Update on Bar Lourinha Threatening Email

After receiving Bar Lourinha's threatening email for me to remove my review (in particular the food photos) of them or face legal action, I immediately sent back the following reply.

Matt,

If this is really the owner of Bar Lourinha, firstly I'm honoured that you are reading my blog.

If I may ask so that I can rectify the problem, which part of the review do you take offence to? As for the review part, I'm sure that I can write that so will not be removing that part. The photos themselves are quite good shots I think. I've seen photos of your food on other bloggers site that are far worse, will you be threatening to sue them too? Which photos exactly do you have a problem with and what about them is the problem?

If this is just a joke to generate more buzz for your restaurant, good work. Because I will be talking about your email and people's rights to take photos in restaurants on my next post on my blog.

Hope to hear your response.

Regards,
Thanh

I didn't particularly think I was doing anything wrong. Since its been nearly a week and I haven't got a reply, I was starting to think it was all a practical joke by someone. That was until I got an email each from both Mellie and ElegantGourmand from Tummy Rumbles. Their emails basically said the same thing and has now once and for all confirmed that the threatening email was from Matt McConnell of Bar Lourinha.

ElegantGourmand has requested a menu from Bar Lourinha last year, and he got a personal reply from Matt with instructions that they only take bookings for their private dining room upstairs. The email address from that email to ElegantGourmand is exactly the same as the email address from the email to me. It even has the same email signature, with the squiggly thing above the letter a of Lourinha.

So now I guess I wait to see if they wish to pursue their legal threat and go through with sueing me. I doubt that very much as I'm certain I have not broken any laws. Why they would send a threatening email to me in the first place is beyond me. My review wasn't defamatory, the photos looked nice and I even recommended people to still go there if they like a noisy environment. Even if they really wanted me to remove the review, a nice email asking politely would have done. I would have felt totally honoured that a restaurant owner emailed me personally to request something. Rather, sending this threatening email has put me off their restaurant for life (or for a very long at least). I will boycotting their restaurant unless they offer me an apology. I mean I always preferred Movida for my Spanish food anyway, but now Bar Lourinha will not even be second or third option for Spanish food. They have lost this food loving, restaurant recommending patron for quite a while.