Ninkasi La Doua — Restaurant in Lyon

The place's general atmosphere is rather relaxed, the decor is modern and polychromatic albeit not too visually overwhelming. Service is quick, portion sizes are decent and the burgers are pretty good. The burger bun itself is a culinary marvel; soft and fluffy with a satisfying bite and mouthfeel. The sauces pack more flavor than they ostensibly do, your taste buds and neurons will be left wondering what dastardly mind has concocted them. The fries are rather subpar, feel free to journey elsewhere if you're craving golden, crispy and thinly sliced ones. Those which are typically served with their burgers are bland, seemingly overcooked, and with little structural integrity. Beers are a precarious affair, don't gamble and order anything you're not too familiar with. Feeling adventurous, we've ordered the beer of the month which was an ungodly mishmash of red fruits among other ingredients we found ludicrously difficult to identify let alone swallow. To be fair, the house blonde ale is pretty good.

What has really irked me however was the imbroglio that followed paying the bill : after having paid for our meals, we stepped out of the establishment only to be called back in again by an alarmed staffer apprising us that some of us had not paid for our meals. Bemused, we went back in only to converse with the person at the cash register who had, in their haste, not carefully taken care of logging our cash transactions properly. We've also seen staffers frantically running outside pursuing other patrons whose transactions were inadvertently not logged into the system. Should you be inclined to handle your payment in cash, don't hesitate to ask...

2e visite extrêmement décevante, je ne suis pas sûre d'y retourner. Nous étions 3, et au moment des desserts (nous avions commandé 2 cheesecakes), une seule part arrive, et sans coulis. Je précise donc qu'il y avait un coulis, le cheesecake repart et revient 5 minutes après mais sans coulis. Ma part de cheesecake "ne va pas tarder". 10 minutes plus tard, rien, 15 minutes non plus. Je finis par la demander, on revient vers moi 5 minutes pour me dire qu'il n'y en a plus mais que si je patiente, c'est possible.

Impossible de m'indiquer combien de temps je dois patienter (visiblement, tous les serveurs ne savent pas combien de temps est nécessaire pour décongeler un cheesecake), mes compagnons ayant fini de manger depuis plusieurs minutes, je décide d'annuler.

Au cours du repas, il a fallu demander 3 fois de l'eau pour que nous soit apportée une bouteille mais sans verres. Je suis finalement allée chercher moi-même les verres sous le nez des serveuses.

Je précise que le restaurant n'était pas du tout bondé, il n'y a donc aucune explication qui tienne.

J'aime d'habitude beaucoup le Ninkasi mais là franchement, malgré les supers burgers et la bière, je reste vraiment amère sur cette façon de traiter le client.

D'autre part, lorsque j'ai indiqué ces détails à la personne qui nous a encaissé, j'ai eu droit à un : "d'accord, je ferai remonter." et c'est tout.

Edit le 01/10 : j'ai bien reçu un bon cadeau, et suis retournée au Ninkasi. J'ai été très bien servie, très bien accueillie, j'y retournerai. Les burgers / frites sont toujours aussi bons, et le grand choix de bières ainsi que la sympathie des serveurs m'a définitivement réconcilié avec ce...

I went inside. Had a table by help of a waiter. Nobody looked at me for 15 minutes. Finally I had a menu and they came back to take order in 10 minutes. Waited for 40 minutes. Neither beer nor burger came. Waiters intentionally ignored me. Don't want to think about why!.. To add: place was not crowded when I came, everyone except me took their orders on time and waiters kept ignoring me eventhough they were serving the other tables. Will not be into any Ninkasi one more time. You may see other reviews below about this place being unfriendly...