Le Restaurant - La Mirande — Restaurant in Avignon

I really struggled with this rating because the food was excellent. However, the experience was not perfect, which is why I am not giving them five stars.

We did the 4 sequences menu, where we were served four different starters, four different main courses, and four different desserts. There were a number of incredibly creative dishes that were also plated exceptionally. The caviar and oyster starter was amazing, as were the langoustine main course and the dessert with frozen goat cheese, fried rosemary and herb sorbet. Their brioche was superb as well. All the others were very delicious, although the ones that I mentioned really stood out. They put a lot of thought into their menu, and they present them at an extremely high level.

Since it was a bit cool outside, everybody had to eat in the dining room. It is very classy, but dark and slightly dated. Their setting is very formal, which makes it a challenge for some to feel comfortable and relaxed.

The service was where they fell short. The main servers and sommelier were all fantastic. They were friendly, very attentive, and had great recommendations. However, the maitre d’ either had an off night or did not like us.

He greeted us as we walked in, had a few questions for us, and served the first couple of courses to us. We were having such a lovely time, and we told him as much whenever he took away our empty plates. And then during one of the starter courses, he decided to just abruptly put our plates on our table and walk away without explaining what was in front of us.

From then on, he never came back to our table until when it was time to pay. He continued to walk up to the other tables and made conversation with them. He made sure to pick every table up to personally escort them to the kitchen to meet the chef. When it was our turn, he had one of the servers escort us to the kitchen instead. We gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed that he was just busy.

When it was time to pay, we patiently waited as he spoke with another couple who were paying. They had a very animated conversation in French for at least 15 minutes. After he was done with them, he grabbed our check, which one of the servers had prepared for him while he was talking to the other couple, walked over to our table, and then placed it in our table and walked away without saying anything. When he came back with the card reader, he asked us basic questions about the food and our experience. Once the transaction was done, he gave us a cold “thank you for coming, have a good night” greeting, and then walked away.

We are still not sure what we did to make him treat us differently. We thanked everybody and told them how good the food was every time they came to our table. We understand that he is a busy man and cannot do everything. However, we were the only table he chose not to interact with for most of our meal. For a restaurant that charges €195 per person excluding beverages, we feel like he should have treated us better in spite of how he felt about us.

We ate at multiple Michelin Star and Bib Gourmand restaurants during our trip, and this was the only restaurant that made us feel uncomfortable. It is a shame because the food was excellent, but we paid for the service, too. Because of one person, we now question if we would recommend this restaurant to our...

This review pertains to the La Table Haute, Guest Table experience. NOT WORTH IT,,

It began with a trip to the wine cellar where an extremely sweet dessert wine was already chosen for the entire group to taste, it was undrinkable, whole thing made no sense. Afterwards, upstairs where they said "the Chef would be cooking for you in copper pots before your eyes" ,NOT TRUE at all. In actuality, the Chef had pre-cooked everything, kept it warm and the sous chef brought it down from another kitchen. Other then slicing green onions as a garnish, slicing the lamb and the berries he cooked absolutely NOTHING! He actually suggested we use a knife and fork to cut up the veggies in our soup,, seriously? Perhaps you or your sous chef should have done for your guests? The veggies just happened to be the exact same shredded veggies that moments later were passed around on a platter to go with the lamb. The worst part was the way he ruined the delicious looking berries with oil and red wine so we couldn't even finish the disastrous evening with a satisfying dessert. In addition the Chef was very chatty and friendly with the 4 French guests and seem to tolerate the rest of us. It felt very much like a tourist scam and not what I expected from an otherwise lovely hotel. I left a survey with the above feedback in my room and spoke with someone from the front desk upon checkout but so far no reply. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME...

this the best lunch ive ever had in my life... truly. the atmosphere and the views are beautiful and added to the whole experience. everything seemed perfect and carefully thought out in this restaurant.

the dishes were very experimental; many of the ingredients there was something we have never tried in our lives. But we enjoyed it so much regardless.

the staffs were very knowledgeable in their field and were very polite and almost playful with us. we felt that they all had a certain charm to them. we were introduced to the dishes and were given information on their quality and origin before eating. i think it made for a more memorable experience.

i do recommend the wine pairing as it fit so perfectly, but there is a non- alcoholic version as well. the non- alcoholic drinks are much more interesting to me; it's usually made from the main ingredient on the dish its paired with( for example: cucumber beer?). the drinks were extremely clever but the wine was obviously lovely as well.

overall, hands down definitely lives up to the michelin star (and dare i say maybe even two?). we had a...