Weird for sure. I feel like DT handled the situation as best as possible with the invitation to return as his guest and the note sent to your hotel. Glad to hear about your experience at Arpege.
For the most part all of my high end meals in Paris have been outstanding experiences.
after the weirdest thing a restaurant has ever done to you… ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Yes, very good of them. Glad this part turned out well for you.
Perhaps Toutain should comp you for the entire meal instead of inviting you back, as nice as that gesture was, since you couldn’t make it? This story is sooooo wierd, it is hard to know what to make of it.
as much as i enjoy the food at david toutain, this does not surprise me as i have never gotten a good feeling from the front of house staff.
Really odd service. I don’t think anyone should ever feel put out on any meal unless they were being giant dicks, which doesn’t sound like the case. I feel like they should have comped your meal completely since it sounds like it was egregious enough for DT to call you himself.
When we were there I’d say we weren’t quiet (we were two tables sharing wine) but we actually got extra dishes from other tables. It was weird. My wife kept asking if something was wrong cause we had multiple different dishes. I asked and they said sometimes they send out extra dishes or plays on normal dishes for people to try. But our pacing was definitely faster than other tables around us. I defer that to the fact that I take about 30 seconds to finish a course, so restaurants tend to try and keep pace.
His wife is canadian. She gave us her background after we started discussing pricing in US v. France for wine on lists
The service at Passage 53 was the best service I received at any restaurant in Paris on our trip. Like you said, it’s really warm and inviting. They want to converse but not in a contrived way.
Any chance you and your wife were misidentified as another couple, felt to be returning under a alias reservation - your name? Would explain the bizarre behavior that evening and the subsequent elaborate apology. Clearly David Toutain intervened at Arpege the next day after you explained that was the setting for your last lunch before leaving Paris.
Got look-a-likes?
I was at Passage 53 last week and had that truffle dish…amazing. The onion with iberico chorizo, and bresse chicken were stand outs as well. My wild hare had something hard in it. I took the object out of my mouth to find it was a bb. I guess they weren’t kidding when they said hunting season had begun.
Knowing David Toutain and his character ( which a great chef will instill in every aspect of his restaurant and in fact is a sign of a great chef) I suspect this was an Ami Louis phenomena (see my comments in this topic)
BTW the “Canadian” Linda Violago, is not David’s wife.
can you please expound on this point? having met him 3 times in 3 different restaurants and one time having cooked for us while sitting next to him, I find this…odd. Especially given his response shown in this thread. Unless he’s a schizophrenic. Thanks in advance.
I tend to agree with Philip, which is why I was so perplexed that we received such wonderful treatment from Chef Passard 12 hours later. Same people, same way of eating (we find the whole “temple of food” approach abhorrent - food and wine without laughter isn’t particularly delicious). One place kicks us out early, the other gives us a second lunch on the house. Somehow our behavior violated deep social norms on Tuesday but didn’t on Wednesday. Bewildering!
I admire you self examination abilities
I’ll do a more detailed response when time permits
someone should tweet to Linda this thread…
Clearly not an accident or oversight. That’s about all one can deduce.
Maybe someone was related to the Raveneaus? or Kermit Lynch?
So something negative happened at the restaurant, one of the top chefs in the world calls you at your hotel and apologizes, offers to have you return on him and then most likely makes sure you have a great meal at L’Arpege and gets a large portion comp’d AND you still blast his restaurant in a public forum. Not cool if you ask me.
The hotel apparently told their head of dining about the note he left for us. She got curious and called the restaurant on her own to figure out what was going on. Bizarrely, he told her that (1) we were making up the story and received the full dinner, that we’d received some dishes other tables didn’t get and other tables had received dishes that we didn’t get (false!); (2) he had only called us and invited us back because he felt he didn’t want anyone in his restaurant to leave unsatisfied (false! and contrary to what he told me personally on the phone!) and (3) he had not called Arpege, in part because his restaurant did nothing wrong and he had no need to apologize.
As it turned out, the person at our hotel last worked at a restaurant in the States that we had gone to a couple of times, so she passed the story of the conversation along to us. I think she found it as weird as we did. And if my posts are “not cool”, then his making up a tall tale for the concierge to save face or something is practically the Death Valley of “not cool”.
In some ways I’m sympathetic to a guy deciding that we’re not sufficiently respectful of his food temple and telling us to GTFO. Its his restaurant and that’s his call. But I’m entirely unsympathetic to charging me full price before kicking us out, and I’m rather miffed that he followed up the apology to me by telling our hotel we were full of shit the next day.
This is such an odd, and oddly compelling, thread and story. The one element that makes no sense is Arpege giving you a meal for half off unless Toutain asked Passard to do it. Despite how much I love Arpege, and the fact that Arpege does routinely give extra courses and goodies, I’m reasonably confident Passard doesn’t routinely (or ever?) give half-off discounts to American tourists just to be nice.
Wow - what a story - strange indeed. While from time to time I’ve had uneven service at ** and *** restaurants in France I’ve luckily never had even close to such a strange experience - or had a restaurant skip courses in a pre fixe menu…
When the chef realized that you couldn’t come back during your trip, he should have comped your meal - no question - or at least the food portion. Were you staying at the hotel where the restaurant is located? If so, management at the hotel could have handled that as well (I think Prince de Galles is still as Starwood and so they might have been receptive to doing something)… Even though they are denying it, seems like instead of comping your meal, it is possible that the chef or someone from the hotel called Arpege - and even if they did, strange way to handle it without telling you…leaving you wondering.
At least it sounds like the meal at Arpege made up for it in so many ways. I’ve never been to Arpege but have had meals like that at a few ***s where I have just been blown away by everything - it is really a stunning experience when it all comes together perfectly.