Buy house wine in restaurants and drink the best at home, says top critic
DINERS should order the cheapest wine on the menu and only drink expensive bottles at home because restaurants are such a rip-off, a food critic warns.
Jay Rayner said he ‘refused to be intimidated by a wine list’ and recalled an incident when a waiter once tried to shame him after he attempted to order the cheapest pinot noir, which was priced at £49, on the menu.
His remarks at the Cheltenham Literature Festival add to years of criticism of the huge mark-ups on drinks in restaurants. Restaurateurs have told Decanter magazine that an industry standard profit margin on wine is around 70 per cent, although this can vary considerably.
Within the trade, a mark-up of around three times what the restaurant paid to buy the wine is often deemed acceptable, but it is not uncommon to see it multiplied by four, five or even more times.
Rayner, 0, a broadcaster as well as a food and restaurant critic, said the incident that irritated him happened at City Social, a Michelin-starred restaurant in the City of London where diners can pay
‘I refuse to be intimidated’
up to £2,990 for a bottle of red. ‘I refuse to be intimidated by a wine list,’ he added.
‘Wine lists are fraught with problems but mostly because of the b******* spouted by wine connoisseurs.
‘They irritate me profoundly. I was in City Social, and the wine list was stratospheric and I asked the waiter if he could find me a bottle of pinot noir for under £ 0.
‘He looked at me as if I was some kind of scum on his heel and he couldn’t so I then called him back and said there’s one for £49, you didn’t even know your own wine list. If a wine list irritates you, just buy the cheapest on the list and tell them all to p*** off.’
During questions Rayner added: ‘Drink the house wine in the restaurant and the expensive wine at home.’
Restaurateurs claim they need to make money from wine because profit margins on food are tight or non-existent and they need to pay for wine glasses, glass-washing machines and the wine waiter’s salary. City Social did not comment.