That was the first thought I had when I read Rich Melman’s comment on Laurent Gras’s departure from L2O in The Stew (Aschie30 at LTHForum had it too):

“I had a customer call me, upset, because he’d made a special request, and nothing outrageous, and he (Gras) refused.”

Now, that could refer to a lot of things. But one of the things it could refer to was the incident that led to this epically preposterous thread on LTHForum, in which Plotnicki, a wealthy food blogger who likes to throw his weight around supposedly on behalf of all restaurant diners but, in my opinion, seems to mostly make his meal worse when he does, asked his L2O waiter to ask the chef to “cook for him.” Meaning, make something special just for his table and send it out at his choice.

While I’ve certainly asked chefs I know well to just send me out whatever they think I should have from the existing menu (and occasionally gotten something off menu in the process), it makes no sense in a restaurant where there’s a set menu already; the chef has already made his choices of the best things to be had, why ask him to whip up something on the fly as opposed to serving you what he’d been working on all day? How could you expect that to be better than simply ordering like a normal person? But don’t let me rehash it, read pages 6 through 12 and don’t miss this parody in another thread.

So anyway, Plotnicki certainly fits the profile of the customer who might have raised a stink directly to Melman (and gotten through). The problem is, Plotnicki’s complaint is completely wrongheaded to my mind, and while part of being Melman, Gras or L2O is properly handling the wealthy with weight to throw around, that doesn’t mean you should actually listen to them. Anyway, for all that people rag on bloggers as sleazy little pajama-clad toads who demand freebies, I’ve never ever seen a blogger of my socioeconomic status try that (let alone succeed). But here was a guy who was already in the Rich Pain In The Ass Customer category, which long predates the internet, now amplified even louder by his blog. If his complaints did play a significant role in souring Gras’ and Melman’s relationship, then they represent a new menace to adventurous chefs with a strong personal vision everywhere.