Le Cirio — Restaurant in Brussels

Very disappointed. This place trades on its name and while it has beautiful high ceilings and decor, it's now really a place to pack people in and get them out as quickly as possible. We visit these old tea and restaurant houses over Europe and this is far from the best. The atmosphere more fast food than leisurely dining. Perhaps it's the proximity to the Grand Place that's the problem.

We ordered salad, soup and fries only to be told 'this is a restaurant' and then that literally half the menu wasn't available...no soups, no paninis, no baguettes or sandwiches. In fact, so few things were left on the menu I couldn't help suspect that he was trying to make us choose the most expensive dishes.

Aside from that... it was disappointingly cramped. Not a comfortable place to sit. The tables for two, which make up the majority of seats, don't allow you to put your knees underneath... so you have to sit sideways when eating. They're very close together. So there is absolutely no privacy to talk. It felt rather cluttered and haphazard. As if they had added as many tables as possible.

We stayed a few minutes longer, after the waiter flounced off, deciding whether to concede defeat or eat something more substantial so we could soak up the atmosphere. Then decided the atmosphere wasn't so great either.

We saw, we left. Sadly, I doubt Victor Hugo would bother with this place if he...

The decor is a well-preserved Art Nouveau style elegance, but the good part stops there.

This place does not welcome tourists of South East Asian origin- we are a well-traveled, American-Chinese couple visiting from New York and had the most unwelcoming experience in this establishment.

The idea that you walk-in, and grab a seat where there is an empty table. No waiting list to write down you name, and everyone is doing the same thing. When after 15 minutes of wait a table free up and I was about to sit down, a waiter rush over to say I cannot have that table because it is a four-tops and therefore not for two people. Fair enough-- if that rules apply to everyone. All around us are groups of two people sitting at four-tops, so I try to point that out to the waiter. He started to walk away as I speak. My husband tries to understand why a different criteria applies to us, and the waiter told us that New Years Eve is a special day and therefore we cannot have that table...

We then walked over to Flagstaff on the next street, which has the same Art-Noveau decor and traditional Belgium cuisine and friendly locals with their dog.

We will be launching an official complain with the Belgium Tourism department and with the local...

We came here for some food and a drink over lunch, both of which were good and the food arrived very quickly after we finally got the waiter’s attention to order. Unfortunately, the exceptionally poor service left a rather bad taste for us. We had to work very hard to get the waiter’s attention to order our main food. There seemed to only be one waiter looking after our section of the restaurant (right at the back by the wall). Then when we wanted to order dessert, the same waiter was just stood talking to another table merrily without once looking over to others waiting to order (the table next to us were also trying to get his attention). We even waved at two other waiters in other parts of the restaurant, and they both tried to get his attention to serve us, but he still continued to talk to this one table. When he finally came to take the order of the table next to us, he walked off straightaway despite our efforts to get his attention to order dessert. He had no situational awareness at all, and when we decided to leave to pay at the bar, the bar staff still asked us to wait for him, but we could no longer tolerate this extremely...