Serena Williams has named and shamed a fine dining restaurant in Paris.
The athlete, 42, has been in France for the Olympic Games Paris 2024 and took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to share that she wasn’t allowed to dine at The Peninsula Hotel in Paris.
A four-time Olympic gold medalist, Williams arrived at the venue with her and Alexis Ohanian’s children, Alexis Olympia Jr., six, and Adira River, 11 months and said she was turned away.
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“Yikes @peninsulaparis I’ve been denied access to rooftop to eat in a empty restaurant of nicer places but never with my kids. Always a first. 🙄#Olympic2024,” she wrote.
The restaurant quickly replied to the grand slam champion with two statements posted to X.
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“Dear Mrs. Williams, Please accept our deepest apologies for the disappointment you encountered tonight,” its first response read.
“Unfortunately, our rooftop bar was indeed fully booked and the only unoccupied tables you saw belonged to our gourmet restaurant, L’Oiseau Blanc, which was fully reserved.”
A second post added, “We have always been honoured to welcome you and will always be to welcome you again. The Peninsula Paris.”
In a statement issued to TODAY, The Peninsula Paris said: “In response to Mrs. Williams’ tweet, for whom we have the utmost admiration and respect, as we do for all our esteemed guests; we can only reiterate our deepest apologies for her perception of tonight’s situation.
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“Today, August 5th, our rooftop bar was indeed unfortunately fully booked, and the only unoccupied tables at that time belonged to our gourmet restaurant, L’Oiseau Blanc, which was also fully reserved tonight,” the statement continued.
“She has always and will always be more than welcome with her family to The Peninsula.”
An employee at L’Oiseau Blanc, Maxime Mannevy, recalled the situation to Variety, claiming that Williams looked “unrecognisable” when asking for a table.
“When she came there were only two tables available and they had been reserved by clients of the hotel,” said Mannevy, who wasn’t working at the time.
“My colleague didn’t recognise her and feels terrible, but he told her what he would have told any other client, which is to wait downstairs in the bar for a table to become available. That was absolutely nothing personal.”
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