“COULD I have some butter with this bread please?” I asked staring at the four dry slices in front of me.
In Manchester, where the company has had to reduce the price because we won’t have the wool pulled over our eyes, the restaurant is only ever half full, and there is no excuse for this behaviour.
“No, you may only have butter with cheese after your steak,” said the waitress from East European lands.
“Is that the only legal way here for butter?” I asked, adopting the character of Mr Acid Wit of Irony Avenue, Sarcasmville, United Contemptdom.
“It is. Butter is for the cheeseboard and nothing else,” said the waitress sternly.
“Oh go on, just an itsy-bitsy butter ball for me to spread on my bread and make it tasty.”
“No.”
“No butter for a customer?”
“No.”
“What can I put on the bread then?”
“We have oil.”
“Olive oil and balsamic vinegar?”
“No, we have groundnut oil. And red wine vinegar.”
“Could I have some olive oil instead?”
“No.”
“Is the olive oil only to be served with cheese and butter? After the steak.”
“No, we don’t serve it.”
I drifted off, and found myself in a sketch show. The Two Ronnies.
“Four candles.”
“Four candles?”
“No, fork 'andles. 'Andles for forks.”
I re-focused.
“Do you want the groundnut oil?” asked the waitress.
I said yes, because I felt the next ice age might come around before this was resolved. I had visions of glaciers advancing down Cross Street through an apocalyptic Manchester and me saying: “Could I have some butter with this bread?”
I’d repeat this as the National Football Museum was levelled and The Printworks was crushed.
A long wait - Manchester Apocalypse
“No.” my waitress would say as The Arndale was riven into shards and the Royal Exchange went dark (and cold) forever and ever. Amen.
So it was the groundnut oil for me.
The tasteless groundnut oil that made the bread slick and flavourless.
“And what do you want to order for your meal?” asked a second waitress.
I was out of bodying by now.
I recalled how I once went to Glastonbury and walked up the Tor. Halfway up this very, very steep hill was a sign leaning back at 45 degrees on the sole path to the top. It read ‘To the top’. It was such a needless sign I laughed for a week.
Packed out - with tables. Mind the gap.
The waitresses words were like the sign. Needless.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” I said, “I’m going to go with a starter of green salad and walnuts and a main of steak and fries with that famous sauce.”
“Do you want the steak, blue, rare, medium or well-done?” said the waitress, before pausing, to add, just in case I tried it on, “We only do the steak this way because that is the French way and we are a French restaurant.”
“Rare,” I said defeated.
The salad was a pile of leaves with some nuts and dressing. It was utterly unremarkable. It was like a bus ride on a drizzly day through a Crosby Homes housing estate to your destination, a blur between points of reference.
Salad - a trip round the houses
The steak, the 'L'Entrecôte', was beautiful. The sauce that caps it was fine too. If you finish your first portion of steak you are given some more: this is the L'Entrecôte' gimmick. Or maybe it's because the steak could not possibly fit on the most ludicrously small main course plates in the world – seven inches diameter maximum.
The fries were poor, hard and spear-sharp. If you’d put flights on them and found a dartboard you could have had a game. One hundred and eighty with the edible arrows.
Tiny plate filled
The wine glasses came in two sizes.
The ones already placed on the tables were tiny, thimbles with stems, if you asked you got a bigger one but only if you looked really closely. The bottle of 2006 Medoc, Chateau La Chandelliere at £36 was pricey but fabulous, full of character. A subsequent glass of the house Bordeaux at £3.95 was thin and harsh.
The handsome exterior of the former Manchester and Salford Bank from 1842
There is no choice with the starters and mains but there are eighteen dessert choices, an illogic that defies belief. On two recent visits I had the vacherin du Relais (meringues and cream) for £4.95 to compare.
“Is this squirty cream on the top here?” I'd asked another of the all female staff on that first occasion.
“Yes,” she'd said, “our Chantilly cream machine is broken?”
“Shouldn’t you have told me?” I'd said.
“We hope it will be fixed soon,” she'd said avoiding the question.
On the second occasion it had been fixed. This marginally made an average dessert better.
Meringue Du Goo
After the meal that last time I mulled over the experience.
This is a re-review of Le Relais de Venise 'L'Entrecôte', a year after my first review.
I wanted to return to mark the fact they’ve reduced the price from a set £21 to £17 for the obligatory starter and main, and to see if the place had grown on me.
It hasn’t.
Le Relais de Venise ‘L’Entrecote’ remains one of the world’s oddest dining experiences. The tables are uncomfortably packed together, the menu design is sixth form, the food limitations are maverick, the glasses are school canteen, the service is inflexible.
I was at new place Cibo in Didsbury recently and they provided for my twelve year old son an off-the-menu minestrone soup. His recently fitted braces were hurting him and he wanted something gentle such as soup. They were pleased to oblige.
L’Entrecote won’t even give you butter with bread.
I would love to go on a customer service training day with the L’Entrecote HR team.
9am: How to say ‘no’ to a customer without appearing apologetic. 10am: How to fit tables together very, very closely ensuring that ‘personne obèse’ feel embarrassed. 11am: Why no choice is the best choice apart from desserts. Noon: Why loads of choice is better than no choice with desserts. Lunch: Set menu.
The only excuse (and then not really) at L'Entrecote for the limited menu and the squashed-in tables and the relentless adherence to ‘no butter’ rules is if the place were packed every day as it appears to be - unfathomably - in London, Paris and New York.
In Manchester, where the company has had to reduce the price because we won’t have the wool pulled over our eyes, the restaurant is only ever half full and there is no excuse for this behaviour - amusing though it can be stuck in its dogma.
So do I find any virtue in this truculent disdain for the niceties of modern restaurant dining?
Nope.
“But it's so French!” apologists exclaim.
So is the guillotine but I'm not going to get nostalgic over that either.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter here @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
ALL SCORED CONFIDENTIAL REVIEWS ARE IMPARTIAL AND PAID FOR BY THE MAGAZINE.
Le Relais de Venise 'L'Entrecôte'
Rating: 10.75/20
Food: 5.75/10 (salad 5, steak 8, fries 5, meringue 5, bread 6, butter n/a)
Service: 3
Ambience: 2
