was too coy or facetious when I suggested I don't ask for what the boys in the back room are having and stoically accept preferential treatment when it's forced on me. There's a literal truth to that self image, but I have my strategies for getting the best out of a restaurant even if they don't exactly coincide with Steve P's.

I once told someone that knowing her had really gotten me some special food and service. She replied that what it had gotten me was the attention of the executive chef who decided I really liked and understood food and that it was the latter that got me the special treatment. I sense there will be an expression of outrage and members asking why that chef isn't knocking himself out 100% all the time for every diner. I know everyone here does that or their boss wouldn't be paying them to log on here. Or less sarcastically we all know every star athlete gives 100% on the field, but why is is that when we see the movie where the dying man is wheeled into the stadium to see his grandson play in the championship game, we know the kid is going to give it something extra. I sense such a hypocrisy about the way many people deal with restaurants. I'm no longer amazed to see it. I've had people tell they are so offended by vip treatment that they'll pay extra and eat worse food not to have to see someone else get better treatment in a restaurant. Well I've been willing to cut my nose to spite my face, but I'm not cutting my tongue and will not spite my taste buds.