Foodies are always on the lookout for the uncommon and the creative. This does not always work out well. I once ate at a truffle-only restaurant in the Var in Southern France. The place was called Chez Bruno and was so pretentious you could only see waiters by appointment. When we turned up and announced we were ‘sans reservation’ the Gallic horror and hand wringing was pure comedy. Had Kim Jong Un sauntered over the border yesterday and told the S Korean president ‘I’m gonna nuke your nuts’, he would have taken it better than them.
My wife, who considers über-expensive restaurants to be a form of disinheritance, took one look at the assorted Porsches in the carpark and helpfully suggested we eat what was left of the melted brie sandwiches in the car. But I had spotted something worse than the automobiles: this place had a helipad !! Well, fuck-me-blind I thought, if people fly into the mountains to eat at Bruno’s I want in.
Somehow we got a table. Don’t ask how, it was ages ago and I don’t remember. I wish I did because it was like escaping Colditz , but in reverse and those are life skills one should not forget. I was fatter then, so maybe I showed off some cleavage. Anyway, we sat.
Their tasting menu was built around a singular theme and by the end of it, if I’m honest, it was just too much. All was excellent but by the time the truffle sorbet dessert made an appearance, I was raising my hand like those wrestlers on tv who want to be tagged out after repeated rounds of pummelling.
The only thing I got was the ‘addition’ and , wait for it, a farewell gift of truffle oil. I groaned out, using the blood left in my trufflestream to make it to my car, a first edition Golf which growled like a mouse. I thought of pissing on a bush near the helipad but selfies did not exist back then, so there was no point.
Georg Sapiano is a lawyer based in Malta. As he travels the world on work or play he indulges in two of his favourite pastimes: eating and humorous writing.
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