Bistro Illyrian — Restaurant in Ghent

3 stars - first one for the location (cute part of Gent center), second for the interesting interior and pleasant design, and the third one for the waiters recognizing their mistake. This experience left much to be desired. We came here with a friend after she shared that she had eaten here a year ago and liked the food. So far, so good! I was excited. We ordered two sharing plates (one was 12€ and the second one was 20€) as well as another accompanying side for 8€ and two glasses of wine. First off, we waited for 20mins to even be asked what we wanted to order. A waiter passed by our table 4 times serving the tables around us, and when asked if we could order he said his colleague will come. It took another 15mins for the waiter to arrive. Ordering two mezze plates to share (which I must specify was introduced on the menu that you had to be a minimum of two people to be able to share), we were surprised when one plate arrived with a ridiculously small amount of food. I have never witnessed this in Ghent before. We finished it in no time and were confused as to where the other shared plate and side were. The waiter then came to tell us that our order was mixed up and they would offer us complimentary glass of wine for the mistake. This is of course appreciated, however the second plate was even smaller than the first one. I'm disappointed at this experience, and surprised at the all the other reviews for this place. Plus, it's on the expensive side, even for Ghent! I don't mind paying more for good food, but i felt that price/quantity ratio could be much improved. Something's gotta give - they should either increase the size of their mezze plates or lower the prices. It was painful paying 20€ for a sharing plate that gave a whole of 5 bites. Points for acknowledging their mistake, but we didn't...

I have mixed feelings for this place, which could have been fantastic, but fell short on a number of aspects.

The Good: -The Kosovar Riesling was one of the best white wines I have tried in recent years. Full taste of the Riesling blissfully deprived of the excessive sweetness of most commercial products. An absolute go. food was very tasty, great quality, beautiful presentation.

The Bad: even though the food was very high quality, it was also very spicy, without any telling from the menu whatsoever. No problem for me (I love spicy...) But my mother, who has some health problems, couldn't basically eat anything. cost is a bit on the higher side, even for Gent. The Mains price is reasonable, but these come with no sides whatsoever, and most sides are 10euros extra.

The Ugly: Waiting time was extremely long, over 50 minutes; and it wasn't that busy either!

In sum: great place, but with some improvements needed before making to the 5 stars. Most things are fortunately easy to address (simply write "spicy" on the menu...). Price less of a problem if the overall experience improves....

Summary for those who don't want to read it entirely: the food is AMAZING, but it's a little overpriced, and it can get really noisy inside if full.

Now to the details: the seasoning they use is incredibly good. We ordered an entry called Discover Mezze, which was very nice. Then, we ordered the sea bass and the roasted lamb as main dishes, with the aubergine as a side dish. It was almost too much food for two people, so if you are not that hungry, I think you can skip the entry.

Alert for those who don't like salt: you might find it a little too much. For us, Brazilians, that just matched perfectly our taste 😋

So, about the price, we spent almost 100 euros on the dinner. The great food compensated the price, but it could be a little cheaper in my opinion (comparing to other restaurants that we had lunch or...