La Brasserie De L'horloge — Restaurant in Avignon

La Brasserie De L'horloge, Avignon: Where Linguistic Discrimination Comes with a Side of Lies

Arrived early for my 7 PM reservation – which I'd sensibly booked online to avoid any confusion. Asked the host in French whether he spoke English, a perfectly reasonable question from a tourist attempting to be courteous. He claimed he didn't, then proceeded to tell me in broken English to "come back at 1900." Fair enough – I'd arrived too early.

Returned promptly at 7 PM and made a genuine effort to navigate the ordering process in basic French, stumbling through my menu selections with the linguistic grace of someone who scraped a GCSE pass. Five minutes later, four Americans arrived at the door.

Suddenly, miraculously, the host discovered he spoke absolutely perfect English. Flawless, fluent, unaccented English that he deployed with the ease of someone who'd been speaking it his entire life. The transformation was remarkable – from "no English" to full conversational fluency in the span of a single reservation book entry.

I confronted him immediately about this rather blatant deception. He had the audacity to threaten to call the police – presumably for the heinous crime of calling a liar a liar. I pointed out the logical absurdity: I'd called him dishonest (accurate) and had never suggested I wouldn't pay my bill (also accurate). What exactly would he be reporting to the gendarmes? "Officer, a customer correctly identified my behaviour as deceitful"?

The food itself became irrelevant at this point – I cut my dinner short, paid the frankly insulting €80 for two courses and two glasses of wine, and departed with my dignity intact and my opinion of French hospitality significantly diminished.

The host should be fired. Immediately. Lying to customers about language abilities to avoid serving them properly is not just unprofessional – it's discriminatory and insulting. If you don't want to serve English-speaking tourists, don't work in a restaurant in one of France's most visited tourist destinations.

One star – and that's only because the payment system worked.

Avoid unless you enjoy paying premium prices to be treated with contempt and dishonesty.

Edited to answer the 'owner': Your assertion that I "adopted an aggressive attitude" and "raised my voice" is interesting. A raised voice was entirely appropriate given the circumstances – I'd just witnessed clear dishonesty and different treatment based on nationality. But let's address your truly bizarre claim that a raised voice constitutes a "legitimate" reason to call the police. Since when is raising one's voice in a restaurant – particularly when confronting demonstrable dishonesty – a criminal matter requiring police intervention? I never threatened violence, refused payment, or behaved in any manner that would actually warrant police involvement. Your server threatened to call the police because I called him a liar – which he demonstrably was. Suggesting that a raised voice justifies police involvement is absurd and, frankly, a transparent attempt to intimidate customers who dare to question your staff's behaviour. What's most peculiar is how you seem to have such detailed knowledge of this incident despite not being present. How can you be so certain of your server's account unless you were actually there to witness it? Your response reads as though you have complete certainty about what transpired, yet you're taking one employee's word against a customer's...

Very warm welcome and excellent service. Very good food at a fair price.

The waiting staff was extremely attentive and friendly. They promptly put together tables, despite us being 7 and having no reservation.

Throughout the meal they were very attentive, always polite and very professional. They made an extra effort for our multi-lingual troop.

The main dishes were very well prepared overall. The salmon tartare was excellent. The flank steak was excellent, and cooked perfectly. ( We asked for it rare, medium rare, and medium, and each one was cooked exactly as requested) The fries were home made, but could have been cooked a tad more in our opinion.

The desserts were all very good. We had a Dame Blanche, Chocolate Mousse, and Strawberry Cup. I personally thought the Dame Blanche portion was a bit small for the price.

The Terrace was quite pretty and very cosy. The place de l'horloge is quite charming, and you have a nice view of the Theatre and the old Banque de France building.

Overall I would recommend it to anyone looking for a typical brasserie and a nice place to eat over lunch when...

The food was good. The baked mussels and the truffled brie especially stood out.

Unfortunately, the service was beyond rude and unnecessarily so. Ruined what could have otherwise been a fantastic experience.

When we politely asked in French if we could order a 2nd basket of bread for our two year old kid, the female waitress got visibly upset. She took our basket away and dumped out the left over crusts. She came back with fresh bread but complained to us that “she hates throwing away food”. Apparently a 2 year old who only eats the insides of the bread and not the crust is some kind of moral offense in this restaurant. Don’t get me wrong the bread was good…but it wasn’t that good…

The waitress all angry then proceeded to knock over my wife’s entire glass of wine into her lap. The waitress was now officially embarrassed…just about the spilled wine…

If you come here to eat, be sure to eat all your crusts or you too may face the same...