Ravi Ranjan Kumar
A high-end restaurant in Delhi is facing a backlash on social media for allegedly refusing a woman in a saree to enter. In a Facebook post, Anita Choudhary claimed that she was not permitted to enter the premises of Aquila restaurant at Ansal Plaza, Delhi on 19th September. The reason behind this issue was that she was wearing a saree. And since then this post is trending on social media.
Anita posted a short video of her argument with one of the staff person of the restaurant along with her pictures in the saree. She said, ‘In one of the high-end restaurants in Delhi, a saree is not considered an appropriate outfit. The restaurant is Aquila. We had a disagreement over saree and many excuses were made, but still, I wasn’t allowed to enter the premises of the restaurant, because of my Indian outfit ‘saree’ which is not believed to be a smart outfit.’ She also wrote, ‘I have never been embarrassed like this before. I feel deeply hurt.’
As per the Facebook profile of Anita Choudhary, she is a creative director at Doordarshan National.
After the post made by Choudhary went viral, the restaurant at Ansal Plaza is receiving a lot of criticism with people calling the restaurant out on social platforms as well as other platforms such as Zomato.
Many users calling the restaurant’s behavior ‘bizarre’. One of the Twitter users wrote, ‘Who decides that saree is not appropriate to wear? I have worn sarees at some of the best restaurants in the United States, UAE, and even in the UK. No one ever stopped me. And some restaurant in Delhi dictates a dress code and further decides that saree is an inappropriate attire to wear?’
Another Twitter user wrote that her mother has worn this attire even to the Alps.
Since the incident happened the restaurant ‘Aquila’ has been receiving negative reviews on Zomato. A reviewer on Zomato wrote, ‘Restaurant is not good enough! The staff is horrible and even the food.’
Responding to the statements, Aquila, the restaurant on Wednesday decided to speak up on Instagram. According to the restaurant, the ’10 second’ clip which was posted by Choudhary was a small part of their ‘one hour’ conversation.
The restaurant said, ‘We choose to stay silent till now and have closely observed everything related to this very incident that took place at Aquila on 19th September 2021.
‘A guest visited the restaurant on Sunday and was politely asked to wait as there was no reservation under the guest’s name. However, the staff discussed internally where the restaurant could seat them. Later the guest entered the premises of the restaurant and started to fight and even abused our staff members. What unraveled after was very shocking for everyone, the woman slapped our restaurant’s manager,’ the restaurant wrote in one of their Instagram posts.
The restaurant has also decided to post the CCTV footage of this very incident along with another video where women wearing saree are enjoying themselves at the restaurant.
The restaurant even said that the comment on the attire not being a ‘smart casual’ outfit was just a way to ‘tackle’ the whole situation. Later, Aquila went apologized for their remark.
