To preface this review, I should tell you that I was torn between one and two stars... the vibe here was definitely off putting, but I thought the food was decent. I decided to go with one solely based on the quality of the service we received.
My boyfriend and I are from the states, and this is the first time we've experienced overtly rude behavior in the two separate occasions we've traveled to Paris. I should also say that we truly do our best to communicate what we're able to in French, and are always very conscientious of our manners and attitudes when we go out. The fact that we seemed to be a huge burden to the waiter (in an almost empty restaurant) was, to say the least, pretty disappointing.
We arrived for dinner, and were greeted by one of the staff right as we walked through the door. We were then led to a section in which we were able to choose a table to sit at. Everything seemed completely fine up to this point. Our waiter came over to ask for our drink order, and upon realizing we were tourists, suddenly became very disinterested in our business; his entire demeanor changed, and his interactions with us were short and curt from this point forward.
We decided on the French Bordeaux, but were quickly told "we don't have that anymore." There was no polite tone, just a quick, blunt statement. In lieu of our first choice, we picked an Italian red (which was really good; nothing to complain about there!) that took a pretty long time to make the trip from the bar to our table. Once we had wine in hand, we placed our order.
Other tables came in, got drinks, ate their meals, paid, and left before our dinners even came out. Perhaps the pizza took a long time to cook because it was fresh? I don't know. I always feel the need to justify poor service, but I don't know if I can in this instance.
The waiter came by with our food (finally), more or less slung it on the table, said nothing, and walked away. We sort of overlooked that because we were absolutely starving by this point. Once we actually got our food, my boyfriend's pizza had all the toppings in a messy pile in the center... maybe that's how it was supposed to come out, but it certainly didn't look like there was any care put into presentation. My meal, on the other hand, actually looked pretty good, in my opinion, and it tasted great. I can't speak to the quality of the pizza, but my boyfriend seemed to enjoy his, as well... we could have, in part, thought this due to how hungry we were, though.
We did not receive a single visit from the waiter throughout the course of our meal, and ended up waiting a long time (again) to receive the check and pay so we could leave. Only at the point my credit card was being charged for the service did the waiter speak to us.
Just like we've experienced back home, different locations of the same chain can differ in quality of service and quality of food. I hate leaving poor reviews for this reason, but felt the need to do so, as we felt uncomfortable and unwelcome while dining. If given the opportunity, I won't return to this location, but may choose to try another in a different area. Hopefully that experience will be different! read more