An amazing restaurant check
Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2010 4:02 pm
While eating my way through Spain in July, I had the most fair minded bill I have ever paid. We were at Etxebarri, which is the restaurant that Bourdain did a segment from that grills/smokes pretty much everything. The meal was easily the best of my 3 weeks of dining. Last year we had a tasting menu that obviously was a set price. This year we ordered al la carte, 7 courses. When the bill came, at first we couldn't make it out. What happened was the kitchen took into consideration what we had ordered, then portioned the course to the amount he considered the proper amount to make our meal correct. The bill was adjusted to the percentage of the course we were served.....pretty much blew our mind. We were charged .5 -.6 -.7 for three of the courses, and similarly for others. We would have had no idea what a regular sized portion would have been, so we assumed we were paying the menu prices, which we would have gladly paid.......A side note to this. I have only been there one time before, and when I made my reservation, I mentioned it would be my wife's 50th birthday. To my surprise, for dessert, the entire staff came out with a beautiful cake with all the candles, singing happy birthday is Spanish. (made me look pretty damn good) I made no request at all for anything special.....another point.....Their wine list was marked up from retail no more than 20%. I was familiar with quite a few of their wines, and had been drinking them on our travels, so I definitely knew their retail price. I made a comment about this to them, and they said it would be unfair to charge too much for "good" wines because they enhance the dining experience , which is what they are about. The final cherry on top was an E-mail I received from Lennox telling me how much they enjoyed taking care of us, and hoped everything was to our satisfaction. I have never had a more positive experience in a restaurant in my life.
