La Cantine Sainte-Maxime — Restaurant in Draguignan

Restaurant ratings don’t really work! Juni 2023 This restaurant is a good example why ratings don’t work: Tourists rate friendliness, not quality. A general problem of all internet restaurant ratings. If the manager is nice, we tend to give them a nice rating and quickly forgive bad food. And yes: The manager is super nice in La Cantine Sainte Maxime. They apologise. The offer free shots. But the food, and that’s what counts for a restaurant, was the worst. Literally the worst I have ever had on the entire French Riviera. In 20 years. The “steak” was a fatty, greasy lump of cheap meat. No steak meat, just normal beef. You could see the fat layers when you cut it (see photo). The fish: Dry, countless fish bones. The goat cheese salad with toast: Hard toast bread, cheap supermarket goat cheese. All tables complained, the guests discussed the scandalous food with their neighbour tables. The chef apologised, offered free drinks, it was hard to be angry at them -as they seemed to try their best. We chattet with two neighbours walking by, an elderly French couple from Sainte Maxime, and we asked if the food was good here. “No” they said, the food isn’t good, but the chef is very, very nice. You see? 😊 It was too late, we had already ordered.

PS: And one personal remark: Recent reviews of this restaurant are getting worse , maybe there was a change or takeover or new chef. Surprisingly, the stubborn owner of the restaurant is answering every single bad review quite aggressively, writing impolite, sarcastic and offensive answers, insulting the reviewers and telling them they are "hateful", have no idea what they are talking about or in one case "can not read the menu". No apologies for bad food, bad service, or other mistakes that reviewers are criticizing. Dear owner of the La Cantine: These reviews are there for a reason. They are meant to provide help to other guests, and feedback to the owners to help them do better. If you react so offended to all negative reviews, you are missing the chance to improve that Google, Tripadvisor and other platforms are giving...

In general the food was average and the space ok. However, we got a really horrible and disgusting piece of meat in one of the orders - “thin slices of beef” that was not eatable and shouldn’t be served to anybody. We tried to explain politely what happened at the end and give our feedback about it.

Unfortunately we haven’t been taken serious.. It wasn’t received in a nice way, the waitresses were trying to make their own judgement about it while being rude and sarcastic.

Apart from this, one of us ordered the chicken burger that really seemed like it was frozen, with bad quality. However we didn’t mention it since there was no point on continuing a discussion.

Nobody intended to have a discount or something similar like the owner of this restaurant usually uses to justify her own problems, addressing to her customers in a way that suggest a poor mental situation.

Like in every restaurant, nobody have the right to eat and leave without paying, no matter how bad the food was. Which is common sense to everybody. Our opinion about the dinner was asked, which we responded honestly. Accusing us to want to eat for free for this reason is from a very low level and demonstrates a concerning lack of capacity to own a food related business. One day someone will get a food intoxication here and the owner will just blame the client.

This complaint is being done exclusively about the poor quality of the food, and the rudeness of the waiters who couldn’t be decent after hearing a critic, which was only communicated after we were asked how the food was.

In the end, Terrible way of treating customers, lack of capacity to handle critics and concerning mental situation from the owner, which can be seen in the way she responds to every negative comment made here.

If you want a nice and peaceful evening with your family/friends, go somewhere else. If you want to learn the perfect example about how you shouldn’t handle a business and clients, go there.

There are plenty of comments like mine here.

Not...

We enjoyed a superb, relaxed, delicious meal at La Cantine in Ste Maxime. We ordered the sea bream and sardines, the accompanying vegetables were freshly cooked and the rice made a refreshing change. The meal was served at a perfectly relaxed pace, in an authentic atmosphere. Thank you for your recommendation to have the Mille Feuille for our dessert, (we shared it), it was a superb way to finish our evening. Thank you.

Since our visit in 2024 we visited La Cantine again last night (2025). What a totally different, poor experience it was; quality of food and speed of service have declined enormously. The speed of service was uncomfortably quick, the food order being taken before the pre dinner drinks arriving was an example of the wish to process customers. First courses of sardines and whitebait arrived very promptly, Rose wine was good. The main course of the Thai flavoured beef slices was the biggest disappointment, small portions and poor quality, cheap beef cubed in a pre manufactured minimal sauce. The highlight of the dish was noticing the imprint of the plastic pot of pre packed rice, very often associated with ping ding cooking. However, our impression was topped when the adjacent table had their rice served still with the plastic packaging still on top of the rice. Prices have gone up significantly, quality and customer focus have plummeted to the floor. Really, really...