La Petite Ardoise — Restaurant in Fontainebleau

Horrible service. We wanted to try this place as a recommendation from the INSEAD students but very disappointing. We ordered food around 8.30 pm, the starters did not get until past 9. It was 10.15 when we left and the main dishes were still not served. There were others who came after us and they all were served before us even with the same dishes (lamb shank). This is just purely unacceptable. It was also interesting to note that we were the only English speaking table around us and also the only people who were not served on time. When I talked to the manager, he just did not answer in English. So disapponting and cannot believe that this place is serving an international community. I will actually call the tourism office to see if I can file a formal complaint. It is very sad to see that this is the customer service at a recommended place in the very heart of Fontainebleau, which serves a lot of international people. Please consider your service again and take the necessary actions. I cannot believe I have faced a humiliation of the kind at a place where I was asked to pay. Do think twice before going to this place, you might ruin your Friday night because of...

Very much baffled at the high reviews. Nice personel, great atmosphere, but the food is what one would expect out of a student's kitchen, not a French restaurant.

I ordered a medium-rare beef sirloin with fries (why I cannot have both vegetables and fries with my order and have to pay extra is beyond me) and a cabernet. The fries were good, the wine was excellent, the piece of beef, however, was full of tendons, very, very rare, and cooked with nothing but parsley and no more than 2 salt crystals (as far as I could taste). There was also too little sauce to go with it.

For dessert I had the tiramisu. The taste wasn't bad, simply because mascarpone is tasty, but again, this was a student level dish: too much cream (because that is of course cheaper than mascarpone), cheap supermarket cacao (what you would make milk drinks with), cheap supermarket biscuits, no egg yolk or egg white (because you're not going to feed raw eggs to people and because heating them au bain marie is too advanced), and worst of all, zero trace of any liquor being used.

All in all it was disappointing. Would...

This restaurant was an old favorite of my family's whenever we visited Fontainebleau. We always stopped here at least once in our visits to France. However, our latest visit was disappointing. It seems that the critical reviews here are correct in their assessment that the quality has dropped.

The menu has become uninspired compared to the past. Nothing was actually terrible, but it was all very mediocre and we did not feel we got our money's worth. While my goat cheese entrée was alright, I tried the scallops and they were very bland and also not hot at all. My beef sirloin was also a little on the bland side. The shortbread dessert was also just okay with no real strong flavors. None of the food had that good home-made taste the restaurant used to have.

We received good and attentive service at least. However, I just can't really recommend this restaurant as there are so many other better options...