Two trendy Parisian restaurants have been accused of seating guests according to how good-looking they are to raise the tone of the establishments, reports The Daily Telegraph.
Former hostesses have claimed that Thierry and Gilbert Costes — brothers whose group owns hotels, cinemas, restaurants and cafes in the French capital — have introduced a highly discriminatory selection procedure for guests of Le Georges, in the Pompidou Centre, and Café Marly, overlooking the Louvre.
“The good-looking ones are led to the good places, where they can be easily seen,” they told Le Canard Enchaîné, an investigative and satirical weekly. “As for the non good-looking ones, it is imperative that they be dispatched to the corners of the room.”
Failure to obey the rules was said to result in reprimands such as: “What are these ugly mugs doing at this table? Everyone can see them when they come in. It’s very bad for our image.”
The hostesses themselves were picked according to equally exacting criteria: anyone short "without a model's physique and over 30 need not apply". One was told off for "not showing my breasts enough".
They said that periodically one of the bosses, Gilbert, would come in person to “harp on about the house principles of which he is very proud, as he invented them, saying: ‘There are good looking people, you put them here; there are bad looking people, you put them there! Really, it’s not that complicated.'”
Read more of this report from The Daily Telegraph.