La Civiere D'Or — Restaurant in Bruges

Do NOT go there. They will SCAM you big time!!! Waitress is quite a hustler. We ordered three beers (two were large), an ice tea, a dozen oysters, fries (11€) and olives (6€). Waitress was very chummy throughout, and attempted to distract us, before handing my husband a bill for 145.00 Euros. I went to pay the bill, and she immediately said, "The service charge is not included. Do want to give me 15% or 20%?", as if these were the only two options. For those that aren't aware, waiterstaff in Europe are paid a living wage, much better than those in the US. For this reason, locals in Belgium rarely tip, though they may round up the bill. They think American tipping system is ridiculous. For context, had an awsome waiter at a different restaurant the day before, we appreciated the food and service and attempted to tip him well, but he refused to accept a 20% tip saying, "No it is too much, I will not accept it. I will not take advantage of you." We said we understand this is not common in Belgium, but still insisted on leaving him a nice tip, but he was reluctant to take even 10%. If you had good service it is more common to round up. So I knew she was taking advantage when she asked if I wanted to tip 15% or 20%. I have literally NEVER had a waiter request a tip, much less one that high, and knew she was taking advantage, but we were treating another couple and I didn't want to make a scene since she put me on the spot infront of the whole table.

The bill seemed u usually for high for what we ordered, but we were tired and I paid it. We used the restroom, only to discover there was no soap or papertowels, which is gross when think the people handling your food are not washing their hands.

We got back to the hotel, and I checked over the receipt to see she had double charged us for the oysters. I walked back to the restaurant and requested she refund the charges to my card and I would pay the correct amount. She would not refund the credit card charge as she didn't want to lose the $38€ for the oysters or the 22€ tip. The maitre' d to stop being nosy when he came over to see what the issue was. Them gave me back 38€ for the oysters insisting that it was a mistake, which we both knew it was not, before remarking on how secure my bag was with locking zippers, as if she were sizing that up, too. We have never experienced this before, but I got the impression she makes quite a living hustling tourists.

$181.00 US for three beers, a dozen oysters an ice tea, fries and olives is ridiculous.

Far too many good restaurants in Brudge to get hustled or get food poisoning...

The experience, where do I start... We sat down, waved, and asked a few times to order. We were ignored for about 15 minutes. Kids were busy eating snacks, so we didn't bother leaving. Finally after 15 minutes a waiter came and took our drinks order. He was not happy when he realised we had a double pram, a toddler, and an infant. The waiter was an Asian chubby man with a stained top. After taking out drinks order, he walked away, and someone promptly delivered our drinks. We had to wait a further 20 minutes for someone to take our food order, and no waving helped. That man simply ignored us even when he walked past us. Apparently, no one else could take our oder. The food is pricey but you pay for the location, it's a tourist place right in the city centre.

The food arrived very quickly and looked good at first glance. We had a tuna pizza, the pizza was very wet, it tasted like a margarita pizza with the content out of a tuna tin on it, without draining tuna. Soggy pizza with cold tuna pizza, most likely from a tin.

We had a rabbit stew or something similar. It was pretty much just bones in a bowl of sauce with some lettuce on top.

We also had medium rare cooked Irish rump steak, it arrived nicely cooked outside and raw inside, when asked the same waiter to cook it a little more, he basically shouted at me saying I don't know what medium rare steak should look like. They cooked it a little more and brought me a well-done steak. The steak was "edible" very fatty but edible. The peppercorn sauce looked, and tasted like it sat for hours in the fridge. It was dry on top and very cold. I only had the steak, it also supposed to come with fries, it arrived with 2 small ones, I didn't bother questioning that.

We looked at the reviews while drinking our drinks and thinking when they will come to take our food order. Didn't know it was that bad. They didn't add any additional tip on top of our bill however the menu does say its automatically added. The food is terrible, drinks expensive, no baby changing rooms only toilet for adults. If you desperate then...

The Italian restaurant located on the edge of the Grote markt- this is facing the main square of the city. Table of two right in front of the restaurant was vacant. I asked to sit there but the server refused, stating that if you want to order main course you will have to sit at the back. “Okay fine” i thought. Then we sat further inside under the umbrellas, waited about ten minutes for the server to circle back to our table (restaurant is at 25% occupancy) and ordered a risotto (to be shared between two people, we usually order wine later). The server got extremely aggressive and shouted “no can’t order only one” and pulled away the menu from our hands. His loud and rude aggressive attitude forced us to leave the restaurant. He was a short middle aged man. We got up and left and he shouted at me and my husband, gesturing us to “gtfo”. I’m shocked and appalled by this behaviour.

The server looked Indian middle aged man, was shouting at his indian server colleague (“Deepa Deepa”) and was being racist towards me AN INDIAN!! Hilarious!! He didn’t want us to occupy front seats at the restaurant...