The owners of a high-end steakhouse are hitting back after two foodie influencers accused the restaurant of providing “the worst $3000 meal they ever had”.
Meg Radice and Audrey Jongens run the popular New York-based page “The VIP List” which gives brutally honest reviews on eateries in the area.
During a recent trip to the Hamptons, the pair ate out at Mavericks Montauk, and it’s fair to say they were far from impressed.
In a now-viral video shared Tuesday, the foodie duo slammed the venue, describing the food and service – which cost them just over $3000 ($US2000) – as the “worst” they’d ever received.
But a rep for the restaurant responded by claiming the content creators’ friend threatened to give them a bad review if they didn’t receive free food, a report by The New York Post claimed.
In “The VIP List” clip, which has clocked up over 730,000 views, Ms Radice alleges that she and her pals waited three hours for appetisers before being served a series of “flavourless” dishes.
She additionally claimed that a friend’s dress was “ruined” when a seafood tower collapsed and that her party was “hit” with a huge bill at the end of the disastrous dining experience.
The owners of Mavericks Montauk had a different version of events, telling The Post that the influencers and their friends arrived 20 minutes late and refused to order all food items at once, as per restaurant policy.
The restaurant says the viral hubbub “has real, meaningful and lasting consequences for us as a small business”.
“It’s also incredibly hurtful and untrue to say management didn’t care,” they added.
Mavericks Montauk declined to give the influencers any comped meals and said the women inflated the amount of money that they were eventually charged, which was $US1246 (about $1880) before tax for their table of six.
“They spent $638 on food and $608 on alcohol … The driving cost behind their bill was all of the alcohol they consumed,” they stated.
However, Ms Radice and Ms Jongens are sticking to their story, telling The Post: “If we’re wrong, the general public can go in and try for themselves. Hopefully they do better, our dinner was awful. Mad that we said it? Go cry about it!”
The 76-second TikTok video features footage of the food served by the restaurant accompanied by narration by Ms Radice.
“I know hospitality in the Hamptons isn’t the best, but this was criminal,” she seethes.
“It’s such a shame because it was a beautiful venue.”
The content creator claimed she was “off-duty” and wasn’t planning on documenting the dining experience, but after an alleged two-and-a-half hour wait to order an appetiser “all bets were off”.
“This is considered chicken with caviar, it looks like a Chad (American slang for frat boy) made it,” Ms Radice raged.
“Someone alert McCormick because they clearly need as restock of seasoning, every dish was flavourless.”
“The steak was okay, but everything is okay when it’s drowned in butter,” she sassily added.
Meanwhile, she claimed that “the seafood tower collapsed on its own and ruined our friend’s dress”.
She said the restaurant later deducted that item from the bill after the five hours they spent there.
Mavericks Montauk says the tower arrived at the table fully intact, but told The Independent they were “playing with the structure, shaking it until it fell over”.
The restaurant did confirm that they did agree to remove that item from the final bill after the table complained.
They also disputed that it took the party three hours to receive their appetisers, saying the group was in and out within that time frame.
The owners of the steakhouse said the influencers were seated at 8.22pm and paid at 11.18pm.
“Our server approached the table three times to take the complete order and was denied,” the owners told the publication.
“When they finally did give the order, it was rang immediately after at 9.38pm. They received their first course at 9.47pm.”
Ms Radice and Ms Jongens deny a member of their party ever attempted to blackmail the steakhouse in a bid for free food.
“Their goal is to give an honest review and sometimes the review is really positive and other times it’s negative, but it’s their experience and their truth. Their followers expect this from them and they always want to deliver,” a rep for the influencers told The Post.
“You can value their taste, their word, and appreciate their satirical play off of critiquing restaurants or not. In all the restaurants that they’ve ever roasted they’ve never had this desperate or outrageous of a response.”
But Mavericks Montauk stands by the quality of their food and outstanding service.
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“Mavericks was created out of the love every member of the ownership, management, chef, cook and service teams have in hospitality,” the owners declared.
“We invest significantly in staff training and education as well as continuous on the job service highlights and opportunities to learn about the food, co*cktail and wine menus … We have daily and weekly ‘calls to action’ to every service position from server to busser to runner to bartender that focus on continuing the work in how to always better be doing our job. To say we take what we do seriously is an understatement.”
This article originally appeared on The New York Post and was reproduced with permission
