WHEREVER you travel in the world there are reminders of home.
Sometimes they are not easy to spot, but if you look hard enough, you’ll find them.
It happened to me earlier this week.
Our final destination on an island hopping holiday in the Cyclades was Naxos, the largest of this beautiful archipelago.
On the final evening before a morning ferry to Santorini and a flight home, we wandered into the busy town, through the port lined with brightly-lit bars and restaurants along the quayside and walked up the steep winding alleyways towards the Venetian castle that proudly stands above the town.
The streets are studded with small shops selling local wares such as jewellery and pottery and lots of little bars and tavernas.
We came across one which I had read about called La Vigne.
Set on a small sloping alleyway, tables and chairs are haphazardly set up outside the small restaurant with dishes of the day and wine picks hand written in chalk on boards leaning up against the wall.
All the wine is Greek but the two ladies who run the place are French, one of whom used to be a winemaker in France.
Given we had spent almost a fortnight drinking cheap, chilled local wine from jugs, I asked one of the owners if they served any cold red wine.
Her eyes narrowed and her knuckles whitened as she squeezed her notebook and replied: “What is this ‘cold’, I don’t understand ‘cold’?”
I attempted to explain that we had enjoyed chilled local red wine in the Cyclades and wondered, perchance, if she served such vino collapso?
Her eyes were now slits and, from speaking perfect English she suddenly didn’t understand a word we said and stared off into the middle distance huffing and puffing in a way which I assumed meant that she thought here were two ignorant Brits with absolutely no idea about wine.
I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and asked her to recommend some wine listed on the blackboard.
She pointed to a couple of red wines and I asked if either of them were local wines.
She turned on her heel, waved her arm in the air and said as she walked away: “There are no good wines made on this island.”
I’ve since perused reviews for the restaurant on Tripadvisor and come to the conclusion that we were quite well treated on our visit.
Those diners who have left one-star reviews and criticism have faced the wrath of the owner who responded to one with the words: “I believe your mind is very bad.”
Someone else was dismissed as having an “insulting and vulgar opinion” while another reviewer was accused of lying.
A couple who said they had booked a table at the restaurant to celebrate their wedding anniversary said they were shouted at and told to move to a different table when they sat down at one of the tables outside.
The owner responded to their review by saying that the table they first took was reserved for a disabled person in a wheelchair.
She added: “Madam sir, I think you are making a lot of fuss for not much. You could have had a great time….anyway the disabled person had a great time, thanks for letting them have the table, which is worth two horrible…”
To be fair to the restaurant, it has 540 reviews on Tripadvisor with over 400 rating it “excellent” and an average of 4.5 stars out of five.
We enjoyed the food and the wine and even some unplanned entertainment from a large, elderly Greek man who sat in his underpants outside his house at the top of a flight of steps overlooking the restaurant speaking loudly into his mobile phone.
I even managed to get a slight smile from the restaurant owner when I was paying the bill and told her I had just met her neighbour.
Unlike some of the diners who didn’t rate the restaurant, I found being mildly insulted and treated like an uneducated dimwit rather amusing.
On reflection I have realised that is not because I am some kind of masochistic meal consumer or glutton – if not for food – for punishment.
No, it is because of the many years I dined out at the much-missed French restaurant La Grillade in Leeds.
Mine host, Guy Martin-Laval, who wore a blue blazer and grey trousers like a suit of armour, perambulated its subterranean interior with a Gallic aloofness that became legendary.
Those diners who he grew tired of insulting, he took pity on and banned from the premises.
It is a good job that Tripadvisor and other online review websites were not around in the days of La Grillade.
When the brilliant Yorkshire Post writer and regular restaurant reviewer Robert Cockroft mentioned in an otherwise positive article about the restaurant that he had been served a trout rather than a seabass (or was it the other way around?) he found a frosty reception on his return to La Grillade.
It was the culinary equivalent of the Cold War – but I think the Cold War lasted longer – until Guy grudgingly accepted him back on the premises.
Plenty of people have similar stories of La Grillade and its irascible owner but we all returned there to enjoy great food, wine and the gruff Gallic charm of a restaurateur who was a one-off.
Well, I thought he was a one-off until I went to that place in Naxos earlier this week.
I can’t wait to go back.