La Cave du Fromager — Restaurant in Nice

Here is our experience at this restaurant: Made reservation day before, restaurant said only time available was 21:30. We show up at 21:30 and sit down waiting a few minutes for 2 more guests to arrive. The waiter tells us at 21:45 we need to order immediately or leave because the kitchen closes at 22:00... Why allow reservation at 21:30 if your restaurant shut down in 30 minutes???? Ok fine, fancy place, their rules, so we try to order just to eat because we waited all night to eat here from good reviews. The menu has about 6 different "starters" and about 6 "main" options. Very small menu with only cheese with bread. We try to order a "starter" to begin with. We ask to try option 1 from "starter" menu... Server said option 1 is not available. Ok, try option 2, items not available. Ok fine, just bring us ANY AVAILABLE "starter" option, server said "OK option 3 available". 30 minutes, still no starter, we ask the waiter when the starter is coming, waiter said we did not order any starter... Ok so we tell the waiter, yes we want a starter please bring it when possible. It is sliced cheese and bread, very easy to make. We never received any starter ever. For 6 people, everyone ordered water bottle and waiter bring 2 small personal size (375ml) water bottles for the table. We ask for more water maybe 10 times and never received any water for the rest of the night... 3 guests order 1 glass of wine to ask for a second glass not possible, waiter tell you "OK" but never bring it Ok fine, we are hungry, thirsty, IT IS VERY VERY HOT INSIDE THE RESTAURANT NO AIR CONDITIONING EVERYONE IS SWEATING ALOT! The "cave" is a "sauna" Also, no wifi internet, no cell phone service inside. So we try to order the "main" option to eat. We ask for option 6: a chicken dinner, NOT AVAILABLE. We ask for option 5, NOT AVAILABLE. Fine! Bring anything to eat please! We received 1 hour later the only available menu option which was a melted cheese with bread and a brie cheese with bread... what kind of dinner is that?? From 12 total options on the menu almost ALL were NOT AVAILABLE??! We are hot, sweating, thirsty no water, upset because 3 different waiters ignore our request for water multiple times. We are ready to leave and pay.... Ask for the check about 10 times 3 different waiters, they say OK will bring the check soon... there was only 2 tables with guests at this time and about 6 employees in the restaurant, 3-4 of them are servers... We get tired of waiting to pay after 30 minutes we ask to pay and they tell us "go upstairs to pay, we do not bring the check" Ok fine, we go upstairs to pay... Upstairs they tell us: the computer not working they do not know how much we need to pay??! Ok, ask our server what we order because they write down our order on paper with pen... they do not know what we ordered.... Ok, lets try to remember what we need to pay. Our dinner of cheese with bread was about $200 included: 3 "main" dishes everyone had to share because everything else was not available, 2 small water bottles and 3 glass of cheap house wine... CASH ONLY. We quickly pay and go home hungry, thirsty, and sweaty, outside it is cold and we are wet with sweat. All other restaurants are closed at this time and we cannot find food to eat at night. THIS...

EDIT in response to the restaurant:

Your response accurately reflects the service that we received at the restaurant.

“We serve one of the best sourdough breads in Nice…” Then why no customers? 🤣 If that’s the best sourdough bread in Nice, I’m scared how stale and rock hard the other sourdough is.

Our server walked off on us 15 seconds into bringing it up. Just trying to justify that it should be stale, rock hard bread. No solutions proposed. Just walked off. Why would we stay at the restaurant and accept your proposals after that?

Please do a better job and look closely at my account. I have other positive reviews (made months before) before this horrible review. Go ahead and try to report so you can try to take down this review.. I’m curious how it will end up. 😆

To prospective guests: DONT COME HERE!

Don’t come here. Service was terrible. Food was average at best.

We were served fondue with ROCK hard, stale bread. I understand it shouldn’t be soft bread since you’re dipping it in hot fondue but it was so hard that you couldn’t even pierce it with the skewers that they gave us.

Our male server was a short man with short curly hair, tattoos on his forearms, and earrings. Before the fondue, we had to ask for plates two times and then we were waiting around for our fondue for 15-20 minutes. After bringing up this concern he tried to justify by saying this was the only bread. When we showed him that it is so stale we cannot even pierce it with the skewers he simply walked off on us mid sentence… we were so confused that it took us a second to process how ridiculously horrendous the service is.

His colleague, a female server, came over instead after he stormed off. We asked to have the fondue taken back and close out the check. Because who would want to give any more business to such restaurant with laughable service. The female server then offered to bring us potatoes instead. We declined and asked to pay. Once we went up to pay, she gives us a check with the fondue we didn’t eat still on (49 Euros) and took off our two wines (16 Euros) because she was “sorry about her colleague”……..whatt??

We asked her why the fondue was still on there when we did not even touch it due to the stale bread and bad taste. She then replied, ‘ oh but that’s how it’s served and everyone else likes it that way so we can’t take it off.. i took off the wines instead ‘ ….. huh? Goodness. It took more exchanges back and forth for her to (unwillingly) take off the fondue. Maybe everyone DOESN’T like the fondue and that’s why the restaurant is empty… while other surrounding restaurants are booked and busy...

We came for dinner as a group of eight, all food and wine lovers and all travellers from all around the world. We all came out feeling like we just had one of the best dinning experience ever! We got greeted by really friendly staffs, walking us down to the cave. At the bottom of the stairs you just realise you’ve entered a really unusual restaurant. This amazing venue carved into the rock is mind blowing. You are seating next to racks of wine bottles, bags of flours used to make their insane homemade bread (best bread I had in France. I asked them to buy some they said they are not making enough to sell it but kindly offered me a baguette at the end of dinner!) and of course the key element : a huge selection of cheeses waiting for you.

When we looked at the menu we were all cheerful it was 8 of us so we got to order every starters! Everything single one of them were perfect! It only let me post 3 pictures from the starters but trust me everything was succulent! The foie gras is the best I ever had, the perfect egg and salmon raw brilliant and the raviole to die for.

To drink with we got the sommelier recommendations that we gave freedom to pick for us. He started explaining to us in the most helpful and informative way what wine they are working with and why, what wine would go well with the food and why and then he proceeded to offer suggestions with the descriptions and prices, starting from the most expensive to more affordable ones. We thought that was a great approach because you can still pick the one you want based on your budget without having to price it up in advance.

As for the main dishes, we all wanted to try the fondue. A few of us worked in Courchevel and all agreed this was the best we ever had. We also tried the Mont D’Or and we were not disappointed. The quality of the cheese and charcuterie are second to none. We also wanted to try the free range chicken supreme that was cooked to perfection and combined perfectly with the purple potatoes mash and asparagus.

We managed to save a bit of room for dessert and shared the best lemon tart we ever had and an insanely good chocolate eclair, all home made.

Even the coffee is good! If you ever had a coffee in France you know why I’m raving about it!

I think I can speak for all of us when I say this was our best dining experience in Nice and we would recommend it to any one leaving there if visiting the area. Those guys are pros, friendly and super...