Berceau des Sens — Restaurant in Lausanne

Much as I like to encourage education, after last night's dinner at Le Berceau des Sens, I would only recommend it if your child was a student there. First, once we got to the EHL building, there was very little signage for the restaurant was very difficult to find until someone took pity on us and guided us there. (Hint: it's on the 3rd floor, good luck finding the right elevator.) Once there, it was hugely disappointing, especially given the Michelin and Gault Millau accolades. Nice and eager to do the correct thing as the students were, the service was just terrible, and the apprentice staff were clearly very poorly managed. Once seated, it took at least 20 minutes to get a menu; the sommelière-in-training kept forgetting which wine we ordered. Our entrees arrived nearly an hour after we sat down. On finding that a server had given us the wrong tableware for the dishes, they whisked it away and we could see several conferring for 10 minutes to figure out which we were to have. After the entree, the main dishes took another 45 minutes, despite our asking several students and finally the man who seemed to be the manager what the problem was. No one spontaneously checked in with us about the long delays. There was a constant crowd of servers walking to and fro, but with little productivity to show for it.

The food, once it came, was visually appealing, but the flavor mediocre. (I've never seen dry foie gras before, I don't even know how that's possible.)

It really seemed as though no one had bothered with practice sessions for these young people before throwing them into the dining room. It looked as though they were learning on the spot. Not only did we end up feeling we were the lab rats, but had to pay a lot for the experience. I'm really sorry to dump in the students, I think the blame goes to the teachers/managers. It was quite a waste of...

Unique experience. Try it!

This is hotel school with a 1* Michelin inside.

Place. It is an incredible facility with a lovely restaurant inside. Cozy and familiar with nice music and gray ambiance

Service - is done mainly by students and obviously you can't expect the consistency of long term staff. There were several mistakes that they overcame with kindness and a great attitude. It was fine.

Food: They prepared some monkfish and potatoes for the kid. And we got a 4 course menu, they started with some polenta and lobster and spoons of veal carpaccio I think. Firsts highlights were the tuna poke roll and the foie. The mains were many as we were a large group but highlights were the langostinos, monkfish with calamari spaghetti and duck.

Desserts also quite good with very distinct flavours. They closed with some homemade chocolates and pattiserie.

Overall we enjoyed a lot, there is a great ambience result of a mix of student excitement and teachers know how. We will...

Great fine dining experience, while at the same time very human as most waiters are students. The food was delicious, we enjoyed our 4-course menu. The cheese platter was great as it allowed you to discover previously unknown cheeses (and the Roquefort was a highlight, apparently from the last artisanal manufacturer that’s standing the test of time).

Only negatives were that aperitif champagne glasses were proposed without being told the price, and then turned out to be 26 CHF each, a bit steep when not informed upfront. Also, a bill error was made by adding drinks we didn’t have (and other billing issues happened to my brother when he went as well — so make sure to double check it).

Overall great, would recommend to try...