Ostra — Restaurant in Paris

Cold dish, long wait, half a glass of wine I visited your restaurant on Friday, October 25th, around 5:00 p.m. I found your good rating and decided to stop by for a meal. I looked through the menu outside and chose the tuna with vegetables. When the nice young man seated me, he gave me a paper menu — but the tuna dish wasn’t listed there. Okay. I chose the dorado and a glass of rosé instead.

I waited about 20 minutes before anyone came to take my order — you have only a few tables but quite a few waiters, who were busy chatting with each other. I had to signal several times that I was ready to order. But these are small things that wouldn’t have affected my impression — if the wine and fish had been served properly.

Finally, a waitress took my order. I happened to be sitting in a spot where I could clearly see how my wine was poured — it was the last bit from an open bottle. Then the waiter looked for the same wine, couldn’t find it, and brought me half a glass. I didn’t say anything — I just wanted to relax — and the waitress went back to the bar. But I didn’t touch the glass; I looked at it, then at the glasses on other tables, and the waitress noticed that. She spoke with the bartender (I saw it all). Then she came back and said, “Sorry, I’ll top up your wine,” took the glass away, and I saw the bartender open a new bottle and pour the proper amount. That’s when I started to feel uneasy — it looked like a small attempt to shortchange the customer, corrected only because the customer happened to be attentive.

Then the waiting began. I waited half an hour for my fish, and when it finally arrived, it wasn’t hot. I asked the waitress what had happened to the fish — why the dish wasn’t hot. She said she would check with the kitchen, took the plate, and brought it back there. After a while, I realized I couldn’t wait any longer — I had already understood enough about your restaurant. So I asked another waiter if I could just pay for the wine and leave. She said, “Of course, if you’re sure you don’t want to wait any longer.” When I asked what had happened to my dish, she replied, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know.”

I paid 7 euros for a glass of wine, didn’t eat anything, lost almost an hour of my time, and witnessed service that showed no care or love for the customer. Unfortunately,...

The oysters were larger than expected, but the first round of oysters arrived with a flavourless mignonette. The second round at least had a mignonette. However, both oysters were placed improperly on the tray so the oyster liquor leaked out of the oyster before you could even pick it up and the oysters were not completely detached from the muscle. Perhaps the latter is just the way oysters are served here, but at the very least the oyster liquor should be available for consumption. Additionally, the service was atrocious. They told us we had 1 hour of seating, which was fine considering we did not have a reservation. The servers kept rushing us to order, did not refill the water, took the plates away early, and was visibly disappointed when we did not tip. What do you expect from treating customers you willingly accept in a poor manner? There were only two tables occupied when we left and the restaurant was never full at any time we were there. We would have loved to order dessert, but we were given the bill before we even had the opportunity to order.

Edit: In response to the owner's reply to my review, we got there around 18:30 h. We left before 19:30 h because we were given the bill without any notice for last orders and without our request. We kept an eye on the high availability of seating at the restaurant because we would have asked for the bill as soon as we saw people arrive for their reservations out of respect for them and the restaurant. I appreciate the clarification on serving oysters with the muscle attached, but as I also mentioned above, the oyster should've been plated properly to keep the oyster liquor in the shell because the liquor is part of the oyster flavour. Upon further research, I see that oyster liquor is typically kept on the...

I do not usually leave reviews in situations like this, but today I have a very strong feeling of inadequacy of a rating and want to warn new guests.

Although food is decent and fancy enough to visit the place - the most crucial point for me to leave a bad review was that in the fact that we were treated like guests up until the restaurant I decided to not leave a tip. The restaurant gave me a card reader and 2 times left a huge question for me to tip, even pronouncing it verbally: "do you like to leave a tip for a team?"

After paying my bills, I went to wash my hands, and after coming back realized there were no cups of water at our table, while my wife was still sitting. We started dressing, leaving our stuff, yet the employee wiped a table, like we are not present here. Leaving the place I spoke loudly: "merci, orevouir", and no one responded to it, while there were only single guest in a room who already finished, and 3 employees were not busy. Leaving bad feelings of guilt, such as I'm not welcomed here anymore. I'm binding it to a tip issue

I strongly believe that tip is a US culture, and hence EU employees have a good enough salary, tip is not mandatory from guests. Hence I believe this is a so-called "tourist trap"

Take my review with a grain of salt. I mix facts with my feelings. The reader is...