l'Artista — Restaurant in Mechelen

⚠️ Don't spend your money here if you care about friendliness ⚠️

We planned to come with big group of 100-150 people to (only!) have drinks between 1 and 5 pm. Since this group loves Gouden Carolus Whisky Infused, I asked if they could provide that (they had other Carolus drinks). They immediately agreed, and ordered 50 33cl bottles.

Since this group of people is part of a community (Ingress), we made special t-shirts for the day, which they ordered and paid for weeks before. After being there for 20 minutes, and JUST receiving my GC Whisky infused, suddenly an angry woman stomps through the crowd to start complaining to me.

She accuses me of selling stuff and that is not what we agreed on. I explained many times that I was just handing people their t-shirts (about 23 of them). There was no money involved. She kept saying I was selling things, even though everyone vouched I wasn't. Then she complained about no one drinking Whiskey Infused. I pointed at my drink and the person next to me. Then she said "Only you two!". Mind you that this was at 1.30 and the service was slow. There were many hours left to order the 48 other bottles. She did not care.

Next complaint was our method of ordering and paying. Even though I explicitly asked if we would just pay per order, at the moment of the order, suddenly she wanted us to order per table because it was "2.5 EUR per transaction" (I don't believe that). She kept going in circles, complaining for about 20 minutes and totally crushing the great atmosphere. At 2, perhaps 10 minutes after she finally went back inside, I went to the lady, said we will be right back but that we were going to make a quick group picture outside. And asked her if we were still welcome. She said that she didn't want us to come back.

For an owner who complains so much about money, she lost a lot of revenue. But I'm sure she doesn't mind, since she kept telling us that she doesn't "need our group, that she is doing well enough without us".

I am sure I will have fun reading her reply to this, and I advise everyone to read the other reviews and her replies. There is no accountability, and she always blames...

We were a large group of over 150 people, attending a community gaming event and planning to stay for drinks and food from 1 PM to 5 PM. Unfortunately, the experience was disappointing, largely due to the behavior of the owner.

Within just 35 minutes of our arrival, the owner began complaining:

First, she claimed we weren’t ordering enough drinks, despite the fact that we intended to pace ourselves over the four-hour event.

Second, we were told the day before that we could pay separately, but were suddenly forced to pay by table.

Lastly, we were distributing pre-ordered t-shirts and hoodies to our members, but the owner wrongly assumed we were selling merchandise on-site. She refused to listen to our explanation and seemed to create her own version of events.

The owner’s attitude was rude, dismissive, and completely unprofessional, especially given that we had been clear about our plans from the beginning. It's unfortunate, because the staff seemed competent and friendly. I genuinely feel bad for them having to work under such poor leadership.

We didn’t even get the chance to try the food, so I cannot comment on that. However, based on this experience with the owner, I strongly advise avoiding this place. For further insight, simply look at the owner's responses to other negative reviews. That should tell you everything you need to know.

Edit after reading the owner's reply: It's disappointing to see the owner misrepresenting the state we left the venue in. The place was spotless when we departed, except for a single broken glass, which was neatly gathered on the table for easy cleanup. I even returned later to retrieve a jacket, and I can confirm there were no other customers as the venue was opened exclusively for our group. If the broken glass is an issue, we’re all happy to pitch in and cover the cost. Maybe we could pay by...

Tl;Dr: Good food, abysmal service

We went in for lunch with two around 13h15.

We saw that there was a lunch offer for €25 including:

Starter (3 bruschetta pp)

Entree (Ravioli with a glass of wine)

Dessert (Tiramisu with coffee)

Because we both weren't interested in the wine, we asked if we could change it with water/soft drink. The waitress said "that it would probably okay with the owner if we stayed under €4,00 each", which was no problem for us. Also, one of us preferred a tea over coffee, but that was not possible according to her and "it would be no use to ask the owner about that". No problem, we just ordered our water/soft drink and agreed on the coffee.

When we got our entree we weren't even asked about any wine or other drinks, so we figured that the water/soft drink was okay. We finished with the entree and waited for our dessert... for at least 20min. Personnel started having lunch themselves in the meantime and didn't check up on us once and we couldn't get their attention. They finished before we even got our dessert, so we asked about it and it was clear they forgot about us. We got our desserts, which were clearly smaller portions than other tables got and seemingly the last scraps they had.

When we paid, we still had to pay extra for our drink because "apparently the owner was not okay with the soft drinks instead of wine in the menu". This was not told to us, otherwise we wouldn't have taken the menu. I think wine is still more expensive than water/soft drinks?

So we got out around 15h00...

Food quality was...