Le Grand Café de France — Restaurant in Nice

The worst restaurant experience I have ever had. The place looks beautiful on the outside and that’s what drew us in, what a mistake that was. The waiter seated us and brought us a bag of bread, after a few minutes we noticed every other table had plates, butter and pretzels accompanying the bread, this was never offered or brought to us, we sat with a bag of plain bread. We ordered a bottle of wine, the waiter then brought over the wrong bottle of wine, we politely advised this was wrong and that we wanted a different bottle, no real apologies given but not a major deal (at this time). After we order the wine (a low to mid tier bottle) the waiter we originally had (blonde lady, never got her name) completely ignored our existence and instead spent her time with the tables who had ordered more expensive bottles of wine. She was constantly topping up their glasses and checking up on them, we sat and watched every other table have their wines topped up while we did it ourselves. After finally flagging down a bus boy. we ordered our food, I got the steak cooked medium and my girlfriend got the duck. My steak showed up well done (and I mean they might as well have microwaved it). My girlfriends duck was a complete mess but I will admit it was tasty. I attempted 3 times to flag down our original waiter and she looked at me and continued walking. Finally I managed to get a bus boy to stop so I could explain my meal was wrong, he never apologized but did take it away and brought me a new steak about 15 minutes later (my girlfriend was done eating at this point) and now the steak was blue rare and a horrific cut of meat, the worst steak I’ve ever seen in my life. Basically chewing gum. I didn’t even bother trying to beg for service again. The table next to us has their meal show up and the woman’s duck is this beautifully laid out plate,(completely different then the slop that my girlfriend was given, even down to the the plate being different). The owner had a table in the corner and was the centre of attention, which I don’t really care about but it was very evident they only cared about his existence, this was evident when the entire staff came out to sing him happy birthday while I couldn’t even get someone to look in my direction. Once we finished we then sat at our table for just shy of an hour watching the waiter walk around with a tray of desserts and offer them to every single table except us and the other English speaking table next to us. Finally I went inside and tracked down a bus boy to advised I wanted my bill, he didn’t apologize and brought the bill which was another treat when we realized they had charged us nearly 10 Euros for a bottle of water and had charged us for a more expensive wine. At this point I had enough and just wanted to get out of there, the second our cash hit the table our original waiter came scrambling over to take the money.

We did witness another man have harsh words for a waiter about how detestable the service was, so we were not alone

Hands down the worst experience I have ever had in a restaurant. Pathetic food , I’ve had better meals at fast food restaurants. There are no words for how bad the service was, either it was because we ordered a “cheaper” bottle of wine or because we spoke only English, either way I can not emphasize how...

Review of a visit on March 18, 2024 We were walking and we saw the "Le Grand cafe De France" at nice. It had a board on the street with some dishes and prices. On that Board we saw Omelets and as we wanted to eat a small meal, it sounds perfect. We went in, we asked for a table and the employee name "Caisse" that is the name in the invoice (young girl with fringe hair) get us table 205. This employee (lets call her Caisse), after we sat down, came to us and asked us if we wanted water, it was the first question, before we even start to look at the menu. We are tourists, and from what we saw in Nice, it is very normal for a restaurant to supply bread and water free of charge. So if she asked if we wanted water, we thought that it was "the usual free water", and we said yes please, and she brings a bottle of water, that from what we notice it didn't look like a brand water, it looked like tap water in a bottle. So far so good. (we were later charged 8,5 euros for the water). But this is just the beginning... We look at the menus she gave us, and there were no omelets that we saw in the street board, instead of dishes at 14-16 euros the prices were much higher, so we told her that the menu didn't have the omelets, she said that for that it was a different menu. But her face showed the opposite of a smile, she gives us the "other menu" with lower prices. We order 2 omelets: one with only ham, and other with ham and cheese. I asked for a Heineken 50cl and my wife just drink the water that we thought was the "usual tap water". After 10 minutes before the omelets arrive, Caisse bring a coffee that put in front of my wife. We said politely, this coffee is not for us, we are waiting for the omelets. Cassie, saw that mistake (no problem with that, it can happen), she just grab the coffee and turn her back to us and went away. No "i am sorry" no explanation, nothing, she just turns her back. The Heineken arrived, and it was everything except Heineken, she just brings me other beer. Five, ten minutes later, she arrived with the omelets, and she said "omelets, how order the ..... haaaa... cheese.... i think, and i asked, "which one is only ham?" she replies, i dont know, they didn't tell me witch omelet is what. I said, ok no problem, we try and see. She leaves the dishes. Once again, no smile, nothing, just a simple "i don't care". We try the Omelets, and one of them instead of only ham it was only cheese. We asked the bill and paid 63,30 for 2 omelets, one beer (affligen 50cl) i didn't asked, but this one it was 1 euro more (don't complain about this), 2 coffees, and 2 french fires. The water was 8,5 euros. The major problem here was: the employee was totally the contrary of nice, she tried to make us order water as we if we wanted bottle water and not taped water. She didn't make the minimum effort to explain that we were about to pay for the water and it was not the usual tap water. The result: 8,5 euros for 0,75L of water. I am not complaining about the restaurant, or the food, no, it is just the employee that don't have the minimum quality to...

The Grand Cafe has a lot going for it. It’s very attractive, has a great location, friendly staff, and in the right hands would be one of the must-go places in Nice. At the moment it is a bit of a tourist trap so my expectations weren’t high but I was expecting competent cooking especially as the prices are high and the menu ambitious ( €790 for A Plateau Grand Café de France!). To bridge the gap after ordering we had a bowl of hummus to share. Like the restaurant it looked great. The right colour, a dusting of paprika, slick of oil but that’s where the pleasure ended. It simply tasted of nothing. No warmth of tahini, no hint of cumin, no tang of garlic or sparkle of lemon. It was just a beige putty. The mains arrived. One pasta vongole, two risotto, one chicken paillard. Onto the good news. The pasta was great, freshly cooked and plenty of clams. After that …well, the risotto managed to be both like porridge and undercooked. I know the rice needs a ‘bite’ but this was ‘chalky’. It was boarding school stodge. Clearly precooked and kept in a pan. The chicken - I felt sorry for it having been reduced to a dry, tasteless piece of inedible protein served with some undressed salad leaves and overcooked potatoes. Then the one thing that showed either contempt for the customer or contempt for the food, or both, was the waiter bringing out ‘the sauces’. A selection of mayo, ketchups and mustard in those cheap little plastic catering servings, the ones you get in service stations which always leave half their contents on your hands or clothes. Come on. If you’re charging €9 for a bottle of Evian you can put some sauces out in little serving dishes. The trouble with treating your customers with contempt is they’ll stop coming. On a busy Saturday in carnival season only the front terrace was busy. And the other customers? Russians, Italians, Americans, Asian but no obvious French. Which is a danger as in the other “tourist traps” along Rue de France which do make an effort with their food there are lots of locals. The Grand Cafe has been going about 50 years. If it doesn’t sort its kitchen out it won’t...