Le Panier D'Or — Restaurant in Bruges

We came here during midweek having been foolishly enticed in by the Menu of the day for €22. This looked great value and appeared to be just what we were looking for. We were then tended to by Jeffrey, a man who seemed very nice and funny to start but realistically was a con artist, employed by the owners to try and extract every penny from a tourist that he can, eventually turning into someone I could liken to a mosquito who wouldn’t disappear and kept buzzing around you. At times, he even stretched to making fun of and pressuring those on soft drinks to order alcoholic drinks. We were served drinks which arrived within seconds and so they should at €12 per pint. Our food was very slow to arrive and mediocre at best. Fast food but without the fast, I guess. Clearly a stunt to enable one to drink more and rack up a huge bill. Jeffrey came back every 10 minutes asking if we required more drinks, on occasions telling us we drunk too slow and making an insensitive comment about pregnancy which could offend some if they have had prior experiences that had affected them. He didnt like no for an answer.

We’d had drinks at Cafe des Arts literally a door or two down that afternoon which didnt have a menu of the day on offer but managed to only charge around €7 per pint for identical beers on offer. In hindsight we wished we had eaten there instead, as the quality of food and service appeared far superior to what we had and overall, would probably have worked out cheaper all things considered. In the end, 1 and a half pints and a menu of the day came out at around €45 per person. So around €250 per person with Jeffrey becoming very agitated and determined that we should pay cash so that they could avoid their card payment fees. He didnt seem at all happy that we had cash, but wished to pay card.

So, to sum up folks, don’t eat here. You’ll find far more upstanding, genuine businesses in this area who actually care about customer care rather than fobbing off the tourists. I come to Bruges most years, but won’t be returning here. It’s a money obsessed mostrocity, without a single care for you, your meal or your holiday....

If you have a chance to look through this review and others, PLEASE AVOID if you plan to have a good experience in Bruges (or while traveling in Europe).

This was probably the 2nd worst dining experience I had while in Europe (the worst if I were to confine the experience only in Western Europe - the only worse one was in Hungary where the establishment seemed to employ racist policies by prioritizing entrance based on the ethnicity).

The food was mediocre - entirely forgettable and if you are hungry, nothing about the food will offend you. You eat and forget about the experience probably the next day.

The service was horrendous. Not only was the service slow, but the server waited around and looked over my shoulder while asking for the tip. This wasn't the first time experiencing it - there was a tourist trap restaurant in Brussels with the same experience but in defense of that restaurant, the food was much better. I didn't choose to eat at this restaurant because there was a menu item that I wanted to try - I was so hungry that I had to pick a place and didn't have a chance to read the reviews by others of this establishment ahead of time.

I do get it though - it's probably likely that people who work at this restaurant are likely not well off financially. They probably appreciate the fact that dumb tourists come in and spend dumb tourist money. These servers can make pretty decent money by applying pressure to the dumb tourists to get some tip. Bruges is likely an ideal place to do so - it's a lovely city with a lot of beautiful buildings to see but people are unlikely to make a trek back to the City and if they choose to come back, it's definitely not going back to this disappointing restaurant. For that reason, this restaurant can prey on dumb tourists for money.

One can argue that it's entirely my fault that I put myself in the uncomfortable situation to having to tip and you would be right about that. That's exactly the reason why I'm spending my time to give this restaurant 1-star so that people can avoid...

This place seemed nice, the waiter greeted us, but pulled us in and this should have been the first sign, but we had had such a great experience in Belgium until now.

We ordered the 3 course menu and the seasonal beers which they told us were 7% abv and a belgian blonde.

We got our drinks and right away we noticed that they smelled differently than any other blonde we have tried. It was a pils, which was priced way less, but they wanted to charge us for the more expensive beer. I confronted them, asked them to try as i wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, but they doubled down and insisted it was not the pils, in the mean time i had ordered the pils to confirm that it was the same, before i said anything.

Then i asked them to smell and taste, one admitted that it was the same, but was quickly talked over. They poured me another beer to shut me up as to not alert anyone.

The last straw was, when i saw the tap where the seasonal beer was supposed to be, water came out and they washed their hands in it, this meant of course, that they never had the seasonal beer, which was more expensive.

We had lost all trust in this place and moved on to another. We only had been served the appetizers and asked to pay for what we had eaten and drunk, but they insisted for us to pay for the whole thing, it was an expensive lesson.

But here they clearly scam people and pour the cheapest beer even though you order something else and want you to pay for the more expensive beer and hope you wont know the difference.

I would advice against going to this place!!!

My wife and i brew beer and judge...