Pretty much every week I hear someone complain about the mark-up on a bottle of restaurant wine. People in Britain often think themselves to be all-knowing when they explain to the table that the dusty Argentinian Malbec they’re drinking retails for “a fraction of the price”. Their name is Colombo and, because they attended a vineyard tour in Burgundy last year and paid £40 to join the Wine Society, they are also now experts on what to drink and feel obliged to tell certified, advanced, even the odd master sommelier about the time they opened a 2003 Lafite.
The lack of trust around wine in restaurants comes down to ignorance, classic British tightness – cars and televisions still take precedence over food here – but also that there are establishments that push it. Of course there are. Business is business, and if a restaurateur with sky-high rents, increasing staff costs, spiralling energy bills and exorbitant food prices can find an easy way of bettering margins, why wouldn’t they raise the stakes a little?
All of this has been talked about before. The “wine bore” stereotype and the “rip-off restaurant” trope are both carted out as regularly as sourdough bread. Word to the wise: don’t make friends with people who think they know wine but don’t (you can always tell) and don’t go to restaurants that take the piss (you can always spot these too, but it might take a little longer).
Still, as inconceivable as it may be that you find me wading into the latest cyclical discussion, here it comes: a restaurant in Notting Hill is turning heads thanks to its new corkage policy: want to bring your own wine into Dorian? It’ll cost you £100. “We think we’ve landed on a simple, universal solution for corkage that gives guests the opportunity to bring ‘that special bottle’ for the occasion, while not jeopardising the fundamental sustainability of the restaurant,” said an announcement.
£100 sounds a lot. That’s because it is.
But then you have to frame the situation at hand. Dorian describes itself as a “rowdy local bistro”. It also has a Michelin star, and it’s a restaurant in Notting Hill, a London postcode as desirable as any right now, I’d say, when it comes to eating out. And the wine list? It isn’t child’s play. Bottles start at £50 (the 2022 Grüner Veltliner, for example, which is what I’d get) and ascend rapidly into the hundreds. Those who want to blow £6,600 on a bottle of 1996 Romanée-Conti absolutely can. What are you going to have with that, sir? Steak, probably. On white linen. While offering your take on Ed Davey falling off a paddleboard.
Every now and then there is a hospitality trigger, where a pub or restaurant does something that brings the trade out of the back pages and on to the front. Or at least page three of a tabloid.
In 2019, it was a menu written by the chef Tom Aikens. It was funny and outlandish to begin with but remains amusing today. The first of two desserts on his ten-course tasting menu is called “Wait and see” and comes with the description: “Many of you will remember your mother’s voice when asking ‘what’s for dessert?’ All I will say is that it is a sweet, seasonal delight!”
And then last year there was a mighty brouhaha over a reported solo dining policy at the two Michelin-star Alex Dilling at the Hotel Café Royal. At the time, people became upset about the notion that single diners would have to pay the same as a pair (then £350), the restaurant apparently trying to protect itself against the lost revenue of empty seats. I believe this policy was later done away with, but this story went bananas. And so followed all manner of “I eat alone and this is outrageous” confessionals.
Dorian’s punchy corkage policy might be the latest of these. Possibly it’s a PR move? If so, happy birthday, here are my words.
We should give the restaurant the benefit of the doubt. Obviously. It would be amateur to suggest otherwise. Is it cheap? No. Is it for everyone? Also no. Will people jump on social media to berate, to exude faux alarm, to chip in and suggest “dining out has just got so damn expensive”? Yes. Are they wearing Charles Tyrwhitt shirts, being rude to waiting staff and, as I type this, booking their next wine tour of Burgundy? Obviously. Guys: if you don’t want to play, don’t come to the party.
