Le Mesturet — Restaurant in Paris

Waiter Spills Food on a Child, then what the hell...?

Paris is a strange place, a lot of the restaurants seem to be closed in August, maybe this is the month when every on takes a holiday. After searching for a place to eat for a little while, we saw this place and it seemed like a good place to go.

The place was busy, in fact too busy. We immediately noticed one problem, not enough staff to meet the demand. I'll cut to the chase, after quite a while waiting for the food during which the waitress had forgotten the beer I ordered (I had to remind her), when the food finally came the waiter spilled the sauce on my youngest! It's the worst thing for a parent to see your child in discomfort!

When the waiter spilled the sauce on my son, 2 thing should have happened:

Appologise like mad as though his job depended on it, because if he had got a burn I sure wouldn't have took it as calmly as I had.

Immediately the food should have been replaced and there should have been some sort of offer to make amends.

None of those things happened straight away, instead what we got was lack lusture appology from the waiter where he said "It's okay, it's not hot" and then the spilled food was left on the table expecting for us to eat it! What the hell? He's in no position to judge what is ok or not, that's for us to decide, and in what world do you expect a paying customer to eat spilled food?!!!

Best thing to have done would have been to walk out, but it's never so easy when you have hungry children in a foreign place where you don't know the surrounding very well. We did manage to get the food replaced by asking ANOTHER waitress, who at first thought we wanted to order new food! And the price of the spilled food was taken off the bill in the end.

Mistakes can happen, that's not the issue, what matters is how you go about it afterwards. Unfortunately at Le Mesturet, they went about in the worst way possible, with total lack of care for the paying customer. The whole thing was the worst catering experiece I've ever had, the total unprofessionalism of the staff was beyond comprehension.

Here was the reply from the management on Trip Advisor:

"Your opinion is surrealistic, conceited and disproportionate. It wasn't the food spilled but the sauce. Our staff came to apologize twice. Should they have knelt? The dish was changed and taken off from the bill. We hope you measure your words regarding the discomfort of your child comparing to other kids suffering in the world from more important hardships. We are shocked by the violence of your language. You give a very bad image of your country that we love so much especially in this period of commemoration.

Votre commentaire est surréaliste, prétentieux et disproportionné. Ce n'est pas de la nourriture qui a été renversée, mais de la sauce. Par deux fois le personnel est venu s'excuser. Auraient-ils dû s'agenouiller ? Le plat a été changé et déduit de l'addition. Nous espérons que vous mesurez vos paroles concernant l'inconfort de votre enfant en rapport avec tous les enfants du monde qui souffrent d'autres malheurs plus importants. Nous sommes choqués par la virulence de vos écrits. Vous donnez une bien mauvaise image de votre pays que nous aimons tant surtout en cette période de commémoration."

Obviously the management has "We Do Nothing Wrong" kind of attitude. After shoddy service they imply your Child is so much more Previlaged than other children who might be suffering in the therefore he should take it! Well that says it all really doesn't it? We are from London, and you go anywhere and if the mistake happens it would be dealt in a professional manner. Unfortunately for Le Mesturet, it appears that they are happy to defend their mediocrity and in doing so they are happy to...

We ate here based on a recommendation from a Parisian local and also my review of Yelp reviews. The staff were very friendly, but ordering in English was a disaster. We ordered one salad to share between the two of us, and one entree to share between the two of us. When they brought the salad, they brought two big separate salads... so we asked about it and the wait person said they didn't understand her and she'd correct it. Then another guy we hadn't see yet came to our table and said it was correct, that it was one salad (just very big). Ok. He was very friendly, as were all the wait staff here. When the steak came, again two separate big plates of food... we asked again and they said it was correct. Sigh-- we don't like to waste food, so we were trying to order only what we needed. The steak was a disaster-- I asked for it "well done" and "no red"... it was nearly raw. My girlfriend speaks French, so she was confirming everything ordered via English by asking in French, but alas it was impossible. We wanted French wines, but they were offering us wines from Oregon, which we found odd. We insisted on French wines only (we didn't come all the way from the U.S. to drink U.S. wines) and the one recommended wasn't very tasty at all. All in all, this place was a very awkward experience and the food just was not to our liking. The salad was very good. P.S. the table right next to us left their steak completely untouched and left, as it was prepared very bloody as well and they had also...

Based on the good reviews, we went here, but experienced a pretty dismal time. The positive, the bread is AMAZING and their wine is affordable and delicious. Now to the courses...

The mackerel was bone free in one fillet and chock full of bones in the other. The gazpacho with sorbet was different, but not bad. The main course of Guinea fowl and paella was just not good. The Guinea fowl was dry and no matter how much sauce i added, it didn't get much better. There were also tiny bones hidden everywhere. The squid in the paella was very overcooked and VERY chewy. I was really disappointed and only ate about a third.

The dessert looked great, but the cafoutis was soggy and for some unknown reason peppery? Strange. And there were cherries in their. Yum! Minus cracking my teeth on the pits that hadn't been removed..

It was also very unfortunate that we felt rushed the entire time. We asked to wait on ordering dessert until we had finished our glasses of wine. Our waitress was great and said no problem, but after about 15 minutes, her manager came over and started pushing us to order.

This place had so much potential for being slated as a moderately upscale restaurant, instead we just received average food that you would expect from a 2 star...