Hi everyone, welcome to potluck food talks. Today we're going to talk about, I don't know, suggest a topic, Phil. What are we going to talk about today? It's gonna catch me off guard like that. We're going to talk about Copenhagen again. Ah, okay. Okay, about my recent trip to Copenhagen. Yeah, because there's more to say about Copenhagen, I think. Yeah, and I also wanted to share my experience.
You know, man, I had bad experiences in the two most hyped places of my lineup of restaurants, which were Beast and Bar. You know, both of these places are places that chefs talk about and recommend and hype and everything. And these were the two that didn't work out and all the other that were for me previously unknown places work perfectly well. I'm not sure if it's something psychologically related, for sure it is, with expectations.
And I actually can pretty well elaborate on that in the case of Beast. So like, I want to hear your opinion on this. So, how could I put this? I once went to a lecture with Laura Vazquez. She's like an outstanding sensory analysis researcher at Vazquilinari Center. And she was kind of explaining. She used to work at big beer companies and they would get like consumer insights through different methodologies.
And her job was to translate all those insights into the marketing team, you know, so that the marketing team actually empathizes and delivers the messages that the end user, consumer or client wants to understand or have, or like the key messages. So I think what happened at Beast, there was like a super strong discrepancy between the messages I got and the experience I had. And that's why I was unable to enjoy it. I mentioned a few episodes ago that I was really wanting to go to Beast.
It was actually the only place I was revisiting my second time in Copenhagen. And I was going there for the second time. The first time I was working with a miserable salary and just kind of surviving there with the few money I had to. And I had like a super nice experience. And I remember having one of the best pizzas in my life. This time what happened is, so I make my booking and just after the booking, I get a newsletter signed by Puglisi.
And it said something like, Beast and Mirabel are responding to the trend in Copenhagen, restaurants seeing of lowering prices due to recent economic challenges. We're committing to making the restaurants accessible to a variety of customers, including families and students. So we want to make everything cheap. And I was like, OK, nice, because Copenhagen is kind of like an expensive city.
We were on a budget, you know, like we didn't want to any Michelin star restaurant just to smart, casual, smart choice places, you know, like picking good places to have nice experiences for a good price. So and I was actually also transmitting this message to my companion and the strip. And it was like, yeah, this is going to be the cheapest place and the trip, you'll see. And why a pizza place? You'll see. It's a you know, it was all like me, like kind of promoting the place.
So we arrive and the host, you know, he shows us our table and gives us the menu and the menu. There were only like two options. And he says, you can choose between this and this. And he leaves and we look at each other like, what is this? And we see and there was menu one menu two. And we're like, OK, and we see the price and it was not like cheap at all. And we're like, OK, OK, let's go for the menu. OK, let's pick this one.
Then another waiter comes and you have to choose a pizza for the menu. OK, there's a QR code. We enter the QR code, check for the pizza. My companion chooses one. I choose another one. OK, these are our pizza. No, no, no, you have to choose one for both. So like already at this point, everything was like, I'm very uncomfortable, you know. Like, OK, and we choose and the menu starts. And then I suddenly realize, you know, where the pizzas were, that was the a la carte.
You could go through the QR code. And I really had this feeling that we were like induced to buy a menu through a cheap sales tactic. And that really made me unable to enjoy the experience. I never came here for a fucking menu. And would I have been communicated properly, I would have done what I wanted to do. I actually had a draft to write an article about the pizzas because I just to train my foot writing and I thought this was a cool exercise and then suddenly food starts to arrive.
It was a lot of food. To be honest, there was nothing spectacular except for Stracciatella, which was fucking amazing, by the way. It was a stracciatella with pickled mushrooms and sage. Super nice. And everything else, I mean, cold cuts. We were from Spain. Vegetables. Sorry, I don't care if there were grown by Sicilian widow with just one eye. There were just nice vegetables. We've worked in vegetable dresser. And then the pizza arrived. We were already full. It was really not what I wanted.
And then when the bill comes, it was more expensive than the experience we had the night before at Marfan Ven. And for me, it was like there's no way we're paying more here than for what we had before. It's not comparable. It was just so much better, like really well thought dishes, like not rusty, like almost fine dining. And my companion looks at me and tells me this is a joke.
At the moment we were eating, I see like, oh, look, there is a recognition that this is one of the top 10 pizzas in Europe. And my companion tells me, and here we are eating cold cuts. And also on top of that, like just two days later, Puglisi posts on his Instagram making like a big deal about his menu with a QR code. Oh, this is half menu, half QR code. And I was like, to summarize, food was good, service fucked us. You know, like would have the service communicated properly.
And I would have really enjoyed the experience and actually choose what I wanted to choose. A lot of people tells me like people expect you to know this kind of thing. You should have known, like you should ask to clarify if there is a menu or a card or this kind of thing. And I partly agree on that. But I mean, like if I go to a restaurant, I don't want to be proactive looking to not being fucked. Like, I don't know what are your thoughts on this whole thing?
No, totally. I mean, like I don't agree with the whole sort of like, oh, you should know. It's like, no, fuck you. Like, this is not some weird speak easy where I have to give the password to get in, you know. And it's like, even if you know what the restaurant is about and if you arrive, you are kind of like giving yourself into the hands of the service. You're not suspicious of anything.
Like, you're just kind of trusting in the experience, you know, and you can know that this is a pizza place and stuff. But if then somebody comes and tells you, hey, you have to choose one of these, then you're going to be like, oh, well, if the waiter, if the host tells me this, then I guess that's what it is. You know, then maybe I made a mistake or whatever, you know, that that guy, that guy had one job. He had to show us the table and give us the menu.
That's it. What would he give us the menu without saying anything? I would have found my way to the QR code, you know, like just one job and he fucked it up, man. It's just it's super unfortunate, you know, because the way that front of house communicates to guests and stages, the whole experience for people is so important.
You know, it should be like, you know, sometimes kind of like talking to you like you're stupid, you know, like you arrive and I'm going to make everything super easy and super clear for you. You know, just like so that for you, it feels really, really easy. It's like, hey, this is exactly it. I'm going to explain to you in two sentences everything that you need to know. And I think that's how it should be.
You know, like I like why leave your guest in like this weird sort of like, you know, a state of being like, well, should I do this? Should I do that? Can I do this? Can I not do that? It shouldn't be like that. And also, like, I don't know if this was actually like a cheap sales tactic, like from, I don't know, like a fake watch smuggler in a corner. But like, if you are listening to this, the guy who attended us, you know, like the host, there are like faces on a sales process.
And if you jump one of those faces, even if you close the sale, even if at the end of the day, you were have like a quantitative indicator that you close a sale. If you didn't do it correctly, you will have this kind of results. Me talking trash about your place and your work. There are many methodologies and approaches to close a sale. But I think you didn't respond to any of them. Just check that out. That's very true. That's a really good point to make.
It's like even if you make the sale, if you don't, if you don't do it correctly, you're going to have like a bad impact. You know, just the number, the number that you've like sold a menu is not worth, you know, your customers, your guests having a bad experience. And it's a shame. Like I went to last time I went to base was like, what, 2015 or something like that. And it wasn't like that at all. It was kind of what you would expect. You arrive, you get a menu.
You're like, hey, guys, what do you want to eat? Do you want to eat some pasta? You want to eat some small dishes? You want to eat some now? We want to eat pizza. OK. But like before we get a burrata. OK, cool. And easy. And you order and that's exactly what happens. Yeah. For me, that's super basic. You know, what did you describe like a super basic service dialogue? It's like if you and I go to humo. Yeah. Like, yeah, just just that.
And I mean, like I completely respect Puglisi's work and the work that the guys at Bistup, it was just like it happened the way it happened, you know, and it had the result it had. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, the the next day we went to bar and in bar day, you could argue if these guys did something wrong or not, or if it was my fault or not, that that could be something to discuss or not. But the next day, there was no question they fucked it up by the book.
It was like a like a real mistake, like a big one, you know. And I took it better, you know, because if you do a mistake, I'm empathetic, you know, like I'm I'm not like a foodie douchebag idiot. Like I didn't clean the breadcrumbs of their cars too. Debatable, Eric. Debatable. But this is what happened. So we arrived. In this case, we knew this was going to be the most expensive dinner of the trip. So we were pretty supposed to that. That's all.
Yeah. It's the old Noma space and all of that sort of stuff, you know. We were calibrated that we were going to spend a lot of money on this one for our standards. OK. And it was like, OK, let's go this. Let's do this. So we go for the four course menu and we were there waiting. And suddenly we realize we were talking like something happened. Is that suddenly we realize 50 minutes had passed.
Five zero five. And it was like, well, yeah, it was like, you know, like we were really calm, you know, like chilling, like whatever. What happened? I don't know. Maybe someone had a heart attack and there is an ambulance in the back of the kitchen. We were like doing this kind of jokes, you know, like whatever. At some point, I was playing chess on my phone, you know, like, oh, chill. Then suddenly the second course of the menu arrives and we're like, oh, wow, something really happened.
I forgot to say something like they tell us like, you want to go to for the taste of me, OK, pork or fish? And the fish is like a nice sea bass. Of course, fish, sure, sea bass. Anyways, also, I have to say here that the food was fucking amazing. You know, like we had a tartare, fucking amazing. Then the sea bass arrives. The sea bass, I have to say, I don't know if this is a thing of style or for me, I would say it's technically wrong, in my opinion.
The fish skin was carbonized black and it had like herbs on top. I mean, I like rose flavors. I love to eat fish skin. And that one was unedible. Like I actually a friend of mine told me, oh, you're at bar. That's a place where they burn everything. Oh, really? Yeah, your master, he was like, ah, that's a place where everything is burned black. What? Really? Grilled like that. No, and in this case, the fish, so you could argue that's a matter of style or not.
Some people have told me, yeah, that's very Nordic. OK, whatever. I don't know. You sent me a photo. It was very black. I don't know how you like I like dark stuff also, you know, but like, I don't know how you can eat that. In my opinion, that's a mistake, technically. Some people could argue about that or not. But the next thing was like a dice of raw fish inside.
So that's sorry, mate, like you this is not properly executed, even though like it was the whole fish without the bones, you know, like they open the fish and then close it again, something like that. But there, you know, like my companion didn't want to eat the raw piece. I didn't have a problem with that. So it was black on the outside and just like not cooked on the inside or? Yeah, there was a piece that was raw, not like raw, you know, like I ate it.
But even so, it was very good fish and it was very delicious. You know, dessert also very well. And at that point, already with the conversation and everything, we we suddenly like come up to the conclusion. These guys actually forgot the first course. Probably right, like because, you know, nobody came to say anything. Like in this 50 minutes, I think they just ask us if we wanted to drink something else or fill it up bread. But there was nothing going on there.
Perhaps they came once in 50 minutes. So suddenly we say like, guys, you forgot the first course. So could you make us the discount? And suddenly everybody was, oh, sorry, this, that. Everybody was paying attention to us. Suddenly, once we said that, they fucked up. So the bill arrives and they said we're going to discount the 33% of the of the bill. And we OK, nice. We were like we were pretty full. So actually, this wasn't nice. You know, like we're paying less.
And this was kind of like an expensive place. When something like that happens in my restaurant, I send a little something, you know? That's because if we wanted the discount or to send us the appetizer after dessert, Of course. So anyways, bill arrives and it was more expensive than we thought initially with the 33% discount than it was. What is this? Turns out that this pork or fish, fish are like an extra of 50 euros per person. And and that was a question. Pork or fish?
You know, like this was actually the same waitress that forgot us for a whole hour. Even so, we weren't obsessed or annoyed. You know, it was just an anecdote. And that's it. The day before, I'd be I was annoyed. Yeah, I mean, that's just again, just like a really unfortunate lack of communication or streamlining. You know, how can you just forget a table for an hour? Even if it's a big restaurant?
I don't know how big the bar is, you know, but even if it's a big restaurant and you have a waiter who's responsible for a certain amount of tables, right? Normally, I don't know how they run their business, but normally. And he has an overview of what's going on. And if there's a mistake being made from his side or from the kitchen side, it can also happen, you know, sometimes you send out a dish and you say, hey, this is for table two. And the guy takes to table three instead.
You cross off table two and then you send table three. And he's like, but they already have their dish. And you're like, well, what the fuck? I didn't send it there. So there's like, yeah, they told us they told us that probably something like that happened, like exactly something like that. And I also thought something like that. Yeah, but it's like, well, it can happen. That's fine. You know, it's not fine, you know. But but you need to sort it out. You know, you need to see it.
You see me complaining here and everything. But in a restaurant, I almost never complain. You know, just yesterday we were we were like having pinches. And there was like an ensaladilla that was fermented. It was acid. You know, like we were like, OK, we're not eating this anymore. But we didn't say anything. We paid it. And when we left, you know, there is people that make a big mess about whatever. Or hey, we've been waiting here for 40 minutes. What's going on?
Like, I don't want to create that kind of atmosphere while I'm eating or going out. You know, like, yeah, yeah, for sure. I'm the same. Like for me to complain, like actually like complain in a restaurant. Like if I wait, like, you know, like if nothing has come out for 40 minutes, I would be sort of like, hey, we've been waiting quite a long time. Like, you know, what's going on? Like, which would just be nice to know. You know, maybe something went wrong.
Like, you don't have to be shitty about it. I think it's totally fine to say something if you're not being shitty. For me to actually complain in a restaurant, you have to be really fucking rude to me, you know? Oh, yeah, yeah. You have to really you have to be really fucked up or be really rude to me. I remember like one of the last times was when I was in Mexico and I like a waiter wanted to charge you more for speaking English or something like that.
But he just kind of like he just gave me the bill. And and then he was like and when I was paying, he like, like tapped on the bill and he was like tip tip 20 percent. Yeah. And I was like, what the fuck? What did you just say to me? You know, like in Spanish, you know, because obviously he thought we were tourists. Never replied in Spanish. And I was like, excuse me. And he was like, and I was like, man, do you think this is acceptable to talk to your guests like that?
And he was like, oh, no, senior, no, just kind of like. And I was like, no, it doesn't matter where your customers are from. You can't talk to people like that. You know, and yeah, I'm the same. Yeah, I recently for the for the first time in my life, I returned a dish and said, I'm not going to pay for this. You know, but you don't have to be shitty about it. I have to be shitty about it. Mistakes can happen and stuff.
But like, you know, with the stuff that you are describing, it just feels like I don't know, I might be wrong. But for me, it feels like for what was good service for both cases. Yeah. Yeah. But like the thing is that it's it really feels like just especially with based kind of like, you know, when places become too risky and they start to not really care about people anymore because it's kind of like, well, people come anyway. Right. And it's kind of fast, fast, fast in and out.
You know, I've been in places like that. You do whatever and people will come in anyway. So to just don't value delivering a proper service. Yeah. Especially in the service. Maybe maybe Copenhagen is entering a little bit of a Paris phase. Yeah. You know, where where it's been this Mecca. And now there's places that are busy all the time because there's a lot of tourism and stuff. And then the quality just kind of drops off. I mean, don't get me wrong. There's amazing places in Copenhagen.
Copenhagen is an incredible city for food in general. And I would return to both of these places. No question. I mean, for sure. It's just what happened. Yeah. But it's a it's a good sort of like experience to have to reflect on customer experience. And also from the point of view of a restaurateur of kind of like, well, it's not as easy as cooking food and putting it down in front of you. It's not as easy as that.
You have to think about the whole experience, you know, and I'm not talking about a fucking enigma alchemist level sort of like experience of like, oh, you do this and then you dad and you think about this. But there are there are many forces that make a restaurant experience what it is. You know, like there is like cleaning included, like decoration, music, ambiance, lights, the way the tone, the people talk, the design of the dish, where of the table. It's like it's all a package.
You know, it's like designing an app. Right. If you design an app, you know, you think about, well, if I open up this app, what is going to be my experience? How easy is it for me to access certain things? How comfortable is it? I think a restaurant is a lot like that, you know, where it's kind of like, as soon as you come into the restaurant, how's the experience? Is it like you have to wait a long time? Is there maybe a problem there?
You know, like, is the turnover of the tables, is it smooth? Do people have to wait? How do you access the menu? Is the menu easy to understand? That's also a thing that people don't think about a lot. How the menu is set up. So many restaurants that I see. Also, like when I start working there, I look at the menu and I'm like, well, we have to change this. It's not. People think why you have to start this and you have to make us like, yeah, but it's it's just not comfortable.
Yeah. Well, what you're talking about user experience, which is the discipline that designs apps. And it also applies to anything. Also restaurants. We made an episode on user experience with an expert designer. But yeah, these kind of things. When I was telling this story to Xander, the producer, he told me, yeah, it's like when you're buying one of your best products that you love online. And suddenly the, you know, the credit card cash out section doesn't work.
You start hating the product just because of that. You know, like these kind of things have an impact on on your perception of the product for sure. That's it for this week's episode of potluck food talks. If you like what we're doing, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok as potluck food talks. The show airs every Monday.