The Kitchen — Restaurant in Lappeenranta sub-region

This restaurant is between the new shopping centre and the pedestrian streets of Lappeenranta. In other words, it is not an obviously place to find and visit. The restaurant is rather large and is run by a restaurant chain in the city. For the price that is charged, it is no wonder the chain restaurant survived in Lappeenranta. There are two other restaurants with distention types of food, but they are all rather overpriced. When paying a price, it is not just about the experience of tasting good food, but also the experience and the environment. On this occasion, I visited the restaurant in a table of four, including one child. The waiters didn't mind where we were sat, and this later caused issues with regards to noisy and rowdy nearby customers. So, even before we started to eat the food, the experience was uncaring. This is often a problem with Finnish waiters, but in other restaurants whereby the price tag is as high as this restaurant, the waiters are usually trained. In this restaurant, any temp worker could have done the job and with no expertise in customer service. I could write more about the poor experience, but I'll get to the point about the food. Over priced is an understatement. We decided to share two starters. Beetroot dish. There were a mixture of sliced beetroot, and shavings. Not impressive at all. The presentation was in a bowl, and I'm not exactly sure how they expect people to eat from it. Poor culinary skills demonstrated. We also had a cheese board. The last time I had one of these for a star was in Warsaw, and I had so much of it, I thought I would never eat cheese again. On this occasion, it was OK, although there was a sauce on it that was too, although only half a place, so who knows what the point of that was. Main course, we had two fish eaters, a steak, and a vege burger. The steak was cooked well done and was satisfactory, despite the 33eur mark up. There is no information about what type of steak it is sourced from, and it was the most expensive main course dish, by around 10eur! The fish portion for the child was the same as the adult. The skin on the salmon was still on it, so again poor chef skills given the dish was in the children's menu. The adult version had a nice orangey sauce, and was satisfactory. The vege burner was 20e, comprosed of smoked tofu (from the shop), large mushroom, put into a burger with 5 different sauces in it, that they're was never the same bite. This may be nice for an Easter who is an adventurer, but it would have been nice to at least reconfirm the last bite taste palette. The worst part were the potatoes, which were supposed to be fries. Again, poor quality from frozen foods, given that there was hardly any potato, and just skin drenched in oil. Even this simple dish, the kitchen could not get it right. The waiters some how also thing it is good to give both sets of cutlery at the beginning, when the tables are not that clean and there are fabric napkins that occasionally go on the lap. The hygiene consideration by the management needs a reality check on the customers needs and not only focusing on the practical aspects for convenience of the staff. We didn't stay for deserts, although, we did want to order a drink between starter and main course, but the drinks arrived after the main course food. In summary, this is a restaurant that is over rated, over priced and more attention is needed on the customers needs and better quality food. I wouldn't have minded, paying the price, but the staff must offer some sort of service and think about table arrangements if noisy neighbouring customers. In that way, I left with the impression that the place is a...

My partner and I had dinner at The Kitchen while visiting relatives in Lappeenranta. We were welcomed by friendly staff who helped us throughout the evening with food and drink choices.

We stayed for three hours, consumed starters, mains, desserts, beer and cocktails and left happy and satisfied with the whole experience.

I was especially impressed by the cooking of the steak which I ordered rare as well as being offered an array of exceptional choices when ordering whiskey later in the evening.

Will be revisiting whenever we are here and I can’t wait to bring more people so we can try the Chef’s...

The food was absolutely terrible, could not finish anything. I don't understand, last year the food was ok, not amazing, but ok. Now it was inedible. The tomato sauce tasted like it was molded, the sausage soup had for some reason cheesy liquid in it and no one had put salt in it. The lasagna was somehow both raw and too cooked. The dessert (rhubarb tart) was like a moist bread and had no vanilla sauce with it.

I understand making savings but all of these foods could have been made more cheaply and simpler. Just add salt and make it simple and good. All of the trying to be fancy...