Délice Brugge — Restaurant in Bruges

WORST CHOICE EVER!!! We went there because of the good reviews and because it's very well located, but we ended up regretting it a lot. Even though we had previously made a reservation, we had to wait a lot until getting the menu. There was only one waiter (that at the beginning was friendly, but only at the beginning) and it took a while until we could order something. There was another table with six or eight people that arrived after us, and it seems that because of the fact that they had to take a train soon, the waiter decided to give them priority over us. After one hour of waiting for our food, my wife had to ask the manager or waiter for a bit of bread and butter, because we were really hungry. Only then the waiter excused himself and explained the situation about the other table. Until that everything was relatively in order; the problems started when we realised that also all the other tables, even guests that arrived after us (and WITHOUT reservation), got their dishes BEFORE us. Super annoying. We complained and the waiter answered a bit unfriendly. After one hour and twenty minutes (almost one hour and a half!) of waiting for our order, it finally arrived. My dish was fine, but my wife's pasta was salty; she was so hungry that she tried to eat it anyway, but she couldn't finish the plate, it was impossible to make it till the end. It tasted too strong. Mine was fine but the portion was too small, within five minutes I had eaten everything. We were so frustrated that we wanted to leave as soon as possible. I asked the bill and of course I had to ask the waiter to make a discount because of the bad service (I repeat, one hour and a half waiting for two dishes, giving priority to guests that arrived after us, salty food, small portions) and the waiter refused to do it! He offered me instead a cup of coffee. Who would want to stay there after having such a bad evening??? We wanted to leave, I wouldn't have stayed longer not even for a cup of coffee. I had to pay instead until the last cent for such a poor service and bad attention, and it was not precisely cheap. Not only that, but also that when when we were leaving, this waiter asked with a laugh to the other guests if also their dishes were salty, kind of making fun of us. Really unprofessional. It never happened to me something like this before, and I hope you guys improve...

The food is the saving grace of this place. The mussels and fries are good and I reccomend you try them. Is it fairly priced? I would say so.

The drinks are overpriced though. Especially the water at 5€ a half litre. The sad thing about this is that when I go to resteraunts I drink a lot. So you can easily spend more on drinks than the entire main meal. I mean I don't have a problem with this but it's compounded by the waiter telling me you can't drink tap water in Bruges. I'm pretty sure that's not true.

The décor aswell could use some updating. It has abit of a sleazy old American diner vibe. Two big tips to improve the environment and mood:

1. Don't have such obviously fake flowers on the tables. It's not the worst thing but with small tables it takes up alot of space and especially when the flowery are flake and the dishes are big it can get about annoying.

2. Definitely have better lighting , the decor is great and has a bar-y / diner vibe. But with poor lighting it makes it abit dingy and less fun.

Again I may sound super pedantic. But as the owner of a small business myself I know constructive criticism makes all the difference. And don't get me wrong . It IS GOOD. Hence the lack of just a one star review. It just isn't the perfect or amazing that's warranting or 5*s.

I think if you make water cheap. Or I don't know. Give a free litre plastic bottle to every table ( you can get these bottles for 50 cents from Carrefour so not too bad)

Then being up the lighting.

Change the fake flowers or get rid of the entirely.

You'd be...

I visited Bruges using a day tour from Brussels. A tour guide gave us an hour and 15 min for lunch time, and I selected Delice based on a very good rating. A server gave us the regular menu but no lunch special that I knew they have. When I searched it on the web, he knew I was searching and gave us the lunch special menu that he gave other guests already. I ordered the food and asked him that we needed to leave in an hour and 5 min as the tour guide let us know that it's usually slow in Bruges so it's better to ask them when we order. What the waiter said was "if you are in hurry, you need to order a regular menu item." (Why?) I still thought an hour 5 min was good enough so ordered the lunch special items. What I noticed was they served 2 other groups first who came after us and ordered the lunch special. One group ordered exactly the same food we ordered. Was it a mistake? I doubt it because of his attitude. If you are Caucasian, it might be a good place to try. If not, take your own risk. I never experienced this kind of service in NY where I live.

Additional comment after they replied. We didn't ask any when he gave us the menu. When they provided a lunch special menu, I found there were 3 choices. Mussels Chicken Flemish beef stew And they are saying these are not...