Once Upon a Time in France
Shortly after Once Upon a Time in France co-owner Melvil Arnt and his partner announced their plans in late May to open a new bar in East Nashville, a former employee made public allegations of health code violations and sexual harassment against Arnt and other management at OUATIF.
Emma Salvitti was a server at OUATIF for 11 months. In late May, Salvitti detailed via Facebook various health code violations she says she observed at the East Nashville dinner hot spot as well as an alleged incident of sexual harassment by Arnt during that time period. Another former OUATIF employee, who spoke with the Scene on the condition of anonymity, reposted Salvitti’s concerns on a Reddit thread that soon became the talk of the Nashville hospitality community. When questioned about Salvitti’s claims relating to customer and employee safety, the Arnt team pushed back.
The Scene interviewed Salvitti and more than a dozen current and former OUATIF employees, as well as Arnt, Natasha Nancel (OUATIF manager, co-owner of the French Connection bar, and Arnt’s fiancée), Laurent Champonnois (OUATIF chef and co-owner and Arnt’s father) and others.
Among Salvitti’s allegations: In January 2022, a chef at the restaurant served a customer a steak that had been dropped on the floor. On his first (and only) night working at OUATIF, Marco De la Cruz says he saw a chef take a steak that had been dropped on the ground during a busy evening, rinse it off, put it back on the grill, re-sauce it and serve it to a customer. De la Cruz says he told Salvitti — the friend who referred him to the job — what happened that night. Salvitti says she later told Nancel, her manager, about what happened. Both Salvitti and De la Cruz say they were fired for telling Nancel about it.
Nancel and Arnt say that, yes, the incident took place.
“We were very mad,” Arnt says. “We talked to the sous chef about this, and he stopped working for us, and we never wanted to see him again.”
Nancel says she wishes De la Cruz or anyone else on staff who saw it had spoken up before the steak was served to the customer but denies that either De la Cruz or Salvitti were fired for bringing her the information.
Whatever the reason, Salvitti was fired. Despite her misgivings, she says, Salvitti wanted that job. She “loved” working there because of her connection to the French-speaking community, because that’s where her social circle was, and because she made very good money in tips, particularly for a restaurant that closed at 9 p.m. After several months, she was rehired.
Claims of other health code violations followed. Some were fairly standard for restaurants — as anyone who watches The Bear knows — and others more egregious. Staff at Once Upon a Time in France heard that Champonnois accidentally struck and killed a deer with his car, and used the roadkill to add venison to the restaurant’s beef Bourguignon dish. None of the former or current employees who spoke to the Scene saw this switch take place, but the story was repeated by the majority of those who were interviewed. These employees say Champonnois made jokes about what happened to the roadkill. They also spoke of unlabeled meat in the freezer and sent the Scene photos of such bags in what appears to be a commercial freezer.
Champonnois says it did not happen. “I swear on the lives of my children,” he tells the Scene, “I never cooked any deer, rotted or other. I don’t even know how I would do it.”
He says he did hit a deer while driving on Hart Lane, and that his car’s grill did sustain significant damage. Champonnois, who is in his 60s, says it would’ve been difficult, if not impossible, for him to pick up a heavy carcass from a busy street, put it in the damaged car, drive it to Arnt’s property — where Arnt could skin and process it — and then drive it back to the restaurant to store it, unmarked, in the restaurant freezer. Champonnois also says the stew meat used in a dish like beef Bourguignon is among the least expensive cuts, available at $3 a pound, and therefore it wouldn’t be worth going through such effort to substitute roadkill venison.
Salvitti also says that one day while sweeping the floor in the restaurant, she came across a long black snake. She says Champonnois taped up the seal through which the snake had slithered and did not call a pest-control company. Champonnois, Nancel and Arnt say that, yes, they have had pests, including the snake, which they say happens in many, if not most, restaurants. When this incident took place, they say they patched the hole and called their regular pest-control company. They have receipts for the ongoing monthly service, which they provide to Metro Health inspectors. In addition, Arnt says, they’ve talked to their landlord about repairs the building needs.
Salvitti lists a number of other allegations, including concerns about meat not being stored at correct temperatures. Several former employees shared a video with the Scene of maggots in martini glasses in what they say is the trailer behind the restaurant. Arnt and Nancel say yes, they believe some food was accidentally dropped in the trailer and eventually that did attract maggots. This trailer, they say, is where backstock was stored, and those glasses were extras that were not in regular use.
“We probably were not, in all honesty, looking at them every day because we were not using these glasses, we were not serving food out of the glasses at that time,” Nancel says. When they were made aware of the issue, they say they found the problem, and the glasses were cleaned and sanitized multiple times before they were stored again. Staff who spoke with the Scene said the stench while cleaning was overpowering.
The Scene reviewed all Metro health inspection reports from OUATIF dating back to April 2021. When a health inspector visits a business, the operator receives a score between 0 and 100, which the department sees as a snapshot of what the environmental health specialist sees on that day. The inspection report point system ranges from 1, 2, 4 and 5 points, divided between priority (critical) and nonpriority (noncritical) violations. Inspections are designed to be a surprise, so no notice is given ahead of time.
Health inspectors are intended to be educators as well as enforcers, to help employees learn to comply with code in the future. So when they see a violation, they explain to staff how to fix it. In many cases, those nonpriority violations can be immediately fixed, such as a staff member’s personal water bottle being stored improperly in the kitchen. Then a follow-up inspection is conducted, and a new score is issued. The OUATIF reports have these standard follow-ups with the corresponding higher scores, raising an 82 to a 97, for example. The Metro Public Health Department didn’t have a record of any complaints that correspond with any of the allegations made by anyone interviewed by the Scene. A representative says the health department takes all public concerns seriously. (Readers who believe they have observed a health code violation at any restaurant can file a complaint by calling 615-340-5620.)
In addition to the allegations about food safety, Salvitti says she was sexually harassed by Arnt in June of last year. The incident took place when staff members were partying together at Overlord, the bar Arnt owned at the time (and has since sold). Salvitti and her then-boyfriend (a former OUATIF and Overlord employee) and another bartender went in the back room with Arnt. At some point, Salvitti’s then-boyfriend went back to the public Overlord space to meet another friend; it was then, says Salvitti, that Arnt asked her to take off her dress and show him her breasts, saying, in French, that he had the right because he was her boss. Salvitti says she walked into the front of the bar to tell her boyfriend what happened. (The former bartender did not return messages from the Scene.) She says Arnt then apologized to her boyfriend.
“I didn’t feel comfortable,” Salvitti says. “And my boyfriend, he was pretty oblivious to it. He took it as, like, ‘He said sorry. It was just playful. It’s not gonna happen again.’ I was like, ‘Hello, you know, this is serious. This is so inappropriate.’ It is not the first time I’ve been in a situation where I’ve been harassed by a man. And it just sucked.”
While Salvitti felt uncomfortable, she says, they stayed, in part because she felt confused about what she should do given that Arnt was her employer. Salvitti says she and her boyfriend drove Arnt home at the end of the evening and that Arnt invited them to spend the night, which they declined.
Arnt agrees that on the night in question a group of people were partying at Overlord after their shifts, and he says no one underage was served alcohol and denies asking or demanding that she remove her clothes — but does say he made an “inappropriate comment.”
“I made a comment about Emma’s cleavage,” Arnt says. “I shouldn’t have done it. I did it. I absolutely regretted it. She talked to [her boyfriend] about it. We talked about it afterward. I am so sorry.” The couple drove him home that evening and then, he says, returned the next day for a pool party.
Several weeks after the incident, Salvitti, who is a university student and now a server at another restaurant, says she pulled Nancel aside and told her she was quitting her job.
“I immediately started crying and I was like, ‘I love you guys and I really want to work here, but I can’t be a victim in this situation and be looked down upon,’” Salvitti says. “I’m not going to be the one blamed for this when this happened to me, and everyone just refused to believe it.”
