Bouillon Chartier — Restaurant in Paris

A delightful waiter from Sri Lanka made all the difference in a French Bouillon. He was polite, helpful and responsive to our orders throughout the service despite the throng of tourists and local customers.

We started with an fabulous first impression of a long queue outside the brightly lit restaurant. The maxim of eating at restaurants with long queues has always been true in most cities I have visited.

The 30 min wait in that orderly queue allowed time to read some of the 10k Google reviews. The recent reviews were however damning! From rude waiters, bad food to hints of overcharging dampened my enthusiasm quite a bit.

When it was our turn, a petite French lady in glasses who could be the boss led us to our table. The atmosphere was electrifying! Customers were drinking, eating and chatting with a full blast of ASMR in an ornate and long dining hall. Tables are packed with different small groups sharing same table.

The atmosphere remind us of those classic Hong Kong dim sum restaurants and tea canteens.

The bearded Sri Lankan waiter (see photo) took our orders in English.....a big relief. He wrote the orders down on the paper table cloth.... presuming these got transmitted magically to the kitchen because the orders arrived shortly and correctly!

We had 6 snails, a duck confit, cow's (beef) tongue, a pork curry, a steak fries (butcher's cut) with pepper sauce and another steak fries with MDH butter. Never figure out what is MDH butter.

Portions are small, French not American sizes. So Americans please order double or go for another meal after this.

The 2 slices of tongue are well cooked, tender enough to be cut with a fork, paired with a decent potato mash and a spicy sauce that is nowhere near spicy.

The duck confit is deeply flavourful to the bone, not waxy. Paired with equally well seasoned potatoes with skin, this could be great if the meat is slightly more juicy.

The 2 steak fries with or without pepper sauce were cooked exactly to medium raw as ordered. Tender and juicy but not the better cut at that price. The size is like a small American burger patty. The fries were working class, not impressive.

The disappointment is with the rice and pork curry. From an Asian's perspective, it is a culinary crime to call that sauce a curry. It was so white and creamy, whatever tumeric and spices were supposed to be in that curry had been whitewashed.

The smiling waiter came back to take our orders for desserts and topped off our water bottle.

Again the 4 desserts magically were served shortly after he wrote down the orders on the paper table cloth.

The rum baba with whipped cream was heavily dosed with rum. The rice pudding was flavourful with well cooked rice.

The lava chocolate cake however was not overflowing with lava with a rather flat piece of pastry.

The chocolate mousse was decent, just serviceable.

The waiter returned with another bottle of water and quickly tallied up the bill. The math genius in our group counted independently as we read some reviews that had hinted at overcharging.

The bill was correctly added up, refuting any hint of overcharging in other reviews.

Definitely first time visitors should come for the experience of a public Parisian canteen or a quick fuss-free meal during off-peak hours without queue.

Doubt this is a first-date venue for Parisians. We did witness 2 waiters singing happy birthday at another table with sprinklers! So recommend for birthdays but not for wedding anniversaries.

It is an...

I was recommended this place from some friends and family who told me that this was a beautiful place where we could try some traditional French food at an affordable price. We waited in line for about one hour which I don’t mind because I was excited for the experience. Me and my two friends were seated at a table for 4 and everything started out just fine. The waitress seemed busy but reasonably friendly. There were restrooms to use located downstairs(not clean and writing on the wall but hey,it’s Paris). I started off my meal with a vegetable soup which was bland but only 1 Euro so I can’t complain. For our main dish we all decided to have the traditional beef bourguignon(8 Euro). This dish was awful. Each piece of meat was inedible because it was pure fat and not the kind that melts in your mouth, but the kind that you could chew for days. We didn’t complain though, we just ate the macaroni noodles on the side. For dessert we all got loads of ice cream and rice pudding. Now it was time for the check.

THIS IS WHERE THINGS TOOK A TURN FOR THE WORST: We asked our waitress if we could please get a split check. I did not think it was a big deal as I’d done it before at other locations and it was never a problem. Our waiter rolled her eyes at us and told us to figure out how much each of us owed. We didn’t mind figuring it out so we asked for a menu so we could add up what each of us owed. The menu never arrived after 5 minutes, so we asked again for a menu. This is when the waiter turned hostile. She frantically began throwing our things all around the table including my phone and other belongings. All the while she was screaming at us in French. Only one person at our table spoke French so he was translating what she was saying. She said they have thousands of people to serve and we were causing a problem for her by asking for a split check. The whole restaurant was looking at this commotion unfold. My face was red and I was in shock at the way she was acting. Now after yelling at us, she says to figure out the amount we each owe already. She was saying that she doesn’t have time for this nonsense. Yet she still hadn’t brought a menu and kept slamming her hand on the table to signify that it’s written on the table. However, none of us could read what she had wrote. Now she sends a new waitress over who also begins yelling at us, this time in English. Telling us that “they don’t split checks here and it’s our job to pay each other back when we leave”. Which is FINE, but just say that next time and don’t scream at us and throw my belongings around the table like some wild animal. Anyway, we end up finally paying and they charge us 5 euros too much because the calculation is wrong and we never received a menu so we basically had to just guess what we owed. Us being too scared to say anything at this point, we just accept the loss and move on. We were shakin up for hours after this altercation and still (a day later) can’t believe it. I’m not sure the waitress’s name but she was waitress #3. I will never ever be back or recommend this place to anyone. Which I guess they don’t care and know that they can treat anyone horrible because people will still show up and it will be crowded. This place is terribly overhyped and the way they treat people is disgusting. Save yourself some time and humiliation by going somewhere else. It was my one and only horrible...

Please spend 2 minutes of your time to read this review!

My bf and I for our anniversary wanted a different restaurant than usual, which did not cost a fortune, and by googling we noticed this restaurant. So we asked the English menu and ordered "round beef cheeks" for me and "grilled butcher's cut, pepper sauce and fries" for him. The waiter writes the order on the tablecloth and go away. Ofc we didn't check on the tablecloth, because we dont speak french... When the main courses arrive I notice that mine was the "beef tongue, diable sauce" and that of my bf was the "grilled butcher MDH butter" so everything we didn’t order!

I politely call the waiter, for ask clarification, and tell him that the dishes weren't right and he told me that the main courses was what we ordered! in a rude tone and showing me the menu in French, but i don't speak french so why you show me that?? I try to explain again that is impossible because tongue and cheeks are 2 different tipe of meat and talk again with him but he repeat just that the courses are right and we order that! And show me the menù in french and the order on the tablecloth, after that he go away!!

So my bf decided to eat mine plate (tongue) and i decided to eat his plate just for stop the discussion and eat (because ofc we are hungry after all day walking around Paris) At the end when the waiter come for take the empty plate he said me that the plate is right if we eat that and we liked because we finished! And he make another kind of joke at the end of the dinner when we ask for the check. It was so so rude!!!

So i decided to see the french menu outside to understand what happen! The waiter didn't know the main course in English, he only knew the position of the dishes in the menu (which as you can see is different between French and English) and then he wrote the last main course that was in the French menu and not what i order in the English menù (and i don't know why the date on french menu is the 2nd august and for the english menu is the 3th august... when you can see on the check that we ate there the 2nd august...)

But is it possible in 2023 not to know just the translation in english of the dishes about the restaurant where you work?? in such a touristy place as the center of Paris!! And above all it seems right to treat a customer badly just because POLITELY asks for explanations about something?? I know that in the 200 people you had that night we were just two. But why don’t you ever think that for you maybe it’s just work, but it can be an important moment for other people? Idk, maybe this waiter need to learn a little more empathy than the...