OK. True Story.

A friend of my girlfriend’s, let’s call her ‘Montse’ for the sake of anonymity <and Cátalan stylings>, and her boyfriend ‘Jordi’, go to the famous El Bulli restaurant.  For those of you who don’t know it’s Spain’s most famous restaurant. It boasts 3 Michelin Stars, an honour usually reserved only for the best restaurant in Paris .  You have to make reservations about a year in advance and the restaurant is only open 7 months out of the year.  It is quite special (read: quite expensive).  The chef, Ferrán Adriá, is often hailed as the world’s best and the press has dubbed him the “Salvador Dalí of the kitchen”.  What really drew them in is that they always had wanted to eat in the restaurant of the best chef in the world.  That the chef happened to be Cátalan, through and through, made it all the better.

They made a reservation months in advance and eventually the big evening arrived and they picked up their good friends, we’ll call them “Mercé & Joan”, and drove off into the sunset on route towards Cala Montjoi, Catalunya. The plan was to order the ‘menú de degustación’, a tasty sampling of the chef’s favourites of the menu.  They poured through the extensive wine list and found a red that seemed just right.  It was a 53 € bottle, a bit expensive, but they thought to themselves ‘hey, it’s a special day’.  The wine was fantastic as was the food and they threw caution into the wind and ordered another bottle of wine to the table.  They marveled at the extra special and attentive service they were receiving, the amount of seemingly never-ending food that came to the table.  ‘This place really does deserve it’s reputation’ they half-drunkenly said as they sipped a ‘cortado’ at the end of the meal and replayed the entire dinner to each other.

Just before the maitre d handed them the bill, he leaned in towards them and said “I hope you have all enjoyed your evening, we were honoured to have you as our guests.  The food tonight is on the house and the bill is just for the two bottles of wine”.  Jordi bewilderingly took the bill from the man and as he opened it his face turned white.

“There must be a mistake!” he blurted out.

To be continued…