Edinburgh restaurant boss 'styles out' diners being served £4k bottle by mistake

Edinburgh Live

09-05-2025

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The head honcho of a well-loved steakhouse in has spilled the beans on an incident where staff mistakenly served two fortunate customers a bottle of wine worth £4,500 instead of their chosen £260 tipple.
Hawksmoor, a restaurant with branches in Edinburgh, London and Liverpool, made waves globally six years ago when founder Will Beckett aired the blunder on social media.
His post revealed that back in 2019, a pair of diners had ordered a £260 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 2001, but were instead treated to a full bottle of Chateau le Pin Pomerol 2001 - one of the priciest wines on the planet.
The gaffe happened at the groups Manchester eatery - but it was left to a general manager down from Edinburgh for training to 'style out' the mistake.
Unsurprisingly, the duo enjoyed the wine so much they ordered another bottle before the staff cottoned on to the mix-up. Will's post quipped that he hoped the customers had a great night and reassured that the waiter responsible was not in hot water.
On The Go To Food Podcast, hosted by presenter Freddy Clode and chef Ben Benton this week, Will delved into the details of how the mishap unfolded and how the assistant general manager first realised their costly mistake, reports the Manchester Evening News.
Will, who has jointly owned the restaurant with his friend Huw Gott for a decade, recounted the story to the duo: "In the bar, two guys, ordered a Pomerol, it's like a spendy bottle of Bordeaux, 200-something quid. She goes off to the wine room, has a quick look around, grabs a bottle, comes back, opens it, asks if this is the bottle, 'Yep, yep, yep'.'[She] pours the wine, carries on with her work. About an hour later, they're like, "can we have another bottle of that"? She's like, "yeah, yeah, yeah", goes back, it's odd, there isn't another bottle of that. That doesn't usually happen.'"I think at that moment, she realises, "oh my f***ing God, I've given them a bottle of Chateau Le Pen 2001". A £4,500 bottle of wine."
Will explained that the new general manager, who had relocated from Edinburgh to learn the ropes at the Manchester venue, then had to convince the two customers that they had run out of the same wine to avoid another costly mishap. He said she 'played it cool at the table' and informed the customers, "I'm really sorry guys, we don't have any more of that". He continued: "'They're like, "oh, no problem, maybe we'll have something else", they got another bottle of wine. Paid and left. And obviously, end of shift, she says to the general manager at the time, "what's happened"?
"In the bar, two guys, ordered a Pomerol, it's like a spendy bottle of Bordeaux, 200-something quid. She trots off to a wine room, has a quick look around, grabs a bottle, comes back, opens it, says is this the bottle. So, I get a text message, middle of the night, wake up and read at 6:45am in the morning, 'Will, this has happened'."
Will shared how a social media blunder he'd forgotten about suddenly blew up, becoming a 'global news story' with thousands of retweets and shares. It even caught the attention of celebrities like Bette Midler and Piers Morgan, and inspired a comic strip in The Telegraph. Despite the mix-up, Will and his crew managed to laugh it off, and it turned out to be a blessing in disguise for them. Since its launch in the city, the restaurant has scooped up several prestigious awards, including being hailed as one of the nation's top spots for a Sunday Roast.
"It just went mental," he recounted on the podcast. "Hawksmoor Manchester got a massive blip for a couple of weeks - we made way more money with that than we lost by giving away that thing."
To hear more about Will Beckett's experience, tune into The Go To Food podcast episode featuring him on Spotify.