Every now and then, we have to travel for business. This is a great opportunity to visit restaurants that are simply too far for a day-trip. Where the trips themselves are not as much fun as people like to think, we do enjoy the meals…
Preparation is half the fun for a vacation and with these business trips, the pre-trip fun consists of finding good (and/or great value-for-money) fine dining restaurants. Using social media and Tripadvisor, it is not difficult to find candidates for us to visit. Most of the (good) restaurants have a site or at least a menu in English and ways to make reservations online directly on the site or third-party apps, like La Fourchette (The Fork in most other countries). This makes getting a table easy and convenient as you directly receive a confirmation. Regrettably, not all restaurants may be available as they can be closed, full or host a private event. No big deal, just re-arrange the order of selected restaurants and off we go. Or so we thought….
Since we have some allergies, we informed the restaurants as soon as we could. Not all sites offered the option to fill them in while making the reservation, so we contacted them either by phone or email. Experiences in Holland are that good chefs find alternative ingredients or even replace entire dishes in a menu. With Paris being “the world’s capital of fine dining”, we were expecting that allergies are not a big deal in Paris, unfortunately, reality turned out to be so different.
Looking at the menus, photos and reviews on various sites and social media, we were (and are) not doubting the skills of the chefs. Nevertheless, we received cancellations for several of our reservations because of our allergies. In theory, a restaurant is free to refuse guests, but what does it say about the place? How far can you (as a restaurant) take it and how do you deliver the message? Most people would do this politely and with respect, instead of with arrogant lies. The person handling reservations at AT Restaurant clearly isn’t part of “most people” as we received the notification of the cancellation by the restaurant within 10 minutes after informing them of our dietary requirements, without giving a reason. From the 10 minutes, we concluded that the allergies were the reason and that the restaurant’s own convenience is more important than giving their guests an enjoyable evening. We decided to call the restaurant to see if our conclusion was correct. In the call with the restaurant, we asked for more details and mentioned that we would have no problem skipping 2 dishes out of the 15-course menu. The restaurant’s reply was that don’t have to make any effort because the restaurant ‘does not need us to come’… AT Restaurant, please remember that none of your guests ‘need to’ come to your restaurant. They can choose to come, but keep in mind that they have plenty of good alternatives! Unlike what this restaurant thinks, a full house isn’t a given…
The good news is, that arrogance like this isn’t typical for Paris or France. We did visit Paris and enjoyed every meal we several very good meals, with as a highlight Le Jules Verne, high up in the Eiffel Tower. It wasn’t just the view, but also the quality of food and service. To illustrate a point, we used AT Restaurant as an example here, because they were the most arrogant and rude. However, they are surely not the only one who reacts like this. We did already receive the question several times, if we would still go to any of the restaurants that cancelled on us in the past? Well, no. There are plenty of alternatives and we rather go there.
Our advice would be to reserve in time when visiting Paris and immediately inform the restaurant(s) of dietary requirements. You too may find that some restaurants cancel because of it, but please keep in mind that it means as a guest you would not have been their priority. Receiving a cancellation means that you know in advance to look for another place to have an enjoyable evening.