Tulipe — Restaurant in Avignon

How much time does one need to spend, in order to have a coffee at Tulipe when it’s busy?

The answer, based on today’s experience, is 45 minutes: 40 minutes waiting, 5 minutes drinking.

Been at this place twice during my 3-day trip in Avignon. The first time I had a cafe latte and a chocolate dessert, both extremely good. Dark-haired barista was very knowledgeable and very nice. If I didn’t come back today, I would rate it 5 stars without any doubt.

But today, by contrast, it was complete chaos. First told by the girl in charge of outside seating to find a table and wait for them to come. I sat down for 15 minutes, got completely ignored. The two waitresses were extremely busy scurrying around with their trays loaded with dishes and glasses, whereas the barista with glasses was just standing behind the counter, small-chatting with a customer about an aero press, ignoring that there started to form a small queue, and in a sort of comic way, the situation looked like Santa and his two busy busy elves.

I had only 1 hour before I needed to head for the train station, and I had already spent 20 minutes waiting in vain. Finally, there came a manager-looking slim, tall guy, who was trying to put some order to the chaos.

I approached the counter again, and tall guy told me exactly like the waitress did, that I should find a table and wait for them to come. But there were three girls before me, and they ordered with the guy with glasses with no problem. I told the tall guy I’ve been waiting for at least 15 minutes and no one came. And he was like, just 15 minutes? Such a big deal?

Finally, I got to place the order for the coffee. I sat back by the table, a notification flashed up on my phone, saying that I was charged for 21 euros. For a flat white? I went back to the counter. Tall guy looked confused. Then he dug up the bill, turned out I seemed to have paid for someone else’s bill. He apologised immediately and paid me back in cash.

I started to run low on time, and the tall guy noticed that I was getting anxious. The coffee eventually came after 40 minutes of waiting, and it tasted very rushed, much worse than first time. The dark-haired waitress was carrying so much stuff on her tray that she messed up the latte art, but I just felt really sorry for her.

All in all, very mixed feeling about this place. They seemed confident that they have a good system in place, when it works it works well, but when things get busy, you know you won’t get their attention and they can be very sloppy. Plus French is such a charming and melodious language that when it was spoken, the speakers were so engrossed that they forgot the passing of time. Efficiency? Such a blasphemy. Why make a fuss about spending 1 hour on a cup of coffee? Life in France in a...

Went to this place after seeing the high review rating on here, had planned my morning to factor it in.

I was left sitting after arrival for a while and when I was served, I was laughed at for starting my order asking for a carafe of water (in French). For a cafe keen on their coffee, they do not serve decaf, which is important if you are pregnant. They also said it wasn't possible to cook a soft boiled egg on the menu for any longer, another thing advised during pregnancy.

I probably wouldn't write a review about just the above issues though, if the food had been good.

Eventually though, I was served a piece of toast so hard and crusty it was inedible, requiring a huge amount of effort to cut into. The salad leaves adorning it were obviously old- you know when the white bits of lettuce start to turn pink? Well these were almost completely pink. The greener bits of lettuce were limp and going dark and squishy round the edges (like spinach left in the fridge too long). When I showed the waiter the hard toast, it was whisked away with no explanation of whether they'd replace it and no apology, leaving me confused.

As this 1 piece of overcooked bread with humus and old lettuce on was going to cost me 10 euros and following the cold response to this being raised, I requested that they did not replace it.

Overall, poor quality...

My sister and I showed up at 11:10 this morning asking for a table. The lady responded saying they are fully booked although some tables were empty. She mentioned that they are expecting a group for lunch. We said we will just have pastry and coffee and we would be done before lunchtime. She refused and we understood although it seemed a bit unusual. She suggested a few other places which was kind of her. But then, when we were walking past the cafe after 15 minutes, we saw that she was taking walk in customers, groups of two, just like us. And we had suggested to wait initially, and she said they’re full for the whole day. I don’t understand this treatment when you in fact end up taking walk in customers 15-20 minutes later. I find it extremely rude and disrespectful. I don’t want to make assumptions on preferential treatment but what happened was...