Le Lilas Rose — Restaurant in Annecy

Excellent evening. We first visited Le Lilas Rose about 14 to 15 years ago, with our family & friends. We had a great night then and always promised to return. Well we did on a Friday evening at the end of August this year 2022, and we weren't disappointed.

We walked past several times an hour or so before it opened, booked a table for 7 and then went off to wander the streets to return later. We've always tried to avoid the restaurants close to the canal at the front by the main road and lake, where staff try and get you to go in inviting you to dine with them by either thrusting a menu I'm your face or by inviting you to view their menu. There was none of that at Le Lilas Rose, nor the restaurants in the same area, just busy tables and lots of people dining.

Within 10 to 15 minutes of arriving the restaurant was busy, almost full. So we were wise to have booked. The staff, mainly young, spoke excellent English despite us using our broken French and were very friendly and helpful. Service was prompt and polite.

Drinks arrived first in a timely fashion shortly followed by our starters and then mains. All of our meals were excellent, we chose Savoyarde dishes, which we all throughly enjoyed. It clearly is very popular with a mix of young families and couples dining.

We had a lovely couple of hours relaxing & dining at Le Lilas Rose. Wise to book of you can. I thoroughly enjoyed my raclette. It isn't cheap, but where is in the town, and it certainly isn't dearer than other restaurants in the town. We'll certainly return but won't wait nearly 15 years...

Not at all végétarien friendly. Except for one slightly older server who was very friendly with us (the only star is for him), the others were rude to us. I wanted to try some French food on the menu, but the lunch menu did not include anything vegetarian. At first the serveuse tried to push me to choose the ravioli. We expressed our wish to each something French, so she suggested the raclette, which we agreed to.

In the end, it was just some potatoes and a plate of raclette cheese, served with a few leaves of lettuce, which cost us €26. We checked the menu and the raclette included a charcuterie for €26. When we told them we'd like a revised price because the expensive meat was not part of my meal, the serveuse got agitated and threw the bill away, asking the manager to speak to us.

The manager told us this is how commerce is done, and we won't understand because we don't know anything about commerce. He reduced a €2 in the end because he did realise it's unreasonable to charge so much for so little that was served. But he continued to defend himself with "this is how commerce is done" - please do your commerce, but commerce is not the same as cheating. In the end we paid an exorbitant price for our food, with the manager bidding us "good luck surviving the world".

Decent food, very few friendly servers, brazen managers who think cheating is commerce, reluctance to offer something vegetarian in their menu, and exorbitant prices is what one can expect at...

Have to give it 1 star if only to try and balance out it's rating 4.1! The filet de perche was not fresh. Little flavour and a flaccid texture. The 'frites' were cardboardy with a texture that suggested they were frozen/made from reconstituted potato or both. On the plus side the salad was crisp and buoyant and the bread fresh with a good crust and bite. The outside seating close to the rushing river was pleasant enough whilst the sun reached it, but the smell inside when I went to pay was stale. Overall, I was left with the feeling that I had visited a classic 'tourist trap' where the focus is all about turning over the expected local specialities as profitably as possible and the quality of the food is a...