Le P'tit Champenois Restaurant au coeur de nos caveaux typiquement champenois Epernay — Restaurant in Épernay

I wish I could leave 0 stars. Where to start... You walk in to see the kitchen straight in front of you which is almost like a pre-fabricated/temporary part of the restaurant. There are some seats upstairs which don't seem that inviting. This is where the alarm bells started. We were sat downstairs and what I thought would be a good setting was a bit of a strange dampening environment. The service lacked a lot of everything. Part of it may have been the language barrier but we did have a few french speakers in the group, so wouldn't put it 100% to that. The waiters were not good, brought the condiments after we had finished. The food..... I don't know if you could call it that. The sauce tasted like it was made from a powdered packet, not even seasoned. It wasn't consistent either, most of us ordered the same starter and mine arrived with missing ingredients (I don't have any dietary requirements). The chicken was dry, so dry I couldn't eat it, it also came with the same powered sauce as the starter. Some of the steaks were requested to be medium rare and they all came as the same - medium to well done. We requested to have it redone and all the did was take it to the side of the room and then bring it back over... we literally watched them do it. We ended up rejecting it and asked for it to be taken off the bill. As a summary, we weren't treated well, the food was incredibly abysmal and the atmosphere was flat. I would really not recommend...

This restaurant offers good value for money (28 euro for a main course and a dessert), but to be honest, my friends and I had some notes. First: we were happy that we were seated in the back side of the restaurant, because when you get a table at the entry you are seated in a rather sterile room with a big window through which everyone can look in your plate.

We were taken aback though by the very noticeable smell of mold. Surely they have a wine cellar under the restaurant, but the odour was really off-putting and it really diminished our experience. We really couldn't get used to the smell.

We got our food really fast. I ordered the salmon tartare with coconut rice vinegar condiments and mango coulis. A surprising but very tasteful combination. The fries i got served, sadly, were not good. They were too cold and not crispy at all. The duck our friend ordered was not rosé and the portion was too small.

The cheese platter as a dessert was good, a nice way to end our dinner. The pinot noir we drank with our food was fine, but not memorable at all.

To be honest I don't think we'll return for a...

I'm trying to understand what happened tonight with a 4.3 avg rating and where to start. I'll keep it simple.

The starters (egg, cheese sause, croutons/ salmon): the salmon was pre prepared (not fresh anymore) and put in the fridge for hours, the egg dish was just plain cold

Main course (burger, vegi dish, Camamber): all cold, not fresh at all and undercooked

Dessert (cheese) again not fresh, cheese was cut hours before therefore dry and extremely cold.

Looking into the kitchen I could see the issue, everything was done mis en place (meat was cooked beforehand and warmed again, rice pre prepared, etc, etc.

Very unfortunate and I hope that this was just a bad day for the restaurant and hope others see things differently.

I just want to respond to the comment from the restaurant. I've worked in hotels and restaurants that serve a lot more people with less kitchen staff where nearly everything was done once the order came in (besides the basic preparations). I suggest you focus on the reviews that point out what's not good and try to improve and not give these...