Error garrafal: les sirven un vino de más de 1.500 euros cuando habían encargado uno de 15

Alfonso de la Mata

Los camareros del icónico restaurante Balthazar, en Manhattan (Nueva York), cometieron el error de servir a una joven pareja un Mouton Rothschild de 2.000 dólares (1.690 euros) cuando habían encargado un Pinot Noir de tan solo 18 (15 euros), confirmó el dueño del mentidero, Keith McNally, en su cuenta de Instagram.

La confusión se produjo cuando los camareros vertieron ambos caldos en sendos decantadores idénticos y los sirvieron en mesas equivocadas.

El Mouton Rothschild, el vino más caro de la bodega del restaurante, había sido encargado por cuatro empresarios de Wall Street que aparentemente no notaron el error. De hecho, según el jefe de sala, el anfitrión de la reunión  elogió la pureza del vino más barato de la carta, mientras que la pareja afortunada «fingió estar bebiendo un vino caro», escribió McNally.

Los camareros se dieron cuenta de su metedura de pata a los cinco minutos y telefonearon a su  jefe para comentarle el fallo. McNally se presentó en el restaurante y por un momento pensó en no revelar la verdad, pero, finalmente, así lo hizo.

Los empresarios a los que habían servido el vino barato no reconocieron no haberse percatado de la confusión, todo lo contrario. «Sabía que no era un Mouton Rothschild», dijo uno de ellos.

Por otro lado, la pareja de jóvenes dijo que era como si el banco les hubiera hecho un ingreso equivocado a su favor y pudieron terminar la botella a un precio irrisorio.

Finalmente, fue el restaurante el que asumió todos los gastos por el error.

 

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One night at Balthazar four Wall Street businessmen ordered the restaurant’s most expensive red wine: a $2000 bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild. One of the two managers transferred the Bordeaux into a decanter at a waiter’s station. Simultaneously, a young couple ordered the restaurant’s cheapest red wine, a $18 Pinot Noir, which they wanted pouring into a decanter. These two very different wines were now in identical decanters. Mistaking the $18 decanted wine for the $2000 Rothschild, the first manager formally poured the cheap wine to the businessmen. According to the manager, the host considered himself a wine connoisseur, and showing off to his guests, tasted the cheap wine before bursting into raptures about its ‘purity’. The young couple who ordered the $18 Pinot Noir were inadvertently served the $2000 Chateau Mouton Rothschild. On taking their first sips of what they believed was cheap wine, they jokingly pretended to be drinking an expensive wine and parodied all the mannerisms of a wine snob. Five minutes later the two managers discovered their error and, horrified, phoned me at home. I rushed to Balthazar. The businessmen’s celebratory mood was clearly enhanced by the wine they had mistakenly thought was the restaurant’s most expensive. This put me in a dilemma: whether to come clean and admit the manager’s mistake, or allow him to continue drinking the cheap wine in blissful ignorance. Taking the latter route would certainly be the easiest. Also the cheapest. It was unthinkable at this point to pull the real Bordeaux from the young couple’s table. Besides, they were having too much fun acting out drinking a $2000 bottle of wine. I decided to veer from my normal behaviour, and tell both parties the truth. The Wall St. businessman responded by saying, «I THOUGHT that wasn’t a Mouton Rothschild!» The others at the table nodded their heads in servile agreement. The young couple were ecstatic by the restaurant’s mistake, and told me it was like the bank making an error in their favour. The trouble was, it was me who was down $2000, not the bank. Both parties left Balthazar happy that night, but the younger of the two left happier.

Una publicación compartida de Keith McNally (@keithmcnallynyc) el

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