Cassia Restaurant — Restaurant in Bellville

TERRIBLE Service/ Disturbing Incident On Saturday 24 February 2018 my friend and I went for Breakfast at Nitida Wine Farm ( Cassia). Upon arrival we were impressed with the beautiful scenery, little did we know that we were in for the most terrible experience being two young woman expecting a fun morning out. It started when our waiter got our order wrong, we did not make a big deal about this and told him not to worry about it. We sat there eating and chatting for about 45mins not once did our waiter check on us. I got up myself to fetch Sauce at the front area, while he stood there chatting with colleagues. We finished our food and eventually I had to call him to clear our table and also then asked him to bring the Wine list. 40mins passed no Wine List, once again ignoring us. Furthermore, my friend and I were then approached by a strange man who very uncomfortably leaned across our table to speak to us. We politely addressed him and I asked him to stand further back from our table. He then left our table but continued to stare at us, and kept speaking to another couple in the restaurant, while staring at us. When I asked the waiter when he eventually came to our table to serve us who this man is, he informed me that he thought this man was with us, because he told the waiter that he was! I then asked to speak to the Manager, because at this stage we were worried because he continued to stare at us and then went outside to a car with this couple he was chatting to and continued to stare into the Restaurant at us. He then came over to us AGAIN ( inside the Restaurant) to tell us later that we mustn’t sleep around and we must have a good day. Upon inquiring with our waiter as to where the Manager is (40 minutes later) he told us that he told the Manager about our incident, to which the response was…and I kid you not on this…that there is nothing that he can do because as their sign says right of admission is reserved!!! I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry! I normally do not post this kind of thing, but I found the whole situation unsettling. Firstly because my friend and I were made to feel unsafe in this establishment early on a Saturday morning, so much so that we felt scared to leave the building in case these people were laying in wait for us outside to do goodness knows what. But even more so that we were provided with terrible service, and when we tried to address this situation with the management of this establishment, we were met with a blasé attitude, and the waiting staff had the audacity to laugh at us about it. They even gave us a note that he had written to us and laughed as if this type of behavior is acceptable, and as if we were overreacting. Please forward this message to everyone that you know. If you are two women alone at Nitida wine estate (on a Saturday morning no less), you are not safe. You will be made to feel uncomfortable and literally scared by people who are not even paying customers of their establishment, and the staff will laugh in your face when you raise it as being a problem. They will even encourage it and pass you notes from the person harrassing you. All in all a terrible experience, and I will make it my personal mission to give them the bad publicity they deserve. My friend and I went just further down the road directly after to try and shake this experience, and we were met with completely the opposite experience. Now that was great service! Night and day in comparison, and in all honesty I truly hope that Nitida doesn’t see another dawn with staff and service as it...

After reading good reviews online about Cassia, while in the Durbanville area on a Saturday after going to the market at Willowbridge my boyfriend, mother-in-law and I decided to give it try.

We arrived there and the restaurant was rather empty for a Saturday, but we didn't mind. We though "the less people the better and faster the service." After taking a few photos of the beautiful scenery we sat down to order our drinks and take a look at the menu.

We asked our waiter a few questions because the menu wasn't very clear and he seemed rather confused and wasn't able to answer our questions properly. We're not sure if he's new and doesn't know the menu or if he just didn't want to spend extra time at our table explaining to us.

I ordered the Chalmar beef onglet served with Café de Paris butter and pomme allumettes. I asked for medium beef but he said it was chefs choice which I was fine with. Only problem is when my three pieces of Chalmar beef onglet came, all three pieces were a different doneness! The Café de Paris butter which I'd asked the waiter before what it was to which he replied "a herb butter" was dreadful. It was so gross that it ruined the flavour of the beef. I thought I was just being picky, but when my boyfriend tried it he also thought something was very strange with it. Possibly the butter was off, I'm not sure. My pomme allumettes or matchstick chips as we call them in English were delicious.

My boyfriend ordered the Tournedos of beef fillet with polenta, garlic butter sautéed porcini, bone marrow and rosemary jus. It was two small pieces of fillet which they'd overcooked. He had asked for it to be done medium and it was well done. The bone marrow was a big bone with what must have been half a teaspoon of marrow. This is not the type of meal, quality and quantity that I'd expect when paying R185.

My mother-in-law ordered Wagyu burger served with avocado mousse, brie, salad and homemade chips. Her choice turned out to be the best but the burger was so small that it seemed like there should be two or three on the plate, not one tiny burger. If a man were to order that he'd have to order another one because it's definitely not a main meal size.

After a horrible meal which we were still hungry, we ignorantly decided to try a dessert to see if maybe Cassia could possibly redeem themselves. I ordered the Chocolate Fondant served with almond ice cream to share with my boyfriend. The fondant was alright but tasted too floury or something that I just couldn't put my finger on. Also the almond ice cream was not "almond ice cream" it was vanilla ice cream with amaretto in it. Why not call it amaretto ice cream then? The ice cream wasn't smooth, it had little pieces of ice in it.

The menu was just so pretentious with all of it's French words, I don't know why they'd do that. Focus on making good quality food with decent portion sizes instead of trying to sound like you're the king of French cuisine.

Very VERY disappointing. I will not be...

We had breakfast celebrating my Mother in laws 64th birthday. When we originally booked, we were told that the table was secured for 12.30 lunch and that we would need to conclude our breakfast by 12h30... We were very comfortable with this arrangement. What was a truly wonderful experience on all counts, food, venue, ambience and service was great until 11h45 when we ordered an extra bottle of MCC and the manageress on duty came to the table to remind us that we could have the bottle of MCC on condition we stuck to vacating the table timeously. We all found this rude and completely out of order. We had 45 mins to finish a bottle of MCC amongst 8 people. Surely this was enough time and as fully consenting adults, we really didn't need the clockwatch, afterall, we order a bottle of MCC and not the time. We never needed a reminder that we had to leave. It made all of us feel terribly unwelcome and ruined our entire experience. Our waitress also felt uncomfortable and apologised sincerely for the behaviour of her manageress and that in itself is all wrong for obvious reasons. It clearly made us feel as if the group coming in at 12h30 was way more important than what we were or maybe their money was worth a fraction more. She then came back to the table at 12.15 and said that she was now going to start clearing the table at which stage we had had enough of her attitude and challenged her on her blatant rudeness. We couldn't understand what motivated her behaviour towards us other than her potentially being a racist as we were a table of mixed race people. She then retorted, oh, so you had to play the race card! What audacity when no other logical explanation existed. Personally, I have never ever played the race card as in all my time, all 52 years of living in this country, even during those rough apartheid years, I have never felt the need to accuse anyone of being racist towards me until today. She also got into a full blown argument infront of all the other clients in the restaurant with my wife when confronted about her attitude towards us. In the hospitality industry, this is suicide as you simply cannot afford to be rude during these competitive times regardless of your reputation. You're only as good as your last satisfied client. We also realise that she was an individual and did not necessarily represent the values of this beautiful restaurant that receives consistent 4 and 5 star ratings. If it wasn't for the owner who came to apologise and was really a super gentleman, more would have been made of this incident. This kind of service/treatment will not and must not be tolerated by us South Africans any longer and it will be stamped out and banished where ever it rears its ugly head. This said, we will return to this magnificent place and refuse to be deterred by one miserable person who seems to have her own agenda in a country that has moved on from this antiquated behaviour...