Restaurant Le Pirate — Restaurant in Thonon-les-Bains

Honestly, I can’t recall having such bad service anywhere. Stopped here for ice creams. The waiters were so incredibly rude. If we hadn’t been with elderly parents who needed a sit down, we would have left straight away. I don’t understand why the staff were happy to treat nice, polite customers so badly. Lots of eye-rolling, raised voices, gesticulating, in addition to ignoring us. Half our party speak French fluently, so there was no miscommunication. So odd and so horrible. I got the feeling they just really, really didn’t like tourists or perhaps just the British. Terrible way to run a business. Anyway, please spend your money elsewhere. There are plenty of nice, friendly establishments in Yvoire, nobody needs to support...

Yvoire is a beautiful Medieval village perched on the French side of Lake Lehman (Lake Geneva, to us Brits). There are restaurants in the middle of the village and a few at the water’s edge. Le Pirate is next to the lake and the best thing about it is the view / as the sun goes down. Unfortunately, it felt like one of those places that reserves its second rate service for tourists. The waiter was a pain - grumbling when I had to remind him to bring water for the table - and generally not taking us seriously. The food was OK but over-priced - my wife’s steak was over-cooked (a rare occurrence in France!). The wine was over-priced too. A real shame. Imagine how good the place could be if they really...

The food was delicious and very well presented. I had the guinea fowl at €22 which was gorgeous. We felt it was slightly better value than other similar restaurants in Yvoire around the lake. Unfortunately the only vegetarian option for my sister was to have a salad starter and bread brought out at the same time as our mains, as they didn't have any vegetarian main courses. However, our waitress couldn't have been more lovely with us when we made our requests, and coped well with our broken French when we were ordering. We stayed a good few hours to have another drink and enjoy the relaxed atmosphere and surroundings. Hope to...