The macarons get 5 stars but the customer service at this particular branch at the time of my visit could really be improved so I'm giving this place an average of 3 stars.
First thing first, the macarons were lovely. But of course they were lovely, they're Laduree macarons!
Now on to the service. I arrived there first with a girlfriend and we were deciding what to get. Although the lady behind the counter wasn't attending to other customers, she didn't ask us first what we would like. We saw a sign that said a purchase of a large drink comes with a free macaron. So we got the lady's attention and my friend proceeded to order first and she wanted a large drink (with a free macaron). The lady told her that the drink machine is broken and they couldn't make any drinks at that time. I thought that was weird because I just saw another employee making a drink for another customer. Maybe the machine suddenly broke within the last 30 secs? My husband arrived later and we tried our luck this time by ordering a large drink. This time the lady told us a different thing. She said that they ran out. So which story is correct? Was the machine broken or did they ran out of coffee? Note: there were still coffee beans sitting on the espresso machine. I understand that the lady behind the counter wasn't a native English speaker so maybe she couldn't really articulate the fact that drinks were not available for purchase anymore for the day (maybe they ran out of milk or whatever they needed to make drinks. I'll be nice and give them the benefit of the doubt). But this being Laduree and for this Laduree branch to be located inside Brown Thomas which is a luxury departmental store, we expected that the employees they hire would be more competent and able to communicate clearly with their customers.
Interestingly, right after us came another customer who ended up complaining to the manager of Brown Thomas about the service of Laduree for that particular evening. According to him, the lady behind the counter didn't first ask how she could help him but instead after he got her attention first, she said "What do you want?"
I did end up getting a macaron and a lunch tote from Laduree since there is no Laduree back in Chicago (sigh) but their employees should be better trained to reflect what Laduree is all about. read more