La Couronne — Restaurant in Rouen

La Couronne

Spectacularly dishonest. Titanically arrogant. Appallingly bad.

I was one of a group with a confirmed reservation, confirmed less than 2 weeks prior to our intended celebration in emails and by live telephone call. (from fluently French speaking member of our group)

All of our menu selelctions had been ordered in advance, per the request of the restaurant in order to help them prepare.

Admittedly, serving 30+ guests in one sitting required careful planning of the restaurant – thus we took every requested action to facilitate the restaurant’s ability to deliver.

Upon arrival our reservation was inexplicably lost.

Dominique Cauvin, the owner herself - made the proclamation upon our arrival (quite rudely in fact) that there was no reservation.

Upon pressing Ms. Cauvin for a solution, she finally (rudely) agreed to accommodate us in separate groups in separate rooms. The menu would be restricted to 2 starters, 2 mains and perhaps 3 desserts. Fine. Despite the fact that we had pre-selected our meals we accepted this poor solution.

It was all made out to be our fault.

Finally upon being seated at 9 pm, an our after our confirmed reservation – our part of the group (perhaps a dozen) were greeted by a waiter 20 minutes later who offered a modicum of contrition with the excuse that…. The upstairs management doesn’t communicate much with the downstairs operations… in fact the person in charge of reservations was fired and the replacement quit. How is that for a glimpse into business management?

So finally we ordered (by show of hands!) choice number 1 or choice number 2. Speechless.

Then in an instant – the cold appetizers appeared before us (only cold appetizers were offered).

I spoke up and suggested that perhaps a wine order would be appropriate, not to mention offering us bread and filling our water glasses. No… the waiter responded that the chef wanted this meal out immediately

We visited La Couronne as part of a 1.5 day trip to Rouen. While it wasn't recommended to us specifically, it's reputation precedes it. In particular we were interested in the pressed duck, a delicacy that is hard to come by and commands a price almost three times higher in London, our current place of residence. For reference we are moderately fanatical restaurant goers who have dine out at least once a fortnight in restaurants up to Michelin standard across Europe and Asia. The first point of frustration was the fact that the pressed duck was not available without a specific booking, despite the fact that it is listed on both the French and English menus without any explicit note that the item must be reserved in advance. For reference, Otto's in London, which also offers pressed crab and lobster, makes clear note of this on its menu and website. We opted instead for a set menu that included oysters, foie gras, guinea fowl and hake followed by a cheese course and dessert. We also took half a bottle of wine and two aperitifs. The main courses in particular were very good and we felt their quality was proportional to the price. During the cheese course we were offered four different soft rind cheeses all of which were pleasant . However, we noted that 15 minutes later another table of French speaking customers were offered a much larger selection of cheeses extending beyond what we were offered. Perhaps they were ordering from a different set menu. Looking back, our experience was not so dissimilar to other reviews on this site in the last 6-12 months. Service was slow albeit not the slowest we have ever experienced. Bread placed on the table prior to arrival left a slightly perfunctory impression. While we didn't see rats, the restaurant is certainly old school decor wise, although this isn't necessarily to its detriment. The servers do seem (for the most part) to speak English but perhaps reluctantly so. There does seem to be a double standard between how French and non-French speaking customers are treated. Looking at French speaking customers the service appeared particularly attentive. This seems consistent with some other experiences reviewed recently on the site. In many respects, it is hard to criticise this especially coming from the UK where the community is particularly unforgiving towards people who don't speak English. However, for the price the restaurant could do more to eliminate the feeling of a double standard especially considering a significant proportion of the clientele are going to be international and English speaking. Ultimately, this is a restaurant that people are going to continue to book for it's historical reputation rather than its current reputation and one gets a feeling that it's proprietors are acutely aware of this. The food is decent but if the service had been a bit more attentive we would have easily spent almost twice as much on drinks and extras as we wanted to like the place but were made to feel reluctant. Our overall impression was good but not outstanding; being diplomatic and looking at the age of the proprietors, the subconscious apathy towards foreign customers is understandable and I wouldn't even necessarily recommend that they try to change anything. If you are French speaking this restaurant would probably be a very enjoyable experience. However, for us, while we didn't feel ripped off we felt a bit dissatisfied with the amount of cash we had to part with. Customers interested in the restaurant's history will likely dine irrespective of the reviews but for those sitting on the fence I would probably look...

Disappointment. We're in Rouen for the Fête du Ventre and especially to see the Ordre des Canardiers prepare the 'canard a la rouennaise'. Before visiting the demonstration on Saturday we inquired at the information stand where we should enjoy this special dish. All fingers pointed towards La Couronne. At the demonstration we saw one of the chefs of La Couronne at work. Impressive! And after we all enjoyed a small bite of the delicous duck we headed for La Couronne to book a table. Fully booked but we could still book for Sunday evening which we happily did. Tonight was the night. Very looking forward we arrived a bit too early, were friendly guided to the dining room upstairs (lights not yet on but bread already served on most of the tables) and were seated. Although we loved glancing at the countless photographs of stars in the 50's and 60's we couldn't help noticing the place is quite a bit worn out. Still very looking forward about the duck meal we waited patiently for staff to show up. The friendly waitress took our order for drinks and told us she had to check with her colleague when we ordered the duck. Upon return she explained this dish has to be ordered on beforehand and therefore wasn't available. Bam, in your face! This info is not on the website, not on the menu, and wasn't given us when booking the table. The waitress apologised and agreed this information cannot be found anywhere. We had our drink, checked online for other options to have the duck only to find that both other restaurants were fully booked and decided to stay but still not happy about this experience. We decided to give the other specialties of the restaurant a try and ordered the beef for 2. This was okay, with a sidedish that was a bit burned but okayish. Same for the famous apple pie, one came in with a tiny burn and the other quite blackened. The bill brought yet another disappointment....the prices of the drinks are way way too high. I guess that's why the prices of the drinks are not on the menu. The glass of kir (ordinary, not a kir royale), a beer, bottle of water and 2 tea cost as much as the 4 course menu incl half a bottle of wine (€56). What was supposed to be an unique dinner with a very special dish turned into a full disappointment. Wholes in the table cloth, broken lid of the teapot, broken (glass) salt shaker causing a pile of salt on the edge of my plate, wobbling toilets, worn down carpets.....this place needs TLC as well as refinding love for the customers. Until then you might want to reconsider your choice of having a...