Der Elefant — Restaurant in Warsaw

Update:

Following my last (unflattering) review the management invited me to give them another try. They claimed that the service I'd received on my previous visit was not typical of their usual high standard.

I accepted. I must admit that on this occasion the service was exceptional. And that's before the wait staff even knew that I had been invited back.

All three of us opted for the lunch menu. The presentation of our dishes was excellent. The portions were a little small and the minute steak was a bit tough but everything was very tasty.

Next time will revert to the fish and seafood. As always, it lookedal fresh and there was plenty of variety.

Many thanks to all the staff, in particular Karolina and Oliwier, for a great lunch.

We'll be back!

Never again. I'd eaten here on a few previous occasions and the food was always quite good. This most recent occasion was no exception.

I was seated promptly and presented with their "business lunch" menu. It looked quite good on paper, and on the plates that were being brought out. Most people appeared to be ordering variants of the three course, multi choice offering.

I informed my waiter that I was waiting for a friend and requested a beer while I waited. Three further requests and some 25 minutes later my beer arrived. It was not exceptionally busy with plenty of wait staff milling around.

My friend arrived a few minutes later. As soon as he sat down our waiter arrived in a flash - like he should have done with my beer - to whisk away the business lunch menu. "No longer available" was his terse comment as he presented the al la carte menus.

Most lunchtime specials are only available until a specified time. But a decent waiter would have informed me about the cut-off time. I could have easily ordered for my friend and myself. But this simple courtesy was not one of our waiter's talents.

My friend and I moved to market section of the restaurant to order some fresh fish. The air con was blowing a gale. I requested (our new waitress) to have it turned down. Three times. Each time she said it would be done. It remained turned up to howling gale level for the duration of our stay. It could not have been for the convenience of other diners. We were the only two in that section.

The fish we ordered was fresh and tasty. The salad was ok. The chips were tasteless. But by the time it came to eating, I'd lost my appetite. I was fed up with the service.

There are dozens of other establishments that serve seafood of a similar standard. Most have far more...

I'm on a one-month tour of Europe and this was the most average meal I've had but one of the highest in price I paid. I went on a recommendation of a hotel concierge. Be careful when ordering a steak as the menu doesn't really show that well that your pay by the weight. What looks like it would be a very inexpensive steak and it's up to be five times the amount you're expecting to pay. If you don't have reservations they invite you to sit out in the courtyard or at the sister restaurant next door which is a seafood place (where you can order off of the main menu as well). Despite it being a stormy night, I selected to sit outside in the courtyard. Everything was fine in terms of seating until I noticed water from the tarp over the seat was tripping on to my creamed spinach. On the waiters recommendation, I ordered the tuna appetizer, the French onion soup, the T-bone steak along with potatoes and creamed spinach. To drink I started out with a specialty sour cocktail and then had a glass of the Cabernet which was also suggested by the waiter. The food overall was just average. Nothing to write home about. The tuna was way over cooked, it actually flight 22 hit it with the fork, which is not a good sign for medium rare tuna. The tuna was followed by a large crock of french onion soup. The stock of the soup was difficult to ascertain as there was no real flavor to it. I prefer my french onion soup to have a strong broth that compliments the onion rather than just being all onion. About ten spoons into the soup, I was told the steak would be served now, and it was. The steak was ordered medium rare but came out medium to medium-well. Sometimes when you eat alone, they try to rush you and I felt that here. To make matters worse, at the end of the meal the machine would not accept my American Express which I've been using non-stop on the trip and was nowhere near my limit. I called American Express afterwards and they said there was no problem with the card. The restaurant should have called American Express to verify it which is the right thing to do. Fortunately I had cash with me so I just paid that way. Average meal. Average service. Bad experience. 2.5...

In April, we had a truly disappointing experience at your restaurant. We were denied access to the first floor, where our 4-year-old daughter could have played while we dined. Instead, we had to keep her with us at the ground level while eating, or being with her while the food grew cold. The reason given was that they needed to clean the floor and had no staff to serve us. Yet, to our disbelief, there were other customers already seated upstairs. We were told that they had scheduled in advance, which apparently granted them access to the very floor we were barred from. This decision was made on the spot, leaving us feeling incredibly frustrated and unwelcome.

One of the main reasons we chose this restaurant was because of the playground, which we knew would keep our daughter entertained. But there was no prior warning, no notice on social media or elsewhere, that the first floor would be closed to new customers. How could we have known that making a reservation would have allowed us to use the space? To make matters worse, we were told that the other customers would leave by 18h, but they didn’t. We arrived around 16h20, so we would have enough time to lunch, while our daughter played before 18h. The manager suggested that our daughter could play upstairs alone while we ate downstairs. When I asked if he was a father, his response that he was not was a stark reminder of how out of touch this suggestion was. Our daughter, like most young children, would never feel comfortable playing out of our sight. The manager said he would offer dessert, which we don't eat. No other option was offered. Cold burger was awful, full of little hard meat. Finally, we went out and paid the full bill.

This whole experience left us feeling hurt and disregarded, especially in regards to our daughter’s needs. The decision to close the first floor without notice was a mistake, and the insensitivity with which our concerns were handled ensured that we will not...