We had a devastating experience here last night. This was my second visit to Melisse; the first was in 2007, and every morsel that came out of the kitchen blew my mind. When we left for the restaurant I was actually clapping my hands with excitement. Initially we were treated beautifully, especially by the wonderful sommelier, who is frank, funny, and full of character. We ordered the 10-course menu and settled in with anticipation.
But it soon became clear that something was amiss in the kitchen. Courses began arriving more and more slowly, and two hours after our order went in, we politely inquired of the waiter whether everything was okay. We had received only four of our courses, which are tiny, even by French standards -- by then we had eaten an amuse consisting of a preparation of two halves of a cherry tomato; a soft-boiled egg; a half-ounce sliver of fish; an espresso-sized cup of corn soup; and a piece of foie gras no larger than a golf ball. Although we had arrived only mildly hungry, we were now starving; also, inexplicably, the servers had also removed our bread plates, and we were just sort of waiting, staring, beginning to feel neglected.
The waiter acknowledged that the kitchen was slow tonight. Twenty minutes later another course finally emerged. And then it was nearly 40 minutes until the servers put the meat course on the table -- two postage-stamp sized slices of wagyu beef. I looked around for the waiter -- was he not going to come over to talk to us about the course, perhaps review the ingredients in the garnishes or discuss the nature of the preparation or provenance of the ingredients? No; we were left to try to figure out what each thing was by taste. By now we had also finished our wine and the bottle had been removed from the table, but nobody inquired as to whether we might like something new to drink, We started wondering what was going on.
Then the maitre d' appeared and asked if we liked the course. I nodded, not wanting to mention the absent waiter, but my partner spoke up, quietly and politely reflecting that something strange was happening, because the service had slowed to a crawl. The maitre d' said that yes, it was a busy night. And I said, again politely and quietly, ""you might want to know, it was over 35 minutes waiting for just this course,"" gesturing at my iphone sitting on the seat next to me, which is the only clock I have.
His response was not to apologize or soothe. He shot back, ""You want to go back into the kitchen and see how hard they are working?"" and then turned on his heel and left our tableside. This was not a polite invitation to tour the kitchen, which I have done elsewhere, most recently at French Laundry. It was a defensive response. We were bewildered and consumed the course with our now-warm glasses of water. It was now over three hours since we arrived at the restaurant.
Moments later, Chef Citrin appeared at our table. I stupidly thought that perhaps he was there to help get our experience on the right track again. No. He raised his voice to us. He berated us for having a ""bad attitude."" Then he angrily told us to leave his restaurant.
I was dumbfounded. We tried to explain what had been happening, but he did not want to hear any of it. He was rude and insulting. I burst into tears, and the sommelier and the waiter milled around in the background, shooting me sympathetic glances. We got up and left, me crying my way out of the restaurant on what was to have been a special night.
Once or twice I have seen belligerent and abusive patrons be asked to leave a restaurant. We are not like that kind of patron, and this was nothing like what happened last night. We are seasoned, polite, appropriate adults who arrived eager to spend $1000 on an amazing meal and worship at the altar of a brilliant chef. Instead, we were abused, and 24 hours later I continue to feel as if I have been kicked in the face. I still can't quite believe it.
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