Monroe — Restaurant in Antwerp

One of the worst customer experiences of my life. We arrived around 11.30am when the place was not very busy at all. We ordered an appetizer dish, some water and two avocado toasts. The appetizer came a few minutes later, but the avocado toasts were nowhere to be seen even after ~40 minutes. It was around then that we asked a staff member if there was an issue, as by this point we had only another 15 minutes or so before we needed to leave due to a work commitment. We spoke to two staff members, the first one was very sweet and she said she would ask the kitchen to see what was going on. 10 minutes later there was still no food so we asked a second waiter, and he was very rude. My girlfriend asked him if the issue was that the kitchen forgot the order, to which he replied "No, they didn't forget, the chef is quite busy". We would've been fine with it if they had simply been upfront and said that they forgot, but to expect us to believe that it was normal to wait 50+ minutes for avocado toast is insulting.

We finally waited another 6-7 minutes with still no sign of the avocado toast, at which point we had to get up and tell the nearby waitress that we needed to leave. They brought us our bill and the arrogant waiter took care of bringing us the bill. He even remarked that "we will not charge you for the avocado toasts" which was somewhat amusing since it would be insane to even consider to put that on the bill. Even when they did bring the bill, we had to wait longer because they had put an additional 6 euro charge on it relating to the avocado toast which they then had to modify when we brought it up.

Even when I'm not a big fan of a place, I don't like to leave bad reviews, this is only the second time in my life that I've left a 1-star review. We didn't even mind so much that the avocado toast was forgotten as mistakes can happen, but the arrogant treatment of the waiter (mid-late 30s and a dark beard) was completely unacceptable. If you need 1 hour to prepare avocado toast when a restaurant is at 20% capacity, then you shouldn't be offering this dish. At the least, you should warn customers since you can't expect them to imagine that they'll have such a long wait on their hands. In any case, we all know that's nonsense and they simply forgot. One amusing detail is that the guy stuck to the story that the chef was simply busy even when we pointed out to them that literally every single customer that had arrived after us had already been served their food,...

Nice place in theory, great decor, but I get the 'coffee bar' atmosphere here, with all bourbon-based cocktail instead of coffee. The cocktail aren't that imaginative (and the menu is missing some classics). Some of the staff were all too eager to grab drinks (even half-full ones) from our table, highly unpleasant if you do this 5 times in one evening, with every new drink. This looks more like a place designed to attract tourists, not for an evening of cocktail drinking with your buddies or a date. I don't see where they're going with this, it's missing a concept or direction imho. If they want to try to have a sort of American bar style here, maybe the staff should try to be a bit more entertaining or engaged,... it all felt a little amateuristic and boring, the cheesy 80s music didn't help either (although the DJ tried to make up for that later at night by playing some bland bass stuff that blew away any chance of talking to people), the prices are rather high for the very simple drinks they make, this place needs some serious work. Would recommend this for couples or tourists who want to have a quick drink and sit down in some...

Absolutely stellar meal at this neighbourhood bistro. We arrived very late on a Sunday and the waiter gently let us know that we would have to go straight to main courses which was fine. We ordered the steak tartare and the belly pork salad. Bread and olive oil arrived along with our aperitifs - one of the largest pastis I’ve been served and with the ice on the side which was perfect. The steak tartare was perfect. One of the best dishes I’ve ever had, with crispy beef tallow frites and a lovely green salad. The pork salad was generous and flavourful. The house red wine was good quality too. Of course the staff spoke perfect English as our Flemish is limited to cheers and thank you sadly. I would definitely visit again if we are ever in Antwerp. And as an aside, it’s only 5mins walk from the great value...