La Cuptor Restaurant — Restaurant in Sibiu

A bad experience

In all my years of dining, this is my 1st one star rating. But based on our recent experience at La Cuptor Sibiu - even this rating is being generous. Any restaurant where service staff feel they are entitled to belittle or insult a customer simply needs to address their priorities & question why they are in the hospitality industry.

Our group of 9 waited over 90 minutes with nothing served whilst we noticed other tables that arrived after us were served their meals. As we were hungry we approached the service staff but were simply ignored. No apology, no explanation. When we could not find any service staff to help us, a member of our party opened the service door where one of the indifferent waiters who had earlier ignored us shouted for him to “get out”. When this waiter was queried if we would be getting our food he very rudely replied “we are not a fast food restaurant & if you want fast food, leave & go around the corner to Super Mama”. Instead of receiving an apology for the slow delivery (bear in mind 90 minutes had passed since we arrived & ordered), this surly attitude was a shock. When asked for an apology for this rude response - the waiter replied “apology for what?” in a defiant & challenging manner. The other 2 waiters then appeared but simply shrugged their shoulders & no one offered any explanation or apology. We asked if this was how they treated their customers but no response or effort to calm the situation down was made.

This direct rude confrontational behavior not only spoilt the mood but was too much for our group (of holiday makers in Romania from various parts of the world).& we decided to leave. We asked for the bill for our drinks ordered but instead all the staff disappeared into the kitchen. After a few minutes of inaction - we walked out & had a fabulous meal at a restaurant down the road. The owners of La Cuptor need to conduct proper training for their front line staff - it is not OK to be rude or condescending to customers. The overall attitude of all their service staff were indifferent & reluctant from the moment we arrived at the restaurant & one can’t help but feel as foreign visitors that we were simply not welcome.

Further to owners reply below : we asked for the bill & waited. Your staff disappeared into the kitchen & no one presented the bill. We were hungry & decided to move on to a better restaurant where we were treated as welcome guests. An intervention would have been simple & that is the correct response from your rude waiter : An apology & a good friendly attitude was all it would take. We are happy to pay for what we consumed : a bottle of pinot noir, 2 bottles still water, 2 bottles sparkling water, 2 beers & 1 chamomile tea. This does not add up to 809 lei but send us the invoice & we will pay for what we consumed. Your reservation staff knows which hotel we stay. I would say the disappointment lies with us as visitors to your country. If this is how your staff treat visitors & you support them - to say we are greatly disappointed is an understatement! In all our experiences in Romania to date - we have been treated warmly & sincerely made to feel like welcome guests except at your establishment. Waiting for 90 minutes for food while being ignored is not normal. Amongst our group are people who own & run restaurants & hotels so we know what we are...

I had dinner with my wife at La Cuptor in Sibiu today, and unfortunately, it was a disappointing experience. The service and food quality were below par.

Service: The service was mediocre at best. Our server, Alina, seemed more preoccupied with preparing empty tables than attending to us. We waited 20 minutes before placing our first order and were left without even a drink during this time.

Food: Appetizers: The bone marrow was decent, but the "Bruscheta Gigant" was lackluster and far from what you'd expect in terms of taste and presentation. Main Courses: I ordered the "Steak piept pui întreg," which turned out to be chicken breasts—not steaks. One breast was so overcooked it was nearly inedible; I had to tear it apart with my hands because even the knife couldn’t cut through it. It was dry and needed constant hydration to swallow. The second piece was slightly better but unevenly cooked, together - looking like these two chickens where leftovers from another plate and re-heated. The vegetables were passable but nothing special. My wife had the "Midii Exotic," which was a disaster. The mussels were horribly overcooked, resembling rubber both in taste and texture. Feedback Ignored: When we gave feedback, explaining that the food was inedible (I returned the chicken, and 3/4 of the mussels were left untouched), the restaurant still charged us the muscles. This felt both audacious and dismissive of the customer experience. If a dish is sent back nearly untouched, it's a clear sign something is wrong.

Final Thoughts: Needless to say - we left the restaurant still hungry - however 250 lei less in our pockets for basically nothing. This restaurant is a "no-go" for me. La Cuptor does not live up to its reputation. To add to the disappointment, I even left a tip—not because the experience deserved it, but out of pity for the staff. However, the overall experience was unacceptable and felt like a rip-off.

I strongly advise against dining here unless significant...

La Cuptor is one of those restaurants that makes you wonder what and where have been eaten before, all those thowsands of customers that rate with maximum score a place that does not succeed to be even mediocre… And as it is not enough that they highly over-rated it, some of them consider the totally uninspired mix of flavours, textures and platting of the dishes to be fine-dining. :)))

We had three of their dishes: the langos, the fois gras soup and the mangalita cutlet. Each of them were a disapointment.

The langos was very oily and salty, with a too intense mustard sauce.

The fois gras soup was actually a vegetables soup with a lot of onion, carrots and apio. Indeed there were 4-5 tiny cubes of fois gras probabbly added to be abble to name the soup in a fancy way. Since they brought it to us we had to wait more than 15 minutes for it to cool down. This was because of the soft dough cap they mention which is cooked in the oven together with the soup. Great idea chef, congrats…!

In the end was the mangalita cutlet. The problem with this one was that the meat did not seem to be from mangalita, but from ordinary pork meat. I know how mangalita meat should look and taste and this one had nothing to do with it.

It took them 2.5 hours to bring us these three dishes, even if there were only four couples in the entire restaurant, out of which two had arrived in the last half of hour before we left.

So all in all, a very disappointing experience, offered by this so called restaurant which is very much focused on marketing and packing, and too less on content and customer.

Message for the owner: This review is not for you but for the people who think to visit your place, so you do not need to provide an answer to it. I saw what you had answered to other not so good reviews, and you do not seem to understand, or care about the feedback from the customers. Of course, if you cannot restrain, feel free to answer, I could not care...