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When a group of young women from Fuente del Maestre in Spain went to Madrid for their friend's hen party they didn't anticipate the 39,000-euro wine bill that they would be handed at the end of the meal. The main event of the party consisted of a dinner at a very famous three-star restaurant.
They ate very well and drank even better having discovered a wine on the menu that they thought was very good value at '13' a bottle, so they bought one. It was so good that they ordered another bottle, and another. However, when they were handed the bill their erstwhile state of merriment disappeared rapidly when they saw that they had been charged 39,000 euros for the wine alone.
The problem was that in looking at the menu, they had noticed the 13 as the price of the wine, but not the capital M that followed the number. M of course being the Roman numeral for 'mille' or thousand. This chic restaurant popular with influencers and celebrities uses Roman numerals instead of zeros. You can imagine what followed: calls to Fuente del Maestre to explain the situation and ask for help, parents' disbelief and a hen party that suddenly lost its fun.
The girls filed a lawsuit with the restaurant on the grounds that 13M is not the same as 13,000 euros and while the outcome is still being decided, the moral of the story is clear: find out the price of what you are ordering before doing so. Although it is not always possible.
There is the case of dishes that are not on the menu. In the mid-1990s, the newspaper I was writing for at the time sent me to a restaurant in Santiago de Compostela to try sea bream. The purpose of the report was to be a victim of the off-the-menu scam: in the restaurant, located in the middle of Rua do Franco, the most touristy street in the city, the head waiter offered all the customers sea bream, did not mention the price and would hand you the bill. I ate the sea bream and paid 5,000 pesetas (around 30 euros). In those days a good plate of fish cost around 1,500 pesetas (around nine euros). I reported the scam.
It is obligatory to specify the price of off-menu meals, but in Extremadura this is only done systematically in the restaurants of Hervás. I don't know the reason for such honesty, as in other tourist cities, this price is hidden, although it is true that in Cáceres it is starting to be specified and in Plasencia, two Sundays ago, in Casa Juan, they professionally announced the price of each special dish.
Last Saturday, Don Poleo, critic for En Salsa, wrote about the pre-prepared dishes that restaurants buy and sell to you as if the chef had just cooked them, when he has only given them the final touch. Don Poleo pointed out that in France it is compulsory to tell customers that the dish comes from the pre-prepared convenience food range. Here in Spain there is no such law.
I was shown a catalogue of pre-prepared convenience food which listed some of the dishes that are being served this month and will be served this summer at a number of weddings and communions: portions of boneless, vacuum-packed, gently pasteurised suckling pig that are three times the price on the wedding menu, cod confit, steaks tartar, boneless oxtails, cheeks in port, coulants, brownies, cheesecakes.... It goes without saying that honesty is the general rule in restaurants in Extremadura, but that the price of off-menu items should be stated. And, of course, if something costs 13,000 euros, it doesn't cost 13M.
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