Balfes — Restaurant in Dublin

We booked Balfes for brunch for the 22nd December as we had previously been there at Xmas time and had had a lovely experience there. The staff used to be so accommodating and food used to be top class. But something has gone amiss since our last visit. Two of our children had been very sick the night before our visit to Balfes with flu symptoms, high temperatures, sore throats, one of them puking. So as soon as we woke I phoned to cancel our reservation. Explained the unfortunate situation. Presumed that's all I needed to do given I had had the courtesy to phone as soon as possible. Bearing in mind that Balfes is a very popular spot and always gets "walk ins" I was horrified when the girl on the phone told me I needed to pay €25 a head to cancel i.e.€125! There was no leeway with her at all so we had no alternative but to attend with our sick children. We got there at 11.20am, ordered our food and I'm pretty sure that we got our food to our table at close to 12.20pm - after having to ask where it was. The kids got pancakes. I got the Avocado and poached eggs. 2 mouthfuls into mine and I realised I couldn't eat it. The eggs were, for want of a better word, snotty, undercooked! As the food had taken so long to arrive I didn't bother complaining because my son was fading rapidly and he needed to get home to his bed. So I didn't eat mine as it was stomach churning. While we sat at our table- we happened to be sitting at the door and front window - was saw that they turned away 3 groups of people that could have easily have had our table if we had been allowed to cancel it that morning free of charge. When we finished eating we got the bill which came to €100 (before a tip). After paying the bill my husband asked to speak with a manager about the fact we had to attend so as to avoid a €125 cancellation charge. Initially the manager was horrified at this - said it should not have happened and that only "no shows" are charged and not cancellations. He investigated the matter further while we were there and came back to us to say that the person who had spoken to us was based "upstairs" ? - presumably in The Westbury? - and in future if we needed to contact Balfes that we should ring a different number, which he tried to give my husband (we had phoned the number off the email they sent us by the way). And basically that was their solution to our complaint. It's safe to say that Balfes has gone to the dogs and we will never attend again. Such a pity as it used to be a wonderful restaurant with amazing staff, customer service and food. Not the...

What a beautiful place! I came here for my Valentine’s Day date this year and had a tremendous time.

In terms of food, I had the muscles for starter and the steak 6oz for main. By desert we were just too full to have any. Very gorgeous meals, prepared well! For sides we wanted to try the roast potatoes and the roasted carrots and they were the most disappointing for me, especially considering they range from 6-7 euro each.

The cocktails in this place are magnificent. The bartender really seems to know what he’s doing! I recommend the be you teaufiul. I think I will go back to Balfes on the reg just to have that gorgeous cocktail.

My boyfriend tried to get the old winter cocktail and the waiter responded that they had taken it off their menu. However, our menu still had it there. A little disappointing but nit-picky of me to make a deal of it!

The staff were excellent. No judgement and the same respect given to us regarding our age (23-25) as a lot of nice places tend to dismiss us because of that reason. I felt very special that night, our waiter was amazing, and so lovely. Not too in our face, very much left us to our own devices when we had our meal. Queen!

I think this place deserves to charge what they charge for a dinner, however not for the sides. I suppose their beer is just ordinary beer but for a heightened price but I assume that people pay 7.5 euro for a hophouse because it’s a fancy restaurant. That’s none of my business.

I give this place 4 stars because I can’t quite give it a 5 as I was not blown away but considering how special I felt after this meal, and how amazing the services was, I would leave it 4.5 if that was possible on...

My initial impressions and expectations of Balfes was that it was a lovely, relaxing spot for some weekend brunch or lunch inside or out. Although my friend and I did not have a booking, we were kindly greeted by the caring, under pressure staff. We were sat at an outside table which was lovely and were asked for drinks upon initially sitting down, which to be fair, arrived hastily. To reiterate, the staff were more than helpful and courteous in relation to ordering food and drink. Following our order was an hour wait for two burgers which were overcooked (Medium was not an option which is fair enough if restaurants are not permitted to sell medium cooked beef) although my burger was burned around the edges and had no flavour whatsoever due to it being overcooked. More than one other table were complaining about the wait and I heard another table saying that they were waiting '40 minutes' for two burgers also. I will not return to this restaurant as the staff were scrambling around the restaurant due to a plethora of complaints from customers and when asked why the burgers were taking so long, the response I got was that there were 'two big tables inside'. Only 6 people are allowed at a table, so is 6 considered 'big'? Working in a restaurant myself, I don't think so, well not big enough to have a number of other customers waiting 40 minutes+ for a burger and chips, the kebab shop around the corner would have them done in 4 minutes, not...