Le Pain Quotidien — Restaurant in Liège

I've been here twice. One visit (on a weekday, fairly early in the morning) I would have given it a 4 or even 5 star review - friendly staff, good food served quickly. Unfortunately I also visited on a weekend, a visit so awful it has made me want to never return. It was busy, but that's no excuse for the terrible experience we had. Firstly, the service was unbelievably slow, and they didn't bring some parts of our order. Second, when I asked whether we could have our coffees, which still hadn't arrived after about an hour's wait, the waitress was incredibly rude - and still didn't bring them! Third, my brother has a very severe peanut allergy, so he checked the menu carefully for any sign of peanuts, as he always does, and ordered food that made no mention of peanuts. And yet when his food arrived he asked me to test it because it looked like it contained peanuts - which it did! We couldn't believe it. We live in the UK, where any foods containing common allergens are clearly marked - especially after several recent high-profile deaths. I am especially surprised as this is a large chain. I hope they take note of this before they cause someone to get very ill, or...

Chose this place while walking around. When we walked in, everything seemed really nice and the staff there was pleasant. They told us to take a seat anywhere and they'd be with us.

Waiting around for over 15 min without anyone stopping by (while we watched them go to other tables that arrived way later than us), we decided to move to a table closer to their station so they could "see" us (we also weren't the only group going to find the staff to get service, as we watched two other couples do it). It still took some time before they ventured over. Orders taken.

The food took some time to arrive (place not busy), and the toast they made was 'cute'. But the food was bland. Even the toast with egg and avocado tasted like nothing. We don't care to salt our food, but it was the only thing we could do to add flavor...

Room for improvement But this is not about the very friendly service... It's about the food. The Espresso: too thin and really not tasty. The Croissant: good dough, baked too compact. Not delicious. The "tartelette citron", good taste but baked less well. Table was stabilized with what looked like used paper handkerchieves. Which did not make me feel more comfortable. So my impression was: good ideas, good concept, good people, not so good food preparation, generally room for improvement, especially since the prices...