A fabulous dinner at Per Se, $1,000 under budget
Adventures Of A Black Belt Sommelier
An incredible act of generosity at a world famous restaurant
Welcome back to adventures of a black belts family a have a story to share with you today that is the story of one of the most generous things a restaurant has ever done for a customer ever. And also the story of one of the greatest meals of my life. And it's appropriate that the backdrop to this is the seller at Romani County because that's part of the story. One day at my still wine store in Nashville, the distributor, the local distributor for the wines of Domingo Romani County called me and said that he'd actually been boarding some of his allocation of DRC for years and he was getting ready to send it to Zaki's to be auctioned. But if I wanted to buy it, he'd let me buy it instead of sending it to auction. I asked him what to give me the details and he emailed me or I guess his email existed at the time. Somehow he got me a list of the wines and the purchase price was $375,000. So I offered it this collection of wine to a couple of people who passed but then a customer in Dayton, Ohio said yes at $450,000. My profit on the sale was $75,000. I actually delivered a friend of mine, a mutual friend of mine of the buyer, and I delivered the wine in a Bentley convertible in the trunk of the wines that the trunk was heritage. The me drove to Ohio with this wine in my friend's Bentley convertible, which was certainly a stylish way to deliver this wine. We unloaded it in his wine cellar. He gave me a check. Well, he paid me in advance, obviously, and then I fixed dinner for the three of us that night. I don't remember what we drank, but I'm sure we drank something really great because he obviously was a very serious wine guy. So anyway, I just was thinking about this incredible sale that I'd made. The distributor told me that the $375,000 invoice was the largest single wine invoice ever in Tennessee at that point. I don't know if that's true. It's kind of hard to believe that it's true, but that's what he said. His father had the first wine wholesale license in Tennessee, so he would know. But anyway, about a week later, I emailed the buyer and said, "I can't just let you write me this check and not do anything to thank you other than fixing you dinner. Pick any restaurant in America and I will take you and your wife to dinner there." Unfortunately, for me, he picked per se in New York, which, of course, the chef and owner of per se is a friend of mine. So I said, "That'll be great." We agreed on a day and time, and I emailed Thomas Keller and said, "I'd like a table three on whatever the date was, and I want to have the greatest meal of our lives. This is someone who's traveled and eaten in a lot of great restaurants. What I would like is the greatest meal of our lives, and I don't want to see a check. I don't want to see a menu. I don't want to see a wine list. I just want you to plan the greatest meal of our lives for us. I gave him my credit card information, and I gave him a $7,500 budget for dinner for three, which in my world there's a lot of money. I don't think in Thomas's world, it's all that much, but I've sold there's a lot of money for dinner for three. And he said, "Okay." I gave him my credit card information and looked forward to dinner about a month later. Incidentally, about a week before we were going to meet for dinner, per se, some friends of mine, an older couple who were getting married, told me that they wish that I was going to be in New York that next week, because there was a party being thrown for them in honor of their betrothal, and they would love for me to come. I said, "Well, actually, I am in New York City on that night, and I'd love to come. Can I bring this couple with me?" They said, "Okay." And they gave me the dress of where the party was going to be. So before we went to dinner, per se, we went for a cocktail at this party, which was actually at the home of the penthouse apartment of the chairman of the board of the Time Warner Corporation. So you can imagine what kind of place this was and what kind of party it was. They were passing glasses of proof champagne and big tubs of patrosium, beluga, caviar, and it was completely over the top. And quite honestly, at that point, I probably didn't need to take this couple of dinner, per se, because being at this party was thanks enough, I believe. But anyway, then we had arranged a car. The car took us to the restaurant. When we sat down, there was a handwritten note from Thomas to each of us. Dear Hoyt, thank you so much for the honor of joining us for dinner right there. And each one of us had a variation on that. And we had dinner, fortunately for us, and I've never seen him do this before, but Thomas was in New York. He was at the restaurant that night. He wasn't in California. He was there. So he actually came out in between two courses, had a glass of wine. Well, he didn't have a glass of wine, but he came out sad with us and spent about five minutes talking to us. He was obviously really busy, but he spent about five minutes chatting with us. He actually arranged for one of the wines at dinner was supplied by an importer that I did a lot of business with at the time. One of the wines was in 1989, Henri Jaiet owned Romané Croparento, which is, you know, there's no telling, but I mean, a bottle of that wine today would be tens of thousands of dollars. I don't know, it might be, I don't know, if there is any 89 Croparento from Henri Jaiet left, it would be, there's no telling what it would be worth. But anyway, it's actually even more rare than Romané Conté. And even though it's only a pre-recruit, it's probably the, when the Henri Jaiet was alive and making it, it was probably the greatest wine in Burgundy in a good finish. So anyway, that was one of the wines, and that was no charge. There was no charge for the Croparento. We had a magnificent dinner, we had, you know, perfect wines at every course, it's perfect food, perfect service. We had the foie gras upright, we had the truffle upright, we had everything, it was absolutely glorious, glorious, glorious, you know, couldn't have possibly have been better. You know, I've eaten in a lot of great restaurants, you know, like it could not have possibly have been better. That tie evolved for French launder, you know, you named the Russian. Joel Robachon, you named the Russian, it couldn't have been better. When we were finished, there was an handwritten, another handwritten, no promise from him thanking us for joining him for dinner. And we went back to the hotels, and we weren't staying at the same hotel, but the car took us back to where we were staying, I don't remember where I stayed, but, and flew back to Nashville the next day, and then I waited for the credit card, credit card bill to come. This, you know, was it going to be $7,500, or was it going to be $7,500 plus a tip before it was going to be? And honestly, if it had been $10,000, I would have been surprised, but I would felt like I'd gotten a deal because probably the one that won bottle of wine was worth $10,000. I'd have a restaurant on my list. Well, when my credit card bill came, he charged me $6,500. A thousand dollars less than the budget I gave. And if you want to know why Thomas Keller is so successful, that is why. Because he is the most humble, the most generous, the smartest, the wittiest, most creative with real technique, grounded technique, chef, certainly I've ever worked with, and I've worked with a lot of great chefs. But the idea that he could, that, you know, it's not, he doesn't need to make $1,000 off my dinner party. He's doing very well. He would rather over-deliver and undercharge. So with the budget $7,500, he enormously over-delivered for $6,500. Imagine. Thank you for tuning into Adventures of a Bightwelt Soleil. We appreciate your support and interest. If you think about it and you're so disposed, share our podcasts with your friends. And again, I appreciate it very much. [BLANK_AUDIO]