LArchimede - Restaurant Bistronomique Paris 10 — Restaurant in Paris

This may be the only negative review I have ever posted. I understand people have off days and so do restaurants as a person who has worked in them for over 8 years, but this was exceptionally bad.

I made a reservation the night before as a special treat for a last night’s meal in Paris for my cousin. We came in early to an empty restaurant and asked politely if the staff spoke English. I was met with the response, “yeah, unfortunately I have to because I work here.” by the server. As the only reservation for the night and the only people in the restaurant, we chose to sit outside. The waiter came over and demeaned us about not speaking French, to which I replied in French that I am with a guest who does not understand, and I would like to accommodate. He brought menus, and we ordered drinks, starters and main plates. When our drinks arrived, my cousin immediately clocked an ant at the bottom of her glass. We asked for an exchange, and the waiter went to refresh.

Our starters came, and I ordered the foie gras escalope. The vein had not been removed and was the main part of my slice. Disappointed with our experience thus far, we discussed if we wanted to continue dining at LArchimede and decided we would cut our losses and end here.

At this point, we still have our starter plates and one other table has sat, making a total of 5 people at the entire restaurant. I mention this to say that they were not in a dinner rush. I called over the server and said we were just too full from our meal so far and would like to cancel our mains and take our check. This is where things fully devolved.

We were told this could not happen, that our dishes were already done, and there was no canceling them. We explained that we did not want them and would like to pay and leave. The server made 2 calls explaining the situation to someone, hung up the phone, went inside, and brought us our bill with the main dishes on it. He offered us our main dishes to-go, and we said no thank you. Our starter plates are still on the table, it has been maybe 15 minutes maximum since they were placed down.

At this point, our waiter became more and more disgruntled with us. He made another call, said there was nothing he could do as it was “not his restaurant.”

We decided leaving was the best course of action. We paid in full for the dishes we canceled, and did not see or want. We explained that we did not want to take them after the ant incident. Our waiter explained that “ants are attracted to sugar,” and that is why it was in the glass. I want to say, I don’t think over-reading into this is helpful, I don’t think he genuinely has an ant infestation crawling around every glass and sweet adjacent item in the restaurant-that would be an overexaggerated idea. But what it was, was a dismissal of the discomfort and unsanitary conditions we were put in. We lost 40 euros of food we did not want or get, and wasted the rest of our bill on a very unpleasant and unkind experience on my cousin's last night in Paris.

I wrote this to 1. Hopefully get my money back for the food I canceled. 2. To warn people that maybe it is not a great idea to dine here, and 3. I have worked front of house for years and this is not industry standard behavior for what transpired. This went beyond how any restaurant standard reacts to this situation. Please give me my money back Larchimide, and to you reading, maybe consider if you should have...

Worst service ever.

It started with a messy booking experience: called to extend the reservation number and they didn’t update their register, accusing us of making last minute changes.

Then, the dessert problem: my boyfriend had brought a birthday cake as a surprise. When our friends asked if, instead of ordering an appetizer, they could order dessert later, any other restaurateur would have handled the situation nicely, bringing out the cake before people had a chance to order dessert. Instead, the waitress quizzically told my friends “no, you will NOT have dessert” and didn’t answer when people asked why. 20 minutes of discussions later they ended up ruining the cake surprise.

Finally the bill. First of all, they tried to hide the way they calculated the total. After much questioning, and their attempt to hide the information while having a demeaning attitude (implying we didn’t understand because we are not fluent in French) we finally find out. They charged us the FULL menu for 4 friends that were not able to join us last minute as they were coming from out of town. Plus 80€ cover fee for the cake. We had 16 people eat 2 dishes each and ordered a lot of wine. Charging the full menu for a few missing people is unacceptable in and of itself, and this was aggravated to the fact that this was never agreed beforehand. Plus they took away one of our tables during the dinner and offered it to other diners, so them saying that they lost business was complete nonsense.

Food: appetizers were good but the steak we had for main was ridiculously tough and chewy and some of us couldn’t even get to the end of the plate.

In conclusion: they robbed us of a few hundred euros and of an hour and a half of our time with discussions between the dessert issue and the bill. Would not touch with a...

Don't get the hype. Service was super cold and unfriendly. The waiter's aunt sitting across from me was a lot more friendly. I came in right at 19h - not a soul in sight other than the aunt. I asked if they were open and the guy seemed super annoyed. The main door really isn't that obvious at all. Then I asked if I could sit (place was empty) and he's like "one thing at a time " lol like I'm a child. He's like "you can have the table for one hour " lol. Food was so-so. Way too small and bland for the price. I'm a fan of small menus but this menu literally has 3 options to choose from....and the waiter doesn't explain any of them. He also freaked out because I had my plastic water bottle on the table and put it on the FLOOR next to me lol. Yes I drink water throughout the day and sometimes I have water left - am sure not going to toss it. I guess my plastic bottle didn't go with the pretentious vibe of the place. Overall very unpleasant- would...