NO SOUFFLÉ FOR YOU!
UES bistro has staff Google ‘unknowns’
This place doesn’t let just any Yahoo in.
A posh Upper East Side restaurant’s door policy is so strict that staff are required to Google any guests they don’t recognize — and make sure they’re rich or famous enough to grace the dining room, according to employees and a document obtained by The Post.
Hosts at Fleming by Le Bilboquet, a chic 20-seat eatery on Madison Avenue and East 62nd Street, have to track e-mailed reservation requests, then “pull up each unknown guest on google,” according to a page-long guide titled “Fleming Hostess Reservation Protocol.”
The Web-check policy is strictly to keep out the riff-raff, workers said Thursday.
“Yes, we Google people,” said one waiter, who asked to remain anonymous. “We want to keep the restaurant for special people only.”
The worker added: “There are more rich than famous people coming in but we get Robert De Niro, Paul McCartney, Ivanka Trump. We want to maintain a certain environment for our customers, rich people, even if it means we’re slow.”
Any request for a reservation at the hot spot — a spin-off of legendary Upper East Side French bistro Le Bilboquet — needs to be discussed with “Alex,” the manager, say the written guidelines.
A second employee, who works in the kitchen, said anyone who tries to make a reservation and isn’t deemed acceptable after being Googled doesn’t get a call back.
Asked what made someone acceptable, the worker simply said: “Rich.”
A Fleming representative, Josh Valsto, admitted potential guests are Googled, but denied that it’s done to refuse seats to people who aren’t rich and famous.
“It is preposterous that we would only accept wealthy people,” he told The Post.
But when asked about the statements by multiple employees regarding the policy, he said, “people like to talk.”
Fleming does have some highend owners. Billionaire Ronald Perelman and famed French restaurateur Philippe Delgrange co-opened the eatery last year.
Other restaurants in town have been known to Internetstalk customers in order to give them a more personalized dining experience.
High-end restaurant Eleven Madison Park has presented diners celebrating special occasions with mementos that draw from their own lives — leaving tables gobsmacked at the seemingly psychic souvenirs.
One Post reporter recently celebrating a birthday at the three-star Michelin restaurant was presented with a mock newspaper that included customized articles featuring biographical details and tailored to their interests.