I want to like Le Carrousel, I really do. The location is fantastic, with an outdoor patio right on the marina, with the French Alps rising up across the lake. However, the service is desultory, the prices are bold, and the food has twice been unpleasant.
After having bad food there a few years ago (a buffalo mozzarella pizza where the cheese was fridge temperature, and the waiter argued that the icy sensation was elemental to the dish), I went back once with a group, and had a fairly nice dish of pasta. So I did not object to being taken again for a special meal last night.
Mistake. I ordered a seafood risotto that was saltier than seawater. Of course, asking for more water to wash out the salt would have required taking out a bank loan. 20 minutes after leaving, the salt was still coating my mouth, and I was Googling proper etiquette for too-salty food in a restaurant (apparently, one could gently tell the server that the dish is a bit over-salted, and if the server takes a nibble and agrees, you might get a replacement, but this experiment has not been tried with surly Swiss waitstaff).
It was not just my meal. When I asked my wife about her salmon dish, before telling her anything about my risotto, she said, "a bit too salty". Then my kid said her fries were also really salty, and my samples of their dishes confirmed. Since this was our second bad experience with the food over a few years, I have to conclude that the kitchen will never be run by someone who can produce food that lives up to the ambience. Nor will the service ever be warm and welcoming. My recommendation: have a drink at the attached patio bar next door, with the same marina/ mountain view, then go somewhere else to eat. read more