Al Barmaki — Restaurant in Brussels

Horrible experience! The owner is arrogant, unprofessional and uneducated woman. My friend and I were planning to celebrate our birthdays there with some of our mutual friends. I called the restaurant 2 days before our reservation to find out if we could only order the menu set or just a la carte. As I don't eat much in general, I didn't want to pay 37eur for the menu set and wanted to just take a couple of meals a la carte. The owner confirmed over the phone that it was possible to order also a la carte. We were in fact choosing between 2 libanese restaurants and have only agreed to this place having the confirmation that we would be able to order a la carte. Upon arrival to the restaurant, the owner came to us and I have requested a la carte. She then started telling us, we can only order MENU SETS 37eur per person. I was then telling her about the call I had previously made to confirm the possibility of a la carte. The woman started raising her voice, getting aggressive saying that it was not possible she had said that! Long story short, I refused to eat anything at that place and my 7 friends have agreed to pay for menu sets, as they didn't want to ruin their evening. As I was the one calling the place , I was also the one dealing with the owner and her aggression. Out of principle I didnt take a single meal from that place. She handled the situation unprofessionally, raising voice, disrespectfully claiming I was imagining things etc. Why would she confirm on the phone that a la carte was possible to then deny it upon arrival?? Tricky way of doing business!! We will never come there again. None of us. So you lost 8 customers!!! Food was ok....

Never again! The owner/manager is an unprofessional, disrespectful woman who never came accross custom service etiquette. I had a work dinner planned for a big group of people, unfortunatly some people canceled last minute and couldn’t join. The owner stood in front of everyone and shouted that she’s not happy with the situation and that I made her lose customers. She then forced me to pay for 2 extra ppl to compensate for her “ loses”. Ok fine no problem I paid. The problem doesn’t stop here yet: To pay we requested to pay individually, but she got angry and said that it was “impossible, and never done before”. what a shoker- in Brussels, to pay BY PERSON? We all had a set menu so the price was set already and she only had to add drinks to the bill, but I assume that was too much mathematics for her. she claimed that she doesn’t want to give factures to each one of us and only one should pay. After 15 minutes of debates with her, we were finally able to pay the bill by splitting, with her of course charging me for 2 additional ppl. During this entire experience, she was arrogant, frowning the entire time, has anger issues, and disrespectful. she overreacted for every little thing, I’m sorry but there are other restaurants that serve better Lebanese food and you replying to all comments saying “we are a restaurant not a snack place”, in fact a snack place would be better than yours. Never would I recommend this place to anyone just...

Very rude staff, mediocre food, stingy owners, who almost impose you what to order: easily the worst place to eat Lebanese food in Brussels. I would recommend going to La Châtelaine du Liban or even East@West which is closeby: those are just two examples, I figure that anywhere would be better than Al Barmaki.

As a response to the owner’s reply: Unfortunately, my review isn’t fake, I wish it was. Everyone obviously does not give you 5 stars, your average rating wouldn’t have dropped to almost 4 stars otherwise🤔 To give you the specificity you required: your bitter falafels upset my stomach - is this real enough for you? I actually went through the other reviews and you have responded to quite a lot other 1-star reviews. Maybe it’s time you start taking your customers’ feedback in account, think about it. I only recommended other Lebanese restaurants because I have been there and this is the very goal of these reviews - whether you recommend a place or not. And I DO NOT...