L’atelier, Père et fils - Calais — Restaurant in Calais

I have had such a bad experience on this place that I feel compelled to write this review to you fellow travelers, to warn you of the food poisoning this restaurant offers for "a mere" 17 euros per dish.

I am starting with a salad that came from an era where dinosaurs still walked the earth, drenched in "white sauce" as if it was able to hide the non freshness. I mean, that was bad but it was nothing compared to what was sitting on top of it. 6 Pieces of allegedly veggie samosas and/or veggie mini springrolls. Those "things",for lack of a better word, were over frozen and had a very strange colouring - clear signs of rot and mushy. I firmly believe no human should be forced to eat that (I did try one and here I am at my hotel toilet writing this warning).

Then, after the salad it was the french fries turn... ahhh the fries. God forgive us for having ordered those tortured souls of hell. To cook them here is what you need to do: you need first to have rancid frier oil to gift them of the distinctive taste, then it is very important that when you recover them from the frier don't take them all because clients adore to find in their soggy french fries dish also vintage fries from other eras.

Finally, here is the last torture on this culinary experience that has left my sphinter exhausted: The "truffle linguini". Mamma mia! Exclamed my italian partner as in horror we tasted the super overcooked pasta that was bathing malevolently in a another pool of "white sauce" as if the cream could masquerade this atrocity towards the whole italian cuisine and traditions. The pasta came with a cherry on top, well a cherry tomato this case. I was baffled and should have taken that tiny red dot as a warning of what I was about to taste.

When in an act of pure desperation we asked for the bill with our plates barely touched and hoping from salvation from those poisons disguised as food, the cold expressions of the waiters revealed to us that this is sadly a very common expectacle in the kitchen of L'Atelier. No one asked what went wrong or anything at all because you can tell from their eyes they are very aware of what they are serving.

To conclude I leave to you readers with the following question: Is this place a sort of charity for the seagulls that surely will feast on the vast ammount of spoils this restaurant is producing?

Thanks for reading all and take...

We went here yesterday at around 6:00pm and from the beginning they gave me bad vibes. We nicely asked for a table and the not very nice waiter asked us if we came here to eat or drink. We answer both and she said that they only start serving food at 7:00pm. We were ok with that so we just got drinks. Then she walked away with out giving us a table so we just sat at a random table.We realsied that the table was a bit sticky after the last guests so my husband asked politly if she could wipe it. She talked to us with a bad Attitude and a grumpy face.” Of course Sir I will do it „ She wiped the table and went away. I though that she would come back with the menu but she never came back. We waited around 10 minutes and During that time she and one if the other waiter (ladys) served other tables - even the people that came after us.They totally ignored us.So I had enough of waiting so I asked „ Excuse can I have the menu please?” And she huffed and went to get the menu. I was finding this really ridiculous so when she came back I snached the menu out of her hand and I decided to leave this awful place. I come from poland and I live in the UK over 10 year. I worked at a restraunt for 5 years and at a hotel and I really know what good service is. I dont think that just because I dont speak French means that other people from diffrent countrys should get treated diffrently. Please if you dont like tourist (which dont speak french) make a sign or somthing to...

As a caveat to this review, we don't speak very good French and it was very busy on a warm August evening.

Despite this we were found a table as quickly as one came available however it was then a good 20 minutes before a drinks order was taken and about the same again before some drinks arrived. Sadly the drinks order was wrong and 2 of 4 didn't arrive.

After another wait we got the attention of a waiter to chase up the missing drinks and also ask for a menu which we still didn't have despite other tables that had arrived after us having been served.

From this point the service did pick up, and the food was perfectly good with quite a wide choice on the menu. I had the Le Potsh as I'd never heard of it before (spoiler alert it's cold ham and jelly in a pot; really tasty)

At this point it was getting late so we got the bill and left so can't comment on desserts but the dessert menu looked quite good.

From a service point of view I think the staff were working really hard and they were all very pleasant, it looked like the problem was there was no organisation, everyone was doing everything rather than looking after sections. Perhaps with more staff or less tables it would have been a very different experience, but I...