A former employee of prolific Parisian restaurateurs Gilbert and Jean-Louis Costes says that front-of-house staff at Georges restaurant in the ritzy Pompidou Centre were routinely instructed to seat “ugly diners” all the way back in the rear of the dining room, where nobody could see them. The ex-hostess alleges that Gilbert Costes was proud of his system, and that she was schooled in seeking out “linguistic clues” over the phone to try to presort the “beautiful people” from the rest, and says she was warned there would be consequences for seating not-pretty-enough people up front. The only exceptions for seating “physically unappealing” guests in view of the public, the Local reports, were cases where the ugly customer also happened to be famous. [The Local]
