guess the restaurant

May 9

Guess which restaurant’s incompetent publicist had the following e-mail exchange with me over the past three weeks:

April 23:

Hi Bret,
I wanted to touch base regarding any upcoming stories you might be working on that feature up and coming young chefs.

[The restaurant I represent, badly] has several young chefs and pastry chefs that are quickly making their way through the ranks. They have recipes, entertaining tips and general cooking advice that I would love to share with you and your readers.

Finally, I wanted to let you know that female sommelier, [name deleted for obvious reasons] was recently made Head Sommelier at [this quite famous restaurant with a bad publicist], an accomplishment we are very proud of and would also love to share with your readers.

Please let me know if you are interested and I will be happy to send along bios and whatever else you may need.
Many thanks,
[bad publicist]


On 4/24/08 4:47 PM, "Thorn, Bret (NRN)" bthorn@nrn.com wrote:

Do you think I could have a five-minute phone chat with [the new female sommelier for whom you claim to want exposure]? I'd like to mention her promotion in my Kitchen Dish column in The New York Sun.


On 4/29/08 11:39 AM, [the bad publicst] wrote:

Hi Bret,
My apologies for not getting back to you sooner. Do you think it would be possible to send the questions you would have for [the sommelier] as opposed to arranging a phone call?
Many thanks,
[bad publicist]

On 4/29/08 1:39 PM, "Thorn, Bret (NRN)" bthorn@nrn.com wrote:

Okay. All I really need is [her] job history and a brief statement about what she plans to do with the wine list.

On 5/08/08 11:39 AM, [the bad publicst] wrote:
Hi Bret,
I have been working on getting some information for you regarding [the sommelier, something that could nearly be accomplished by a badly trained seal] and unfortunately it is proving a difficult process.

I wanted to suggest in the meantime mentioning [a totally different person], the pastry sous chef at [a restaurant that certainly has the money to hire a better publicist] who began as part of an externship but whose talent was immediately recognized by Chef [a famous chef, really] and he subsequently employed her permanently.

If you are interested please let me know-apologies for the delay with [the sommelier, quickly vanishing into obscurity]’s information.
Best,
[bad publicist]

So I wrote her back, asking for a résumé or bio or something of this fabulous pastry sous chef, but I haven’t heard back.

Enter your guesses in the comment section below, if you like.