Barbacane — Restaurant in Angoulême

Took a group of 84 people here as part of a company training trip. We hired out the restaurant for lunch. Service was extremely slow. We were sat without any starters for 45 minutes. (Food was pre ordered) Considering the booking was made in advance, they should have been more prepared and had more than two people serving. Owner was extremely rude and unfriendly. He had no urgency. Sitting down, rolling cigarettes whilst the tables were full of dirty plates. Aside from this, I admit the food was tasty, so compliments to the chef, and Nina the waitress was lovely.

You can easily discern the owner's nature from the response to this review captured in the attached screenshot. With 7 years of actively working in the company, I have no need to conceal or curry favour with my superiors; I've moved beyond that phase. The entire company, including senior management, unanimously acknowledged the subpar service we received, without the need to voice my concerns.

If you found it challenging to manage the volume of courses you were tasked with, it would have been more appropriate to politely refuse.

Response from owner: Dont try and masque your own mistakes and miss planning to get in favor with your bosses. I have written you an email with the time spam etc and we made it work even though 1,5 hour upon arriving we've got the news you'd be (again) an hour later. When asked who received my email non of you knew who even tough the invoice (with detailed explanation and course of the day) had been paid in advance. Strange to say the least. Also a restaurant who has to push out 95 3 course meals is not a catering business. 2,5 hours with welcome drinks etc, 30 min to seat and water everyone in our opinion is not long especially if communicated in advance. booking pfor 12h30 and arriving at 14h30........

Service was slow and not very attentive.

It was their first night of the restaurants French menu. We did not have appetisers and only chose a main meal, prawn zucchini with sweet potato mash.

When the meals came there were 3 large prawns in a small bowl dish with sliced Zuccchini and a small amount of mash underneath them. The prawns were covered in garlic and we think parsley sauce. The issue with it was the only way you could eat them was with your hands and with the bowls being so small it was extremely messy, the other issue was the amount of flys attracted to the dish. The prawn meat was also quite tasteless. Because the bowls were so small the bits of prawns legs etc fell in the mash so you could not eat it.

However, we did notice the next table who also ordered prawns were served in larger plates as the restaurant must have noticed the difficulty we had.

I don’t like giving poor reviews, especially as we had good service for drinks in the afternoon but felt we did needed to review this time.

A little bit of work on presentation should greatly improve the dishes. The food was not too expensive €46 for two drinks...

Nicely decorated ambience. Candles on tables, soft music on background, friendly welcome. Entrees we took were :creme brûlée de foie gras á la Canelle and steak tartare au façon Italienne avec une émulsion tres bien de pesto rouge. All was very tasteful freshly prepared and served friendly with personal touch. As maincourses; We all had the best prepared filet to our wishes ,Filet de boeuf with an amazing sauce ‘Raifort’, and well made ‘pommes de Terre Grenaille’. For desert housemade profiterolles with ice and chocolate and fondants cholate. What a treat! The cook seems french and she also came by the table for a moment.

We left with a very satisfying sense . We will recommend this restaurant for sure to anyone looking for good atmosphere and tasteful food.

We will certainly come back to enjoy more of this...