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Watford Piss-Taker Spends £700 of Audi's Money In a Michelin-Starred Restaurant Because Her Car Was a Bit Delayed

The Audi showroom in Watford gave her a courtesy car and said, "Have a meal on us." But they were probably thinking Pizza Express rather than a Michelin-starred blow-out.

A Joel Robuchon dish of salmon and pommes puree. Image via Sarah_Ackerman.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Taking the piss can be a full time job. Scrounging, poncing, shirking, weasling—these are the piss taker's four aces. Eking morsels from every orifice with minimum effort, like a big fat lazy mouse. Some piss-taking is so stunning that we mere mortals can only sit back, arms folded, and admire the gall, the balls, the defiant fever that overcomes those special few. Step forward Siobhan Yap.

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Siobhan, 27, from Hertfordshire, bought a second-hand Audi A3 convertible from the Watford Audi showroom. When she went to collect it, there was a problem: the car had been damaged while stationary in the forecourt by a delivery vehicle. Audi, being the chivalrous German automobile company it is, gave her a courtesy car, and said they'd cover the cost of a meal for two.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't normal customer service have ended with the courtesy car? Where the fuck does the dinner thing come in? Audi already has her money. You don't wine and dine someone who's already given you what you want—you throw them on the pile with the rest of the jerk-offs. This is a western capitalist hegemony, not Lourdes.

But they did, and what followed was one of the most glorious piss-takings in recent years.

Siobhan enlisted her mother to accompany her to the restaurant—no doubt a veteran blagger herself. But they didn't nip into Pizza Express for some dough balls and one of those big American Hots you can get that comes with its own slicer. They didn't get a katsu curry and a couple of Asahis. There was no hot half chicken and spicy rice with Perinaise for these two. Oh no. Siobhan and her mother went to L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Covent Garden.

Robuchon is one of the most celebrated chefs in the world. Even famous geriatric raw fish magician Jiro Ono, of Jiro Dreams Of Sushi fame, is envious of Robuchon's capacity for taste and flavor. So, naturally, one of his restaurants is exactly the sort of place Watford Audi should fit the bill for for an accidental and relatively minor inconvenience.

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And she dined. She dined hard. Two £70 [$105] bottles of wine. Almost £100 [$155] worth of cocktails and gin. Two starters—sorry, "small tasting plates"—that clocked in at £42 [$65]. It was two La Volatille risottos, and I bet they were fucking delicious.

When all was said and done, Siobhan and her mother, who, I'm guessing by this point, were absolutely shit-faced, ordered the bill. I'd imagine the drunkenness masked some of the shock that a £714 [$1,090] bill brings. Inebriated and full, the two leave, I'm guessing in an Uber LUX, to collapse at home face-down on their respective sofas.

Back at Watford Audi HQ, a loud sound is heard. "What the fucking fuck is this?" says a now sheet-white finance officer. The shout can be heard over the hills and far away. In the end, Watford Audi only ended paying half the bill, which they saw as a fair split for something they initially thought would, at most, stretch to a couple of steaks at Hawksmoor.

This is where a mere mortal would, tail between their legs, admit that they may have been a bit naughty. That going to the Michelin-starred central London restaurant of one of the world's best chefs because you have to get your new car a bit late, even though an interim car was provided for you, was perhaps a bit much. But Siobhan Yap is no normal woman. "They put me through a lot of stress and it was a really nice restaurant," she told BBC Three Counties Radio. "They should have specified a limit."

Siobhan Yap doesn't give two shades of a shit. Siobhan Yap has done something some of us only dream of doing. She has taken full liberties with absolutely no remorse. She's sitting atop a pile of £270 [$410] caviar from Sologne, a speciality of the restaurant, champagne flute in hand, cackling. She is the alpha and omega of cheekiness. She is, truly, Queen of the Piss-Takers.

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