De Gastro — Restaurant in Bruges

My family and I were looking so forward to eating at this restaraunt during our visit to Bruges. Unfortunately, our experience with the hostess and waitress (same woman) was extremely disappointing from the moment we walked in.

First, we were not greeted in a friendly way by the hostess. We ordered a beer and 2 lemonades from the restaraunt. I took 2 sips of my personal water to take a medication. I had a bandage on my foot. The waitress came over to our table telling us, “We sell water so you cannot consume your own beverages”. I understand this “rule”, but without a moment for me to respond, she snatched the glass and left. We were flabbergasted by her actions. The owner then stated that “we consumed our own beverages”. I felt violated by the waitress’s actions, prompting this review. I can think of so many ways she could have handled the situation more professionally and respectfully, and it wouldn’t have been a problem. “I’m so sorry, madame, but you cannot consume your water. Would you like me to bring you a bottle from the restaurant?” Anything more professional and respectful along these lines could have circumvented the problem. I posted a picture of the waitress so that the owner would know which employee it was (I did not know her name). One would think an owner would want to have a coaching conversation with theemployee about her actions. Instead, the owner became defensive and blamed the customer. When he asked me to remove the picture, I respectfully did.

As many other reviewers mentioned, we also did not appreciate the “rules” to order 1 entree per person written on the menu. Let people order what they need and want, and customer satisfaction and gross profits will follow. When asked how the experience was, my husband said “delicious”. We just wanted to be cordial, pay, and leave as quickly as possible.

Due to the issue with the waitress and the reaction of the owner, I would not come here again or recommend this place to others. The mark of a good leader and business owner is the ability to take ANY customer feedback and turn it into something constructive, but looking at many other low reviews, the owner continues to blame the customer in a rude manner. It is no wonder his employees are also rude...

After reading most of the comments about this restaurant, let me sum up the aspects which people most interested:

Visit slot: weekday at lunch time min. order: 1 main dish per person

(1) Food quality: We ordered two main dishes and two beers. Mussels with cream: The flavour was there, but it could be elevated by some herbs/ spices to enrich the whole sauce. Mussels were fresh, meat were fat and cook perfectly. The protion is enough for an adult. (No dipping sauce was provided for the frites)

Ossobuco: the pasta was overcooked, it was quite soft (but not mushy). I would expected a perfect cook for pasta as this is the basic 101 for a restaurant (which held 4.7 stars).

(2) Service quality: We did not book a table in advance, only have to waited few mins for a table. It was a bit surprised. It was a lunch hour, almost every table were seated. But people did not expect to wait for 20-30 mins for a dish.. Waitress and waiters were nice and friendly with big smile at whole time.

(3) Overpricing: Yes. Sure it is. Based on the food quality was so-so, it is overpricing. I believed that because it is a small town and it has 4.7 stars which gives the owner the title to increase the price.

(4) Payment method: Me and my friend were both using apple pay, only mine could be approved. I would suggest that you should bring enough cash if you want to dine in this restaurant.

Overall: I don't agree that some people commented as "tourist scam" for this restaurant. The atmosphere and servers were great. The food quality was average but not worth for 4.7 stars and the relative prices. I believe you can find another great restaurant/ deli in the town to enjoy your half day or limited...

Food was mostly good. Flemish stew was truly fabulous. Desert which was an apple stroudel (which was stodgy and just bland) accompanied with watery cold custard... was not!

The main memory however was the service. The staff seemed preoccupied with clearing the 18:00 hrs guests for a later sitting.

This could have been a recent development for the staff to deal with and perhaps they were getting used to.... however as a diner it felt like the focus was upon clearing the room rather than attending to the diners.

We walked into the restaurant and before we could answer "we were good" to the "how are you" welcome greeting it was made clear that our table had to be vacated in 2 hours. In all seriousness it would have taken some doing to take two hours for the meal.

Too many errors with the service led us to ponder that perhaps their attention was not truly focused upon the diners. Long wait for the bill as the staff were focused upon clearing other tables presumably for the following sitting. Our meal lasted 75 minutes ....well below the 120 minute deadline.

Real shame as both mains were v good.

We may have just been unlucky but as always the acid test is would we return. On this sitting.......