A key to a succesful corkage/BYO experience is how we, the customer, approached the experience with the restaurant. Your attitude and how you approach the service team make a huge difference with the way they react and, maybe more importantly, how they treat you on return visits. My top 7 tips:
1. Bring good wine. This may be a bit self explanatory, but the point is not to bring a cheap bottle of wine in order to save money. The point is to bring a wine you'll enjoy drinking with the food and the other dinner guests. If you bring crap, the chances of the restaurant reacting well are definitely reduced.
2. Confirm, confirm, confirm. Ask about the corkage policy when making the reservation and confirm it when you conifrm the reservation. Inicate that you'll be bringing wine on both of these calls. Confirm again when you check in with the front desk. Major issues oftern occur at the table with BYO and you're better off when you have a number of confirmations of the policy, as well as having made it very clear that you intend to bring wine in advance.
3. Be generous with tastes. offer your server, the wine director, the chef, the busboy, etc. tastes of the wines you brought. Definitely the second best way to make friends with the staff.
4. Tip well. The main reason BYO customers are treated poorly is the perception of the server that they're only interested in reducing the overall cost of the meal. BYO is often more work for the server/wine director and they should be tipped accordingly. My rule is to tip as if the wines were purchased from the list.
5. Don't bring wine to the bar. This should be self explanatory, bu if you're going to eat at the bar, or just drink, then use the wine list.
6. If they have it on the list, buy it off the list. If you inadvertantly bring a wine that the restaurant has on the list, you shouldn't expect them to open yours- it just doesn't make financial sense. Buy something else off the list and open your bottle another time.
7. Order a bottle off the list. This often smooths out a lot of the potential trouble when brining your own, especially in a large party.
In my experience, if you follow these tips, not only will your bottles be handled well when you bring them, the restaurant will welcome you and your bottles back with open arms.
Great job, Charles...I know this is going to be an uphill battle, but I don't see why on its face New York City restuarants shld treat corkage any differently than LA restaurant, but they do and hopefully if we sing the praises and patronize those that do and do it well, maybe we can make some modest changes.
I agree with everything you said. Another thought re. etiquette - you should virtually never bring a wine that the restaurant has the on the list - even if it's inadvertent and you brought a bottle without thinking they'd have it on the list, put it back unless they are cool. Also, I have never done it, but I would tend not to bring your own wine and sit at the bar (even if its a good place to have dinner a la Lupa, USC, etc).
Posted by: Michael Moriarty | May 03, 2005 at 07:37 PM
Michael- excellent points. I've added them to the tips
Posted by: Charles Smith | May 03, 2005 at 07:46 PM
Excellent points, but I would like to question #3 regarding tastes. I have seen this advice before, but I have great difficulty with it, and never do it myself. It would seem that you could easily give away 15-20% of your bottle, which for a good bottle will dwarf many of these corkage fees. Why isn't tipping well sufficient? I wonder whether there is an element of showing off involved.
Posted by: marcus | May 10, 2005 at 07:58 AM
Marcus-
That's an interesting point, one that I never considered. It only works with smaller tables, but I've had tastes pay off in spades with extra courses, tastes of bottles open at the bar, etc. I do think there's a showing off element in proving that the wines your brough were worth BYO'ing.
Thanks for the comment,
Charles
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