Le Cabestan — Restaurant in Avranches

If you have a reservation, apparently you will be treated better than we were.

We came by a bit before 7pm, after a long day we stopped in for a quick meal. We were two adults and one small child. We were greeted and asked if we had a reservation - I said no and asked if we they were unable to accommodate us. She said no, they could seat us and gave us one of the empty tables in the back. Fine.

We waited a while and finally the woman came by to take our order. We got two orders of mussels and a child's meal which included ice cream. She said we could order her ice cream after the meal and that wasn't a problem.

I want to note here that I have traveled to France a few dozen times - my mother is from here and I speak French well enough to carry a conversation etc.

So, the meal arrived quickly enough. My husband and I enjoyed our meal - my daughter not so much but whatever. All she wanted was the ice cream at the end.

Then things really went downhill. I told my husband that she was clearly weeded but at the same time we asked the food runner to come by and she walked past us several times - with me staring at her and at one point she even nodded as if she would be back. Never did.

20 min of waiting and pretty much being actively ignored we were done. Clearly she was never coming back. So we added up what we thought the bill came to and was about to leave the cash and go. My daughter never got her ice cream - for a 7 year old who was promised ice cream for good restaurant behavior this was pretty disappointing.

So we start to go and then we were acknowledged- the excuses she gave we're that they were busy, we didn't have a reservation, and we didn't order the ice cream with the meal. I sort of lost it at this point - reminding her she said it was fine to order it at the end of the meal. Telling her that we had asked for help and that she seemed to see us but clearly had no intention to come by.

I don't know if it was because we had a child with us that we were treated so poorly or what. My husband thinks it was because we are American but in 40+ years of traveling in France I have never encountered that before. So who knows. But I am now sitting here at the bar at the hotel we are staying at and having the coffee and ice cream we should have enjoyed after our meal and am pretty pissed off.

If you need to have a reservation to get good service, don't seat people that don't have a reservation. Period. There were plenty of other options for dinner and we could have easily found a good meal elsewhere. I mean, it's France, it's really hard to get a bad meal here.

At the end of the day we paid for an incomplete meal, had the worst service I have ever had in this country in over 40 years - but the mussels were good.

Good luck if you want to eat here and apparently, always make a reservation if you want to get good service - which is pretty...

Nous avons choisis ce restaurant car il y a un "coin végétarien" sur le menu. Nous avons commandé deux assiettes de légumes + frites à 14€ l'assiette. Notre fille de 3 ans nous accompagnait, mon mari avait son plat et moi je partageais la moitié des frites avec ma fille pensant pouvoir me contenter des légumes... Les assiettes arrivent et là nous nous retrouvons avec un petit bol de frites et 2 cuillères de purée, 3 petits morceaux de brocolis, 2 demi batonnets de courgette... Ils servent en fait la garniture seule comme un plat. Sans les frites cette assiette est à 11€ ce qui est cher payé pour les 3 légumes que l'on reçoit. Même nos amis omni présents étaient désolés pour nous sachant qu'eux ils ont eu 3 plats avec poisson pour 19€... Nous l'avons fait remarqué au serveur qui soit disant en a parlé à son chef puis mon mari la mentionné à la personne qui nous a encaissé. Le pompom c'est quand même la remarque de notre serveuse "C'est sûr que 2 assiettes pour 3 ça fait juste" sachant que ma 3 ans n'a mangé qu'un demi bol de frites. Bref les deux étoiles c'est pour l'effort d'avoir une ébauche de carte végé cependant il serait agréable d'avoir la même considération des...

The restaurant was pleasantly busy with a lot of happy people enjoying the food. We recommend booking! We had not booked (party of 8, 3 generations) but they managed to squeeze us in somehow. Intelligent staff using both French and English to communicate with our party and their various needs. Menus very clearly displayed on tablets. Excellent food and interesting drinks.Thank...