Marcel Bistro Chic — Restaurant in Nice

Overall experience at Marcel Bistro Chic was disappointing and overpriced. Not any fault of the service staff.

The meal started with a basket of small loafs of bread. Bread was cold, tough, and possibly stale. Nothing was given with the bread which seemed odd as something simple like butter or oil/vinaigrette can make a cheap bread better. I feel bad about wasting it.

Smoked Salmon Linguine: Came out nice and warm, and fast. Food was ready within 5-10 minutes. This dish was severely lacking in salt and flavor. The salmon was the texture of wafer paper, I could taste the smoke on the salmon but that was the only flavor that was obvious in this dish. The sauce lacked complexity similar to what one could get in a jar. There was one half of a tomato on the dish - I could not tell if this was for plating or to be eaten but it felt like an odd addition to the flavor profile.

Braised Beef Cheek and Gnocchi: Also came out fast, dish was warm but not hot. There was a considerable amount of beef and gnocchi which I was pleased to see. The beef varied in texture from piece to piece which is not something I am used to encountering - particularly with higher quality meat. If this meat was seared before it was braised, it needs more salt in that preparation as, like the pasta, the dish was under salted. The braising liquid was not very complex and honestly quite bitter. This bitterness prevented me from finishing the dish. The gnocchi itself was fairly standard and the carrots were a good means to cut through the overall bitterness. Like the pasta, there was also a half tomato in this dish. Very out of place with the flavor profile and seemed to just be a visual addition.

Throughout the meal there was music playing from a blown out speaker which was not pleasant. I swear I heard a phone notification come through on it once which made...

Mediocre food, terrible service

Do you speak French? If not then expect to wait 45 min for service and even longer for your very mediocre meal. Oversalted, lacking flavour, with food that overall does not live up to french standard. Wait staff extremely rude. When asked about the wait times we were told "this is France"...you should know that good service and good food exists all over France but just not at Marcel

Reply: Marcel, thank you for taking the time to reply to my review. Unfortunately I have no option to reply to your reply and I will leave my comments here. I speak 4 languages including English, french, Russian and Ukrainian...there was no miscommunication. The 2 waitresses that I spoke to were unabashedly rude. You can claim I have no sense of humor but I rarely leave 1 star reviews. I have been on a food trip for almost a month in France and by far this is the most disappointing meal I have had to date. You can be as defensive as you want but bottom line is bad food is bad food in any culture...people should be warned, while the location is great, the food and service is not. Expect to overpay for...

This place is located in the middle of the old town, so it’s scenic (albeit a bit touristy). The food is good, can be on the pricey side if you are going for ala carte, but given the location, you’d expect to pay for that.

That said, their set lunch was very good value for money. I had the butternut squash soup, pork tenderloin with potatoes and mushrooms, and dame Blanche (which is really just a vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce). Since I was craving for escargot, I had an extra entree of escargot.

The escargot was good, though not the best I’ve had in the area. The pork tenderloin was FABULOUS! The pork was tender, and the sauce (a mustard with cream sauce) was so good I mopped it up with bread (and the bread was great too. Crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside).

I arrived closed to two in the afternoon for lunch, half expecting to be turned away since they close at 230pm. They were so welcoming and accommodated me. The service was very friendly.

I would...