Vapiano Villages Nature Pasta Pizza Bar — Restaurant in Torcy

Looking good and fits right in with the surroundings. Staff more or less friendly, particularly the waitering staff, everyone else could be a bit friendlier. We visited this place on two days, two families, each time we couldn't get orders through. I've been at a Vapiano in Germany and the system there is different (get your own food), whilst here you have to scan the barcode on a table, do the order and then it pops up. However, this does not work. Either the website crashed or their wifi. At least 4 times an order did not go through and we had to re-do the orders. The website just crashed or was in a loading loop. Eventually my husband accidentally clicked a button twice and was apparently able to remove the accidetnal order, but the order still came with the additional drink that he didn't want. In addition, what's annoying about the system I experienced in Germany (you get your food when your company already finished their desert, because one type of food queue is longer than the other) is not much better with this system. Because if you are two families and everyone orders their own food, the food comes with massive delays as well. In two cases orders were brought wrongly as well. We ordered a kids pizza on the first day without cheese (due to allergy) and the pizza came with cheese. So the kid had to wait much longer as well. For adults this can be annoying already, imagine for a 4yo kid.

One thing that can be a pro or a con. There were birds nesting on the tree inside the restaurant. Whilst I for example found that rather cute and made the restaurant more natural (see the topic there?) it obviously also concerned another parent due to hygiene reasons. And she is kinda right... I don't want the birds poop in my food. Also... the "pasta kitchen" was the only thing that was a separate room, the rest of the kitchen was open-bar-style. So you don't want the birds to fly in there either...

A bonus was the lady that did some balloon art and face paint. Though on the other hand, I think the last thing I want to hear whilst I am eating is balloons popping and kids screaming/crying. So that could have been done outside on the terrace.

Food was alright for what it was. One thing that I found rather annoying is the fact, that they have all sorts of pasta - and yes, i get it, housemade... but is it so difficult to provide gluten-free pasta? Other restaurants can do it... there was basically just a couple of salads and a risotto for someone to eat. Considering the lack of alternative restaurants in the park one would think a simple thing like gf pasta is not too difficult to achieve (maybe add that it's not housemade if you really insist... though to be fair, not once have I seen anyone in the kitchen making fresh pasta... it looked more like a show-room than an actual pasta kitchen)

So for a location of being right in the center of Center Parks (pun intended) I would have expected a bit more of...

The food was far from fresh. The pasta was chewy, and despite the menu saying it contained tomatoes and cheese, long visual and gustatory inspection still left us wondering whether they had evaporated on their way to our table, or were never present at all. The pizza was considered solid. The system used for ordering this mildly disappointing food was installed to cause as much pain and frustration possible while already being hangry. Items on the menu did not correspond with the items on your phone. We wanted a cheesy (bread with cheese), which should not be confused with a cheesy bread. Which seems to be roughly the exact same thing, but twice as expensive. Unfortunately the system said that we couldn’t order a cheesy. After asking a crew member, she said that it was not available. This event raised existential questions; what was the ingredient that was not available? Was it the cheese or the bread? And why was its more expensive counterpart still available? Perhaps they ran out of cheap bread or cheap cheese? Or perhaps they took it out of the system because they later found out that putting less cheese on the bread results in receiving only bread, since the thin layer of cheese will evaporate before it reaches the customer as it did with the tomatoes and cheese on the pasta? These questions remain unanswered. Mainly because it was nearly impossible to make contact with a crew member. They were going around like socially awkward teenagers stuck to their phone and unable to make a real connection with anyone or anything. Not infrequently could the words ‘pardon?’ followed by ‘PARDON?’ followed by ‘S’IL VOUS PLAIT MONSIEUR!?’ be heard throughout Vapiano. Only rarely led this to the attention of a crew member. However, it made an interesting mix with the noises that all the children present made. Despite the disappointing food, service and atmosphere, I need to point out a highlight. Although the food was far from fresh it did attract a flock of birds. It was lovely to see four birds flying through the restaurant, eating bits of leftovers. I wonder how they came in; the doors were closed and windows shut. Do they have a nest inside? Did life spring from within such a lifeless place? A truly...

Making your customers cry is not a good look.

We came here for lunch on a group family trip. We got locked out of our cabin, so my wife still had a swimsuit on. She covered up as best she could, and we sat outside.

You have to order everything through their QR code which is annoying at best (items not available when they are, clunky website) or inaccessible at worst (some are technophobes in our group). But it also means the service is at arm's length.

We ordered a kid's meal that the website didn’t say (or we didn’t notice) we had to pick up inside. So my wife went inside to ask someone where it was, but she was physically blocked from coming in and yelled at, ‘GET OUT OF HERE!! YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED INSIDE!!!’. Perplexed, she explained the situation but was dismissed, and the waiter said he was ‘sick of you people’. My wife is mixed race and has dark skin, and in England, ‘you people’ means something. It seems this was lost in translation as the waiter meant people with swimwear on. What followed was possibly one of the most disgusting experiences of service I have ever encountered. He yelled at us, and we ended up having a stand-up row in the middle of the restaurant. We've never had good service in France, but this tops it! A group of other women chipped in and expressed disgust at their treatment. By this point, my wife was in tears.

It's a holiday park, it's casual, and you'll have people in swimwear. You're a chain restaurant in a centre parcs, not haute cuisine in central Paris. If you're that bothered, get a sign and a security guard. Your staff clearly aren't trained to deal with it.

To make matters worse, our food was average at best or inedible at worst.

The manager refunded some of our meal which was the least he could've done. As he was refunding me, he said, ‘we’re human too’. I get that, mate, but yelling at your customers as they walk through the door isn't a good start to a service...