Nick Lynch
Google
From the sublime… to the ridiculous
After many years of being fortunate to visit some of the world’s finest restaurants, my wife and I recently visited Il Visibilio.
It was the first time we have ever left before finishing, and the first time I have ever thought to actively advise people to avoid such a place, in the vain hope it helps others to avoid the same fate as us.
“Do you trust the chef?” was the question posed of us before and after the first course. That’s an odd question for a restaurant to ask of its diners, since the answer is self-evident. Of course I trust the chef, otherwise I would not have entered the restaurant. Whilst the answer, after a first delicious course was a resounding “yes!” in fact, that very question planted the seed of doubt that later led to our early departure.
“What foods don’t you like?” was also asked of us before we began the blind tasting menu. Again, an interesting question when you think about it, and our natural inclination as polite dinner guests was to say “oh, nothing, we eat everything”.
With hindsight, I suspect this question is posed so that the restaurant can say “you didn’t tell us you didn’t like that”, after serving from a list of some of the most obscure and unpopular foodstuffs imaginable.
I can fully understand a restaurant wanting to serve delicacies from its local region, but what is a fine dining restaurant for, with all its pomp and ceremony and presentation, if the food is not, at a bare minimum, pleasant enough to eat? It may of course be that the dessert would have saved the day - but by that point we had indeed lost trust in the chef.
“What is your honest feedback?” was the question that, with hindsight, gave me the biggest issue of all at Il Visibilio. It was asked of me after I sent back a dish half eaten (unprecedented in my adult lifetime). After explaining how I felt about the dish, the demeanour of the staff changed. No longer treated as a valued customer, it was like being treated as a culture-less peasant, not worthy of dining at such an establishment. And therein lies the real problem - the menu is served blind because no commercial operation could function on a basis of liver, pigeon claw, pureed snail and sea urchin. People wouldn’t choose it, but that’s ok, it’s designed to provoke a response and take you to culinary places you have never been before. What is wholly unacceptable was the staff response to someone who tells them what they really think, if it’s not entirely positive.
This is actually a major deficiency in what was otherwise an exceptionally well trained staff - they knew the story of each dish and articulated it clearly.
Best advice - dine in the next door Osteria, and speak to Luca for his wine recommendations. There, you cannot go wrong.
