Fawlty Towers comes to Versailles

I'm generally conflict averse and it is not often that I get angry but our hotel 'Le Louis' in Versailles managed to get me riled with a Fawlty Towers-esque display on the first evening of our stay.

We are currently a party of four, having linked up with Tracy's mum Elaine and her companion carer Lizzie for this part of our journey, celebrating Elaine's birthday. We four assembled in the bar area in the evening and ordered a bottle of wine to contemplate our options for dinner. With rain hammering down on the glass domed roof over the central bar, and a restaurant area within the very room that we were sitting,(see pic - restaurant to the left, bar to the right) we took a look at the in house menu. None of us were particularly hungry but we wanted to have something before retiring for the night so we each selected a starter from the restaurant menu and thought we'd eat it where we were sat, in the bar area. Now you know already that it wasn't going to be that easy.

The first response we got was that the kitchen was short handed and they would not be able to provide us with any food. This despite the restaurant being less than full and our status as full paying residents of three rooms at their establishment. Lizzie (never known to shy away from dealing with an issue) was first into battle and, taking the matter up with staff at reception, was informed that they could provide us with food if ordered from the room service menu. A QR code on the bar provided us with that menu and lo and behold the starters we were going to order from the restaurant menu are on there! Happy days, we'll just order those and they can bring them to us in the bar. Less the additional 3 Euros per dish and 7 Euro tray charge added to the room service menu for the same food.

I explained to the restaurant manager that this was the answer to the problem and his response was that room service can only be provided to us in our rooms and not in the bar. That is the exact point that he tipped me out of my normal magnanimous state into my 'I don't think so' mode. I helpfully pointed out to him that we are the customers so he might consider our needs and desires, and in fact it is easier for them to bring the food to us in the bar than take it to our rooms. This display of ire mixed with logic seemed to flick a switch in his less than customer focussed head and he agreed to consult the kitchen on the matter.

Finally sanity prevailed and what we had quite reasonably requested was provided. When I went to sign the bill the restaurant manager, who seemed more conflicted than incompetent, explained to me that he was sorry but he could get into trouble for not following the rules. I expect the rules also say that he should put the bottle of wine we drank on the bill but when I pointed out to him that he hadn't he waived it. He sounded French to me but you never know. maybe he's from Barcelona...


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