Ristorante Bar Bricole — Restaurant in Valtournenche

You must read bad reviews too The restaurant has very good food reviews, so I was really looking forward to having a dinner here as we missed the opportunity 2 years ago. However the service was terrible, I must say. The restaurant should not take table bookings that you can't handle. I went at 19:00 by mistake, even though I had a reservation for 19:30. There were still only two families on the upper floor. I came back at 19:30. The tables were about 70% occupied, and the customers who were there when I visited earlier had not yet ordered (they were all waiting to order because the menu was closed). I had a bad feeling.

We were told to go a table downstairs; there was a group of about 15 people there. We were given only a wine list when seated. We could luckily order drinks immediately. But it took a while until we were given the food menu although there was a waiter wandered around doing nothing. Finally the food menu came and at that point we were told to get ready to order within 5 mins. I waited for an hour and he never came back to our table. I asked the waiter who was doing nothing to get the waiter who said he would take our order. That waiter disappeared upstairs, but came back and said nothing to us. We again asked for another waiter to take our order, but he would not take it, saying that his colleague would do it. A group of 7 people who came after us ordered drinks and did not get the food menu straight after, so they asked a menu, then the waiter snatched the menu from me although I had not had ordered yet. It was very rude. (They have a plenty of menus outside the dining room)

While we were thinking about whether we should leave or not, the waiter who said he would be back in 5 minutes came downstairs (FINALLY!) to bring the food for the big group customer. He looked at us and tapped his forehead as if “Oh my God, I forgot!”. But he didn't say anything and went back upstairs to get the food. He repeated this several times and completely ignored us, so we called out to him. I said, “We've been waiting for an hour already." He replied, “You don't understand! The upper floor is full, and the lower floor is full.” He was extremely rude. So I said "We have small children and we can't wait any longer. I'll just pay for the drinks and go home.". This rude waiter said “ok, ok, I'll take your order now.". Although we were try to leave, he kept asking me for my order. Finally, he gave up and told us we did not have to pay for the drinks. When we walked out of the restaurant, I heard a voice from behind saying “Good-bye”. If you have time to follow us and say good-bye, you could have...

Disappointing. We first visited Le Bricole in 2021 and like it so much that we went twice in one week. For our latest visit (Jan 2024) we booked ahead and were quite excited to visit again. Things have gone downhill. Some (not all) of the servers were ill mannered, unfriendly and unhelpful- not just to us but to other visitors.

The menu had very little on it for vegetarians. I know this is largely a steak place, but it would be good to be able to bring friends who are not meat eaters. The steak was good, the salmon was dry, over cooked and tasteless. My daughter (our vegetarian) had finally gone with potatoes and cheese as her only viable option, but it came served with salami on the side.

Maybe small things, but this place is charging high prices. And then to cap it all, you may know that this places is in the middle of nowhere really… the staff said that they weren’t able to call a taxi to take us back to town because they didn’t know any numbers for taxi companies. My Italian wasn’t up to making a taxi booking for a roadside pick up, so we went to a nearby hotel and asked for help

Altogether a disappointing evening for us from a food and from a ambience perspective. Don’t bother, there are many better restaurants in town. ( If you are really a big steak lover and are prepared for poor service, it may be...

Our family of five arrived delighted with the atmosphere (lots of character and charm!) and anticipating a delightful dinner. We left with indigestion and indignation. Our server told us that his restaurant had a small kitchen and that he would appreciate it if we didn't order all different entrees. We obliged. Our children were not terribly hungry, so we ordered the fondue, the Bricole pasta and a polenta dish, along with a salad. The waiter told us that was not enough food and that we had to order more. We told him that we intended to share everything and that we didn't want to order more. He left the table to speak with his co-worker, and returned, telling us that we needed to order more. So we ordered two of the pasta dishes and two of the polenta dishes (remember, we were not allowed to order too many different dishes). I also asked for more sparkling water, because the initial bottle was by now empty - he told me to tell his co-worker, because he doesn't deal with the water. The two extra entrees that we were forced to order sat untouched on the table. Yes, we paid for them. And now we are back at our hotel, angry at ourselves for being bullied into ordering too much food that was over-sauced, over-cheesed, and overall...