Epona — Restaurant in Lyon

I must say that I am extremely shocked by the number of positive reviews on this restaurant. To elevate their ratings, many hotels pay for these reviews or most are simply fake reviews written by the hotel staff.

To say that this restaurant is worthy of a Michelin mention of any kind, then I must say the Michelin guide has no credibility to rate this restaurant as anything close to Michelin worthy. It is laughable and Michelin guide should be ashamed and embarrassed for their own incompetence. This restaurant could barely hold a 3 star.

I have been staying at the hotel for last 2 days and have only tried their breakfast buffet and additional menu item that comes with their breakfast, brunch service.

Overall, selection of food items are decent, but rather limited for a hotel that calls itself a "5 star". The restaurant does not know how to make coffee. If you are a coffee drinker like me that appreciate a good cup of coffee and strong, this is not the place to order it. Their coffee is awful and watered down with no taste. I asked for Americano that can be made in an espresso machine, the server kept arguing with me that the pot of coffee on my table is Americano :) wow. The incompetence continues. I ordered a cappuccino and it was worse than the coffee...no flavor or strong taste just frosted milk.

The scrambled eggs are awful so I ordered eggs Benedict from their menu. Wow, I can assure you it was nothing short of disgusting....they fried an egg (wasn't fried), running eggs whites under a ton of hollandaise sauce....once I cut through it, the eggs in the bottom were not poached, just uncooked egg whites still running. Enough said.

There is always the same 3 cheese selection. Poor bread choices that are day old...this is France....get some good bread from bakeries for god's sake. Poor choice of pastries. Most are tasteless baked goods possibly purchased at super markets.

AND the staff are rude, have no personalities, no smile, neither they want to be there. Either terrible management, morale issues that contributes to such behavior...and some servers don't even speak English so good luck communicating anything with them. Do realize this is France , but you are running an international chain with tons of tourists. At least hire people that can communicate with guest on the basics of service.

I give the restaurant front desk manager feedback on the issue with Eggs Benedict.....at the end of the conversation which he clearly was not apologetic about, he called me a chef as I was leaving....pretty rude and disgusting behavior throwing his sarcasm that I am pretentious. Well, maybe I have different expectations from 5 star hotels. You are absolutely not a 5 star hotel and your food and service is horrible. I am afraid to walk in to this...

Magnificent historical building (the Hôtel Dieu), interior design of the restaurant modern and a bit cold with bright lighting even for Christmas eve dinner. Very kind staff but we had the sense that they were short a few people as one of our courses was forgotten (when we told them, they corrected the mistake) and we were just generally left unattended for long stretches (including not having wine poured when the bottle was not at the table, etc). We live in France, so are very accustomed to normal dining practices and in a fine restaurant with a menu priced at 150 euros per person (not including drinks), it was surprising.

Most disappointing was the food itself. There were of course enjoyable bites, but overall, the cuisine lacked inspiration and complexity, despite the use of quality ingredients. We don't want to be unkind. It was just a little flat in the scheme of a grand offering such as this.

One bright note: all the wines were interesting and we were able to find some very good values even by the bottle.

It's true that it was a Christmas Eve service, so perhaps the team were different or over-committed. Many of Lyon's wonderful restaurants weren't open that night because of the holiday period, but if I were visiting at another time, I would choose a different option in search of better value and a...

We just visited the restaurant with my wife and kids and were shocked by the rude attitude of the personell. I had stayed at the hotel last June and generally liked it. This time we were passing by Lyon and stayed one night at the neighboring Boscolo to give it a try. I invited my family for breakfast to Intercontinental as they had a beautiful garden (better with kids to seat outside) - the hostess and the restaurant manager notified us that we couldn’t be seated outside as all the tables were booked for the hotel guests. However there were at least 7 tables free and I was not looking for a free breakfast. I mentioned that it had been not my first time at the hotel and I was a hotel guest for a number of times (not even talking about intercontinental globally), but they just reiterated their ignorance and refused to let us have breakfast outside. I’m a frequent traveler and stay at the best hotels all over the world. This kind of rude, unprofessional and provincial attitude to your guests and job kills everything even if the mood was initially great. We are never coming back. Shame.

P.S. I spoke to a lady at the hotel‘s reception and she even went to ask the restaurant why it was a problem, but they still refused....