There are some encounters that leave you simply shaking your head in disbelief. At Brasserie Uno,…read morewe had one of those.
We happened to walk past the restaurant during an evening stroll and spontaneously decided to ask whether we could stay for a glass of wine at one of the small tables outside. We were told that this was possible, even though it apparently wasn't really part of the restaurant's usual concept -- so far, so good.
We decided to have both a white and a red wine and, since there was no wine list, left the choice to the waiter. His recommendation for the white wine was a Riesling, which my wife politely declined, explaining that unfortunately she cannot tolerate Riesling. The waiter, however, was not willing to accept this and insisted that although it was a Riesling, it did not taste like a typical Riesling. My wife repeated that she had to decline because her intolerance is related to the grape variety itself, but said she would be happy to have the same red wine as me in order to keep things simple.
The waiter seemed to take her rejection of his recommendation rather personally. He picked up the bottles and glasses again and told us that we were welcome to try another restaurant nearby instead. He would be making an exception for us here and didn't need to do so.
I have no idea whether Michelin stars sometimes lead to a certain degree of hubris, whether he simply has a character flaw, or whether he was just having a bad day. Whatever the reason, the whole situation was beyond ridiculous. I have never experienced anything like this in a restaurant, with or without Michelin stars. I genuinely cannot understand how anyone could react this way to a simple statement about a food or drink intolerance. But even aside from that, this was simply poor and utterly classless service.
We had actually been considering making a reservation for one of the following days. Looking back, we can at least be grateful that this experience lasted only a few minutes rather than an entire evening.
Incidentally, we did still get our glass of wine -- just a few steps further down the street, in a considerably nicer setting and with genuinely good service.
