Tonight for dinner we decided to use a voucher that came with our vacation package to the hotel restaurant, Butlers (You may want to google "Butlers Restaurant London" for the full effect of this story). We had been out and about all day and staying here to eat sounded much better than going out in the rain again and doing more walking. We walked down to the lobby and waited by the desk at the door to the restaurant. After a few minutes a worker wearing a nice suit came up and asked if we had a reservation, to which we replied that we had come to make one and we'd like it for as soon as possible (this sounds much better than saying you never made one :) ). He said he would check if there was a table available and walked away for a few seconds. He came back and led us over to the bar (through the mostly empty restaurant) and told us to have a seat and wait for someone to come get us when a table was ready. We sat down for a few minutes and discussed how everyone we saw in the restaurant was wearing fancy clothes and that we were horribly underdressed. Jared was at least wearing a collared shirt and I had on a blouse slightly nicer than the v-neck I wore earlier, but we were still in our jeans and tennis shoes. After sitting awkwardly and discussing whether or not we should go change, we decided to go upstairs and put on nicer clothes. Luckily, being LDS, we had Sunday clothes in our suitcases, which we put on and then headed back to the restaurant. As soon as we walked up to the door a worker came over and asked if he could show us to a table for 2. Who cares if we had a reservation, we looked classy! We immediately were seated and brought menus. This was pretty much the nicest restaurant I have ever been to in my life. They had food on the menu like duck and pollock (I had to google that one when we got back to our room because I had no idea what it was- that's how you know it's good). After our 3 course meal, which took an hour and 40 minutes (these European meals that last more than 15 minutes have been a rough adjustment for us) we left the restaurant having learned an important lesson: Always dress the part. If you try to walk into a high class restaurant wearing jeans chances are you'll be led past many empty tables and told there are no availabilities and they'll sit you down at the bar like a child on timeout so you can think about how underdressed you are. If you come looking like you belong in the fancy-pants feeding place you'll probably get a table and food. Probably.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Dressing the part
Tonight for dinner we decided to use a voucher that came with our vacation package to the hotel restaurant, Butlers (You may want to google "Butlers Restaurant London" for the full effect of this story). We had been out and about all day and staying here to eat sounded much better than going out in the rain again and doing more walking. We walked down to the lobby and waited by the desk at the door to the restaurant. After a few minutes a worker wearing a nice suit came up and asked if we had a reservation, to which we replied that we had come to make one and we'd like it for as soon as possible (this sounds much better than saying you never made one :) ). He said he would check if there was a table available and walked away for a few seconds. He came back and led us over to the bar (through the mostly empty restaurant) and told us to have a seat and wait for someone to come get us when a table was ready. We sat down for a few minutes and discussed how everyone we saw in the restaurant was wearing fancy clothes and that we were horribly underdressed. Jared was at least wearing a collared shirt and I had on a blouse slightly nicer than the v-neck I wore earlier, but we were still in our jeans and tennis shoes. After sitting awkwardly and discussing whether or not we should go change, we decided to go upstairs and put on nicer clothes. Luckily, being LDS, we had Sunday clothes in our suitcases, which we put on and then headed back to the restaurant. As soon as we walked up to the door a worker came over and asked if he could show us to a table for 2. Who cares if we had a reservation, we looked classy! We immediately were seated and brought menus. This was pretty much the nicest restaurant I have ever been to in my life. They had food on the menu like duck and pollock (I had to google that one when we got back to our room because I had no idea what it was- that's how you know it's good). After our 3 course meal, which took an hour and 40 minutes (these European meals that last more than 15 minutes have been a rough adjustment for us) we left the restaurant having learned an important lesson: Always dress the part. If you try to walk into a high class restaurant wearing jeans chances are you'll be led past many empty tables and told there are no availabilities and they'll sit you down at the bar like a child on timeout so you can think about how underdressed you are. If you come looking like you belong in the fancy-pants feeding place you'll probably get a table and food. Probably.
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