BYO & Corkage

  Last night we met up with a friend for supper in the Northbridge area.  It was a mid-level, Italian restaurant with al fresco seating.  Justin is heading back to South Korea after 10 months being a working backpacker.  We had lots of  laughs with his analysis of the experience and some of the anecdotes he had to tell.   The restaurant staff was always at elbow, eager to pour more water or wine into our glasses.  This level of service is rather rare at all but the upper strata of hospitality in Australia, so it was noticeable even with all of our carrying on. A stolen glimpse of the bill told the tale.

  Justin brought that tasty bottle of Merlot from a bottle shop (liquor store) with him to the restaurant.  Bring Your Own (BYO) is very commonplace here in Australia, even for places that will sell beer or wine.  So common that only the places that will not allow BYO  actually speak up about their policy.  Read your menu, the more 'service' the restaurant has, the more likely they are to charge a corkage fee-sort of a charge to 'serve' the bottle you brought. It may be per bottle, per person or per table.  The service is usually just bringing you some wine glasses.



  BYO is practically unheard of in  U.S.  restaurants.  I can think of Handke's Cuisine in Columbus' German Village--a very high-end restaurant with a (real)  Master Chef at the helm.  Hartmut Handke allows that you may have a few bottles of  Rothschild LaFitte 1957 in your own private cellar and that it would be perfect for your special dinner at his refectory.  Chef charges $15 to uncork and serve your  wine...per bottle. That's a $3 to $5 per serving depending on the glass.  Most restaurants say "Buy our drop" and we take or leave it with grace.


   Back to  Northbridge.  The Positano charges $8 corkage per bottle.  Yoikes! And they'll bring out a blue bottle of expensive San Vittorio water if you don't specific very loudly and very early on that you want tap water.  Eight bucks isn't a service fee, it is a sign of pretension for a mid-level restaurant.  Keep pouring, indeed.  The bill was not ours to pay (although we did contribute a 25% off coupon for the meals)  because certainly this bit of gouging would have been avoided.


   [For those may not know and were asking somewhere in that last paragraph: tipping is not customary in Australia. In fact, downright unheard of....except in very high-end establishments.]

   Let's end this postcard on a high note.  I don't recall much seeing much wine on the shelves when I lived in South Korea in the mid 90's.  Their champagne was Tang with bubbles in it and Koreans themselves preferred hard spirits.  Wine in Australia was a pleasant discovery for Justin and he will miss it.  A bottle of Merlot that is a drinkable  $18 here is $80 in Korea!!!!!