From. the moment we walked in the door, everything about our experience at Cafe Peclet was…read moreterrible. The server who met us at the door was surly and unpleasant and remained so for the entire meal (if you go, he's a dark haired. short man with large square black glasses, similar to those worn by the old man in the movie "UP".). He was slow to bring food, never checked on us, only brought 1 water glass, forgot one of our main courses, and had to be fetched to get his attention so we could get our bill. He was so busy chatting with his bud in the front of the restaurant, that a representative from each of the 3 tables of folks in the restaurant had to get up from their seats to get his attention and order coffee or get their bill.
As for the bad food. We ordered a bowl of French onion soup to share, and 2 salads, 1 with seafood and the other the classic salad "de Perigord". The soup didn't resemble any French onion soup either of us had ever had. It was a thick, tepid, tasteless base with tiny grain-size pieces of onion. There was no taste of fresh onion - it was way worse than a dried soup mix that one can readily buy in the US.. The "croutons" were 1/16 of an inch little cubes that looked like something the nasty processed food company Sysco, who provides fake-food for institutions in the United States, would have made. Forget a nice crunchy piece of toasted artisanal French bread. Nope.
As for the salads, neither had much in the way of greens. The shrimp in the seafood salad were of the frozen popcorn variety, the salmon thrown in a blob in the middle. The scallops on the side were actually alright. As for Cafe Peclet's version of the classic salad from Perigord, it was resembled a handful of chopped bacon tossed on top of way-too-chopped salad greens. The gesiers were of low quality: shredded and pretty much tasteless, except for the taste of salt. The magret de canard on the side was alright, a little too cooked and hard, but plentiful. The slice of foie gras was fine, not the best we've had, for sure, but ok.
Out of a desire to somehow redeem the meal, we ordered a banana split. This Cafe Peclet didn't screw up. The chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream, whip cream and banana were all good. There were annoyingly hard pastel colored sprinkles on top which got stuck in our teeth, but which would probably amuse the kindergarten crowd. Even though the dessert was a decently ordinary banana split, this was not enough to give Cafe Peclet a second star because we figured they had nothing to do with making the banana split except buying the ingredients and assemblying them.
So -- there are many lovely restaurants in Val Thorens with good food and friendly, helpful staff. This is not one of them. Now you know where NOT to go.
