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Restaurant with the bottle to drop its wine prices by £700
Sri Carmichael, Consumer Affairs Reporter14 Sep 2009
A wine price war broke out today in London's most expensive restaurants after one West End venue undercut its competitors by up to £700 a bottle.
Bob Bob Ricard, which recently opened in Soho, introduced a vintage wine list offering top wines at a fraction of the cost of more established restaurants by capping the amount it marked up bottles at £50.
Most restaurants make profits of up to 75 per cent on wine they buy far cheaper from vineyards or merchants. This can add hundreds of pounds to the best bottles.
A 1985 Château Haut Brion 1er Cru Classe, Graves, costs £318 at Bob Bob Ricard, but £1,000 at Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's. A bottle of 1999 Meursault "Les Charmes", Comtes Lafon, costs £503 at The Greenhouse in Mayfair but £175 at Bob Bob Ricard.
Restaurant experts welcomed the move but questioned whether it was sustainable and warned that it could lead to higher food prices.
Richard Harden, the co-founder of Harden's London restaurants guide, said: "These are incredible prices. It is the first time I've seen prices this low in a London restaurant that's not attached to a shop. I'm sure these new prices will draw customers in, but whether they can last is another question.
"If you're running a serious restaurant, where the ingredients and chefs and waiting staff cost a great deal, it's quite difficult to make much profit on the food. If rich show-offs who buy high-price wine are no longer asked to pay huge mark-ups then restaurateurs will have to make their money elsewhere."
Bob Bob Ricard's most expensive wine is the 1996 Echezeaux Domaine de la Romanee Conti, at £443.
There are more than 40 wines and champagnes on the restaurant's reserve list, but its everyday bottles are also cheaper than elsewhere. Leonid Shutov, 42, from Russia, and his business partner Richard Howarth, 39, who opened the art deco venue in Upper St James Street last December, said some wine cost less than in specialist shops.
Mr Shutov believes £50 is "plenty" to charge diners to cover the cost of selecting, sourcing, storing and serving the wines. He said: "We feel our customers deserve transparent pricing. It costs no more to open and store a cheaper bottle of wine than it does a more expensive one so why should we make more profit on it?
"We think our customers are more willing to pay a bigger premium for food, when it is expertly cooked in a way they could not do themselves."
How Bob Bob Ricard compares with its rivals
1999 Meursault “Les Charmes”, Comtes Lafon
£175 (Bob Bob Ricard) £503 (The Greenhouse)
1995 Château Cheval Blanc, St Emilion
£261 (Bob Bob Ricard) £670 (Scott's)
1999 Bollinger Vieilles Vignes Francaises
£294 (Bob Bob Ricard) £710 (Maze)
1985 Château Haut Brion, Graves
£318 (Bob Bob Ricard) £1,000 (Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's)
1995 Dom Pérignon Oenothèque, Champagne
£209 (Bob Bob Ricard) £380 (Hakkasan)
Reader views (5)
These sort of incentives are to be commended. Restaurants of this quality cannot offer 2 for 1 deals in this current climate so a move like this to attract more custom is very clever. BBR's food is substantially better than it's critic's reports and personally I went to check it out to see if they were on the money or not. I was very pleasantly surprised - the menue is fun, the food delicious and the service excellent. If this incentive fills more seats then all the better as even the best restaurant in town is disappointing if empty. The restaurant business is competitive at the best of times and during the hard times, incentives like this can only be beneficial to the restaurant's future. Well done!
- Louise, London, 15/09/2009 08:56
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We have to support these initiatives ... Only way to weed out those that choose to rip off customers. Gives us a chance to taste wine that we might otherwise never taste. I read the reviews too, but was very pleasantly surprised by the food quality. Fun atmosphere.
- Mike Davison, London, UK, 14/09/2009 15:43
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I hadn't realised there were so many sad people in London who are only happy if they are showing off their incredible wealth.
Or are the very expensive wines all being bought on expense accounts or by brainless footballers.
- George, Cambridge UK, 14/09/2009 14:39
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Hard to have sympathy in times of recession for businesses that are prepared to fleece their customers to this extent. Personally, I get upset having to pay more than three quid for a bottle of Blue Nun.
- Keith, King's Cross, 14/09/2009 13:15
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All very well and good, and Bob Bob Ricard is a stunning venue but it's been unilaterally panned by critics as bland, hopefully they’ve improved the food before dropping the price of booze?
- Bob, Cheam, 14/09/2009 12:25
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