First, let me say that I feel it’s a privilege to be able to go to a restaurant and have people bring me drinks and food. And I rarely leave a place feeling annoyed.
I am also familiar with limited menus, staffing issues, and price points of our dear SBH. I try to be very forgiving of these things.
Now:
I’m grateful that so far we have had dinner at Fouquet’s (extraordinary), Le Repaire (always solid + profiteroles), La Case (elegant), and L’Esprit (best in show, IMO). Each place had some bumps but make La Guerite feel like you are at TGIFRIDAYS. I give it 1 more season before it’s gone. And it’s a shame because we have really enjoyed it in years past.
I am also familiar with limited menus, staffing issues, and price points of our dear SBH. I try to be very forgiving of these things.
Now:
- Tuna Tartare should not taste like deviled ham from a can. I happen to like that, but not when it’s fish.
- A cocolette (baby chicken) should have crispy skin, not something that feels like you’re eating an actual baby. And citrus sauce shouldn’t be cloying, which it was.
- The frites were good.
- No one working there seemed to care about what they were doing except for the hostess. Waitress was barely interested enough to say hello to us. Perfunctory, is the word that comes to mind.
- It took three waitstaff to present our wine and open it. Still mystified.
- The wine list is offensive. A couple of whites for under 100, everything else was ridiculous. (I can only have white and the fact that the white list was basically 2 pages and several others for reds felt very odd to me given the fish heavy menu and the south of France connection). We ate at Fouquet’s a couple nights ago - There you’d expect an outrageously priced list, but lots of good options. We intentionally chose the cheapest wine - and we never ever do that. It actually made us angry. I suppose there are people who will pay 1200 for a bottle of white wine, but we aren’t them.
- When asked to leave the wine on the table and not in a chiller (most whites are better not freezing cold, FYI), we were told “no” and it was taken away. No other words spoken.
- Intermittently, the lights go out, staff start clapping in a lackadaisical fashion and then the lights come on and off for a few seconds. It’s supposed to be fun? It felt like eating in a fire station.
- Hotel California to a dance beat. The most overplayed song in the history of recorded music and we needed a remix to keep it fresh, I guess.
- Desserts were: lava cake, tiramisu, cheesecake, and apple pie. If that is all you’ve got, on St Barths of all places, it’s a sure sign you’ve given up.
- we went from seated to finished eating in a hour. The pacing is really bad.
- our bill ended up being nearly the same as L’Esprit and that meal/service was 100x better.
I’m grateful that so far we have had dinner at Fouquet’s (extraordinary), Le Repaire (always solid + profiteroles), La Case (elegant), and L’Esprit (best in show, IMO). Each place had some bumps but make La Guerite feel like you are at TGIFRIDAYS. I give it 1 more season before it’s gone. And it’s a shame because we have really enjoyed it in years past.
