Racines Restaurant italien — Restaurant in Ixelles - Elsene

Food was great, wine was delicious, personnel did a very good job (polite and well informed).

Yet, at first we were seated at the comptoir at a corner where you have the smell of the 'friteuse' hanging around. When we politely asked to be reseated to a table if any of them would turn out to be available, we received a mildly passive-agressive answer from the maître de salle in the direction of "everybody wants a table". He did come back later to nuance his answer. I had also communicated food preferences and the fact that it was my partners 35th birthday. The food preferences were asked again when we ordered (which is not the end of the world of course) and the celebration context was forgotten or neglected. ANY attention would have been nice (a simple drink on the house, or even just a genuine congratulation from a staff member). All these things would not have been that big of a deal in a random other restaurant. But neither of them would have showed up in another Brussels restaurant at the same price point. When you pay over 300 eur for a 2 person dinner (5 services, wine included), You can expect to be treated politely by everyone (no exception for the owner/maître de salle), that they read your up front communication and not to be seated in frying oil vapors.

I am not coming back here any time soon. Don't get me wrong, if you're only after great food and wine, you will find it here. But I think there are more then enough Brussels Restaurants at this price point that will...

I feel bad to write a bad review, but I feel cheated for thinking I would have something super sophisticated that turned out to be simply average, but with the bill of 300 euros for 2. It was a big disappointment - first food - octopus with the beans wasn't even decent... Pasta with pigeon - it's very subjective, but simply nothing special or even not good. Dessert was again simply ok, but for that price you would expect something mind blowing or at least great. As I said, food is not terrible, just that one expects more sophistication and simply something better. Service - again, if they sell you dinner for 150 euro per person, at least send me a waiter that would explain with some passion the dish, not the guy that is bored to death for doing it on daily basis - probably he released himself that he is selling overpriced stuff, and everyday almost the same. Wine, we didn't go for the pairing, but took a bottle. Kind of all right one, but again nothing special and absolutely not worth 70 euros - especially that that bottle costs 19 euros in retail wineshops... ...

We liked (a lot) two out of the five dishes in the five service menu... the other two and dessert not so much, one was even quite bad, a mass of calamar in a little bit of spinach (my boyfriend had less calamar and more spinach in his plate which apparently was better), which makes the dinner very expensive for what it was. We were told the five dishes were the classic choice but four would have been sufficient. The service was also disappointing. My boyfriend booked a table outside for my birthday, so that we could be a bit isolated. But on the day the service was only inside and he was not warned beforehand when he called to confirm the booking. Also he asked if they could put a little candle in the dessert for my birthday, and they said of course and that there was no need to remind them, but they forgot. They did in the end on an extra slice of cake which is nice but the overall experience was quite...