Four Seasons Debacle

Yukari has already documented our recent lackluster meal at the Four Seaons Maranouichi over at Fugu Diaries, but I thought I’d add my two cents.

We don’t normally eat in hotel resataurants (there are, of course, exceptions), but on this night, we wanted great service and familiar, though not spectacular, food in a beautiful setting. So, we hopped in a cab and set off to the Four Seasons Maranouchi.

We were graciously reseated after originally being put at a table right next to the entrance to the kitchen. But after that, the service took a bunch of weird turns. We both received menus and I was given the winelist. When I opened my menu, though, it had no prices on it. At first, I thought the restaurant had borrowed a page from high-end sushi joints: no prices anywhere. But, no, Yukari’s menu had prices on it. So they had given my menu to Yukari and vice versa. Personally, I think that having a copy of the menu without prices is a silly affectation in today’s world, but if you’re going to do it, at least get it right.

When the sommelier brought the first wine, there was another odd moment. He poured both of us wine to taste. When he did the same thing the second time, I asked him, jokingly, what he was going to do when my wife insisted it was corked and I claimed it was superb. The blank stare proved that irony is usually lost on a Japanese audience.

These snafus, along with the other screwups that Yukari writes about, made for a disappointing meal. A double disappointment, since Four Seasons is my hotel of choice when I travel and we’ve had some wonderful vacations at Four Seaons resorts. If the service in the restaurant is emblamatic of the service in general, the hotel’s overnight guests are probably disappointed as well.