Café Boulud The Bahamas — Restaurant in New Providence

Okay. Don’t get me wrong, this place isn’t necessarily “bad…” but for what they advertise and what they charge, you really would expect it to at least be worth it. Unfortunately, I think it’s mainly the food where they miss the mark. And that’s just a shame, when that’s that’s the star of the show.

The staff are really wonderful. Hostesses are friendly. I was waiting for my date to arrive, so they let me sit at the dining-room bar for a cocktail as I waited. The bartender Craig, was brilliant. Mixed me a perfect Negroni, chatted with me, and even let me have a sip of their new premium gin, just because we started talking about good gins. It was epic, by the way.

My date arrived. Craig mixed her a wonderful modern spin on a Cosmopolitan. We got our seat in this lovely small dining-room and ordered our food.

Things just kinda went a little downhill with the food itself: The breads they serve automatically are pretty perfect overall, I’ll give them that. Pieces of brioche, some kind of croissant/laminated bread and a sourdough kinda assembly. All fantastic.

We ordered the Foie Gras Pate to start. Which was… decent. But like, it’s pretty clear they put other kinds of liver in it to save money. It’s still got this underlying chalky texture and a bit of an irony taste to it. I dunno, maybe it’s poor quality foie gras, or there’s filler. I’ve worked with foie as a chef before, and the texture and flavor were just pretty off.

For mains: my date ordered the Duck, and I ordered the Seabass. And this is where the meal just particularly went downhill.

The seabass comes with a “basquaise sauce” but that’s definitely not what I got. Had an overwhelming flavor of celery (given that there were a bunch of undercooked pieces of celery in it) and that’s not even an ingredient in Basquaise lol. Not to mention that they had the gall to GARNISH the friggen fish with discolored celery leaves 🤣 Like, those leaves were strait-up yellow…

The fish itself was bland and managed to somehow be overcooked without even having ANY color on the skin. Just dry and generally flavorless (apart from that damn celery flavor from the sauce).

The Duck my date ordered was undercooked and tough, and again, had very little flavor. I know duck is best at medium/medium-rare, but this was basically blue and hard to chew. And yet again, pretty much no browning, so no texture either. I don’t think we could even figure out where the “pistachios” were on it.

The desert was kinda a saving grace, thankfully. We shared the Vanilla-Rum crème brûlée. It was very well presented, creamy, with a nice rum flavor that wasn’t overpowering, and definitely worth the price.

I just really think the chefs might have had an off day, but I really hope that this overall meal isn’t what they always serve. For the prices you pay: Foie gras with clear fill-ins, overcooked fish, undercooked duck and sauces/garnishes that not only aren’t as advertised, but also just very unpleasant…. I unfortunately can’t say it’s worth the price.

I reiterate, the FOH staff are lovely, and you can really tell they try their damndest. I would give a better score on that part, but here’s the thing that I’m conflicted on: Our waiter was very attentive, but he just seemed so damn nervous. It’s less about his performance, and more like he acted like the people behind the scenes had a gun to his head or something. It was even a slow night there when I went. It seems to clearly be bad management, poor training, or desperation on the part of management. Bro was legit shaking at one point, and my date and I were even trying to help him feel as calm as possible. I’ll just consider that as a personal issue on his part, but likely reflective of potentially abusive/inconsiderate management.

But, really, I don’t think the food is remotely worth revisiting. There are better YouTube videos that can teach you to cook better at home compared to...

Beautiful French food in beautiful Nassau Bahamas! Our deepest gratitude to everyone at Cafe Boulud!  You elevated our Rosewood experience to an entirely new level! During our 7 day stay at the Rosewood last week, we dined at Cafe Boulud 3 times for dinner, multiple times for breakfast and also were frequent visitors to the Library for lunch or champagne.  The service, ambiance and food is without question the best of BahaMar!  Thank you to Jyronah for always greeting us as if we were long time friends. You made us feel like family.  And, Taran, well, you are seriously hands down the best, most gracious and knowledgeable server we have ever experienced. Thank you for taking such great care of us and letting us just relax and enjoy the experience (not easy for this picky foodie!!). The manager (sorry, my husband has the card and I can't remember your name...but you know who you are:)) You run an amazing establishment both at the Library and at the main dining area of Cafe Boulud. We appreciate the hard work and attention you pay to this restaurant and it really shows through in the camaraderie of your people!  We also loved that Chef Antoine cooked for us on our last night and really made us feel like we were movie stars! Taking the time to make each dish according to our preference or dietary restrictions. Wonderful.  Can't forget your sommelier who made selecting our wine a fun experience!  I also want to mention Valerie at the Library. She became a fast friend and took amazing care of us for brunch or lunch remembering our favorites and always keeping the amazing coffee flowing!  She is a pure asset to your Library team. Again, thank you to everyone and we can not wait to be back in Nassau and dine...

We were looking forward to our experience at Cafe Boulud after visiting other locations outside of Bahamas. We were happy to pay a premium to have great service and amazing food, but unfortunately that was not the case at the Baha Mar location. Upon arrival we were told a table would take 5 minutes, and after over 20 minutes of waiting we followed up with the Hostess who kept telling us it would be just be a few more minutes. When we were finally seated outside we were surprised to see at least 10 empty tables. We thought maybe there wasn't enough staff but there were 7 service members standing around and talking, so it was obvious they were not very busy. When we finally sat down, no one came to our table to offer us menus or drinks. It took about 10 minutes to place our coffee order, and although the coffee came out pretty fast after ordering, the hostess (who said she was assisting the server) told us the milk was being steamed and would be a moment. We didn't ask for our milk to be steamed and we never received the milk for our coffee. After 15 minutes of sitting we waved down a different server and asked for a menu, at which point we reordered our coffees. We then placed our order for the avocado toast, french omelette, and pancakes. The pancakes were our favourite dish, the other two weren't bad but nothing superior to what we had at the buffet the morning prior. This did not feel like high-end dining and was a bad experience from the very beginning. This is the only place we visited that we would...