Yes, I know I’m behind in the soufflé project. It’s been two weeks and I haven’t had the moment to go again. Apologies. And now baseball season is coming and I’ll barely have time to sleep. We’ll just have to see how it goes. It may be fall before I re-embark. In the interim I have the Amish Friendship Bread that Baby Ox gave me, and it should be fun to play with. I’ll report.
Meanwhile, I have another kind of food rant.
I went to Vin De Set on Saturday afternoon for a bite and a glass of wine, and was severely disappointed by the service, which is unfortunate, given the restaurant’s reputation and, well, resources.
The posted hours said they opened 4:00, and I showed up around 4:20. The hostess would not seat me in the rooftop “dining section,” but instead tried to seat me in the bar. One cannot see the celebrated view from the bar, so I took a stool seat in the bar’s patio section, even though it was more in the glaring late afternoon sun than I wished. I asked her, the hostess, if she was expecting all the rooftop dining room tables to be filled within the next half hour (there have to be 20 of those) and she said with conviction, “Yes, we’ve been getting calls all day.” I hesitated. I really didn’t want to sit in the bar area. She just stood there. She seemed a little exasperated. She clearly didn’t care at all to try to make me happy. “Oh, I don’t know if I want to stay…,” I said. But I was going to a play later and really didn’t want to make a drive elsewhere. Finally, I just sat at the least sunny table, and waited to see how fast the dining section filled up.
The wait staff was so busy setting up for dinner that it was easy for them to overlook us bar flies, over in the ghetto section. They were clearly dedicated to getting things right over in dining, which is of course a good thing, but to the neglect of those of us already there? OK. But my waiter didn’t even know the appetizer special when I asked, and had to go ask the chef. Clearly, even though the door said they opened at 4:00, they weren’t ready at 4:00. Why? Why could the door not say, “Bar open at 4:00, Dining at 5:00?”
No one came in at all until 5:17. This means I could have had an hour to eat, nearly. At 5:31 a 4-top and 8-top were filled; by 5:35, another 4-top. By then I had lingered over my sirloin burger and Pinot Noir as long as I need, considering the less than great time I was having, and guess what? All the other tables were still empty. Only three were inhabited. I really took this as a slap in the face. Was my business not important enough for me to be treated well? Hadn’t the hostess told me quite clearly that all the tables would be full within half an hour? I’ve been in Vin De Set with other people and received excellent service, even late at night. This was my first excursion there alone. Disappointed.
Perhaps relevant is that I’ve had semi-similar experience at the sister restaurant, 1111 Mississippi. If I go in early (though during the posted open hours) the staff is not ready to serve me. There, I usually do sit at the bar, because I like the bar staff, and it’s friendly down there (though lately there’s been more cigarette smoke than I can take). But still, if we’re open, shouldn’t we be fully open?
I’ve done a bit of solo, drop-in dining in Manhattan, and have not encountered this ghettoization. Even at Babbo, though I had to take a seat at the bar, the service was great and I was made to feel fully included in the little community that is that restaurant. Yes, that is it – at Vin de Set, dining alone, refused one of the several empty tables in the “proper” dining section, I felt, well, alone and unattended. Is this what Ivy means to do?
Relevantly, on Friday I had recommended the restaurant to a colleague at work, and he took his wife. He said they were seated in the bar as well, and had a very hard time getting someone to wait on them. He finally had to go off on foot in search of a waiter. I asked him if he was offered a complimentary treat, and he answered in the negative.
I will say that the pomme frites with garlic butter dipping sauce were grand – what could be more decadent? And I liked the construction of the burger, with it’s béchamel-ish interior/exterior painted on and the mysteriously flavored fried onion topping. It’s just that, well, I don’t like to feel sad when I’m dining alone. I go out alone to dine so that I can feel more a part of something than I feel eating home alone. Vin De Set definitely did not provide that feeling for me. Given the genre it aspires to, it should. Maybe they need a dedicated bar wait staff, instead of asking the rushed and frantic dining waiters to try to manage the bar diners while also setting up for dinner? Maybe they should somehow really be ready to serve when they open? Maybe, when service does fall short they could consider trying to make up for it somehow? Can anyone say amuse bouche?
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