Brasserie de l'Univers — Restaurant in Tours

I was served a main dish of cold fish (salmon). This was 2nd time ever that I returned any meal to the kitchen from anywhere in the world.

And what happened after complaining about the dish to the service staff? My dish with one bite eaten was reheated - and the already at the first try overcooked and dry salmon was served again!

This is not the way to serve fish - especially salmon. It takes some time to make salmon dry - and then serve it cold. Based on this, I wouldn’t recommend this restaurant to anyone, who knows how a tasteful fish dish should be prepared!

The service staff was nice and observant up to the point of us complaining. After that, the atmosphere dropped somewhat. Even though we did speak French with them (the staff didn’t know English plus they didn’t offer us menus in written so ordering the meals was a bit of a guessing game with forgotten high school French).

The only thing the staff did was to say they are sorry. Well, yeah. So was I. Next time, an another place, this is not worth the retry...

We were recommended to eat in this place from the hotel reception where we stayed in Tours. Menu was only in French and waiters were unable to translate which resulted in us ordering the wrong starter. Then we ordered two expensive steak meals. The magret was overcooked and the other one raw and cold inside. When we told to the waiter, he took it to the kitchen where they basically sliced it open in half and cooked it butterfly. Just before we were about to finish our food, the waiter sat a solo man who sit next to us who thought that the restaurant was the ideal place to play an Elvis Presley concert from his phone, which the management took 15 min to tell him to turn it down. We ended up paying nearly 100€, show included.

The only positive from our experience were the cocktails, which were quite strong at 13€ each and helped us to take the edge to the evening.

Location is right in the centre of Tours but as we expected from Google reviews, very busy restaurant with outrageous prices and average...

I made a same day reservation through Google maps/reservations and it was confirmed instantly. Later in the day I realized I wouldn’t make it in time and the staff happily moved it one hour later with a phone call. I was greeted nicely upon arrival and given my choice of several good seating options, which doesn’t always occur when dining solo. My server was very friendly, helpful and attentive out on the terrace. It was a fun atmosphere dining outside on a beautiful summer evening. My aperitif arrived quickly, as did the rest of my food and wine, but I was never rushed by staff. The server pointed out a QR code on the menu card for an English version of the menu, but in a courteous way. My burger with fois gras was delicious, chips nice and hot and salad fresh and inviting. I was pleasantly surprised by the reasonable pricing of the champagne, which was high quality. I will definitely return on my next visit to Tours, even if only to enjoy an aperitif on...