Business beware - your next customer could be a blogger

Sunday was a good day to head to the Cape winelands for some fine dining and wining.

Weather was bleak, so it was a good excuse to get out of the city and sample one of Cape Town's best restaurants, Haute Cabriere.

Now, Haute Cabriere is a top-division establishment. Its got a helipad, is set in a cellar overlooking the Franschhoek valley, has its own world-class vineyards and has a long standing reputation for being one of the best venues to experience 'the marriage of wine with food'.

When we arrived - they screwed up our booking.
We had to wait while the welcoming committee eyed us with suspicion and tried to find someone who could actually confirm that they took the booking call that morning.
Finally, we were seated at a table in probably the darkest part of the restaurant. As we've pointed out - the place is an underground cellar, so a dark table comes standard with a Braille menu.
We left the darkness and seated ourselves closer to the natural light, where we were immediately verbally assaulted by 1 x waiter rambling the list of the day's specials.
No offer of vineyard foreplay or time to soak in the extravagant surroundings. We could just as well have been at the Spur the way they were trying to turn the table.

After taking control of the situation personally, and slowing the frantic pace of our waiter down to Cape Town speed, the food and wine was great.
That is until the bill arrived, which they managed to fluff up as well. Almost all of our drinks items had been charged to another table, which we elected to point out to them, saving the other table a killer tab.

The point is, that had Haute Cabriere known that we were critics from a big local newspaper, it almost goes without saying that their service would have been of a royal standard.
Don't position youself as a premium brand and then hit the pitch with your C-team.

Nowadays, everybody is a critic - every customer has a voice to highlight poor service to the world. Treat ever customer as if they were the restaurant critic from the Cape Times, if staying in business is important to you.

Haute Cabriere is now off the list of restaurants that we consider to be acceptable.  A better experience could have been had at the local Steers.

Comments

[Tertia]

Thanks for the heads up. Off my list too.

I hate places that have that snooty attitude. I am sure if you’d arrived in your helicopter they probably would have been all, “Of course we have your booking Sir. Let me just remove these very ordinary looking middle class nobodies from their table. May we offer you a pre-dinner BJ to go with that aperitif? Hand job?”

Pretentious poncy types. Hate ‘em.

[Cru Master]

I couldnt agree with the post more. If restaurants are going to charge a premium, the service must be premium. Whats more is that restaurants in Cape town seem to love charging exorbitant prices for wine...especially considering that the majority of retaurants actually charge wineries to serve their wine in that establishment!! Consider that a bottle of Alto Rouge costs on average R45 and at Primi Piatti they charge a ridiculous R125 for a bottle!!

Taking your own bottle of vino, where at least you have an option of taking a fine wine and not settling for menu options, seems to be the way forward. That is unless you identify which restaurants have got the balance right and offer fine, good value dining.

If you wish to support this belief and join a new vintage of wine lovers, then visit http://thecrusa.blogspot.com/.

[Paul]

I agree with you completely and while most of these places are not at the point where they constantly check the blogosphere to see what is being said about them, at least other bloggers take note and avoid these sorts of places ...

[David. Rich]

Great post. We as South Africans have a looong way to go when it comes to service, although Europe and the States arent shinig examples either. 2010 is coming quicker than we think and the restaurant industry had better buck their standards up, especially the high end market.