A magnificent hotel, pity about the restaurant!

Part of the University of Bari

Sunday February 27 in 2000 is a date forever etched into my memory. I was back in Puglia and for the next seven days my life was one comedy act after another – even though I didn’t think so at the time.

We arrived at the Hotel Palace in Bari. We had caught a domestic flight from Rome and the ubiquitous mini bus had picked us up. We all checked in and found we were in one of the better hotels in Bari, the rooms were quite palatial compared to other hotels we had stayed in.

The buildings are absolutely amazing

We were all ready to hit the road and taste some wine at Cantine Coppi. At 5.00pm we left the hotel and headed out. At Cantine Coppi we were met by two young girls, the daughters of the owner – we thought, we never really discovered. They were obviously chosen because of their language skills, the spoke English well enough to be understood and we had an enjoyable tasting with them although back then I wouldn’t have said the wine was the best. In fact we started saying that any wine that didn’t come up to scratch was a ‘coppi-cat’. We confused several people by saying this. These days I can assure you that Cantine Coppi is producing lovely wines that frequently win awards.

We went back to the hotel and got changed for dinner. Oh what fun awaited us as we were lambs going to the slaughter!

Piazza Ferrarese

A restaurant bordering the piazza

The restaurant was at the top of the hotel and we got out of the elevator to a large foyer. There was a room to one side made up for about a dozen people and we thought maybe that was for us. There were seven journalists, Livia our guide, twin sisters from the tourism board and the mayor of Bari had promised to dine with us - for a scruffy bunch of journos, we felt very important.

We soon found out that we were not seated in this nicely decorated room when we were shooed out by an overly enthusiastic waiter who kept yelling at us to leave.  Those of us who understood Italian left immediately but the others didn’t understand what was going on and this infuriated the waiter whose pitch got even louder (if you speak louder they will understand). We had to go back and herd the remaining people out before the guy had apoplexy.

While we were wandering around like lost sheep Livia arrived and following close on her heels the mayor. He spoke to Livia and then shook hands with us all and basically said or inferred that an important person had arrived from Argentina and we were no longer important enough for him and he would be dining with this other person. We were very surprised, not that he wouldn’t dine with us – that we understood – but it was what he said, very, very odd.

At this stage we were all laughing at what had happened and with Livia leading the way walked into the restaurant. There we were introduced the two ladies from the tourism board. Although they were twins, they were not identical so it was quite easy to tell them apart. They sat next to one another and were very friendly.

We were seated and then the menu came out, joy of joys, that night they were having a special degustation of donkey meat. We declined and asked for the normal menus to the utter disgust of the Maitre D. We chose our meals along with Frank, the Dutchman, who went for the degustation. We then saw the wine menu and ordered the wine, specific products that we were all keen to try.

We sat talking until the meals came out, it was an extremely long conversation. Finally they started coming, unfortunately not all of them and in the wrong order. The entrees and mains came out together. Some people got an entree, some people got a main and one person got both at the one time. Some people got entrees they had ordered and some people got completely different meals. One of the waiters was on his mobile phone and just plonked the plate down and walked away so he could finish his conversation.

We tried to call the waiters back but they were successfully ignoring us so we looked for the Maitre D. We saw him on the other side of the room with a mobile phone fixed to each ear. We thought we had entered the filming of some comedy TV show like Candid Camera. It was totally crazy. The Maitre D finally put down one phone and came over. By the time he had got to our table he had finished his conversation and said could he help.

He said the entrees were very similar to what we had ordered an the kitchen must have substituted them for some reason and he was sure we would enjoy them. Franks first course of his degustation arrived at this point and he started eating. We decide to keep the entrees because it was less trouble and we were hungry by this stage. However, the mains had to go back and entrees serve to those people.

Frank’s next course came out and he kept on eating.

We asked where our wine was and a bottle came out and was poured, then the bottle disappeared again.  We were suspicious and asked for the bottle. It was returned and it turned out not to be the wine we had ordered. Once again the ‘kitchen’ had substituted the wine thinking that we wouldn’t notice – they picked the wrong crowd, we knew our wines and we had expected a good wine and we got a terrible wine.

Franks next course came and he continue eating.

By this stage the guys were getting a little touchy, it was no longer fun. Bill, a New Yorker with a short fuse decided he’d had enough and got up and left. He said he had seen a pizzeria near the hotel and if anybody felt like it they could join him.

Franks continued his Donkey degustation without comment.

By this time Bill had disappeared, Aaron was next to follow. Michael then left and Jim joined him. Livia got up and left Frank, the twin sisters from the tourist board and me.

The seafront in Bari

Frank continued to munch away.

I finally said my apologies and left.

Frank kept on eating.

Next:  I get left behind