Restaurant Chalet Suisse — Restaurant in Lausanne

I had a sad experience today at the Chalet Suisse. It used to be one of my favorites when friends want to have a Swiss food experience. But I hadn’t been there for about 2 years and unfortunately there was a notable decline in many respects. I don’t normally do negative reviews unless I consider it worse in the hope that management will improve the issues and that I can return one day and find satisfaction as in the past.

Positive: reservation process was very kind. We were running late by 1 hour and when i informed them they were very forthcoming and flexible the location and the terrace are very beautiful

Negative: we arrived at 14h and order took some time and we received drinks after 20 min only (and water was missing but thats a minor issue and was corrected immediately upon asking)

we ordered fondue (moitié/moitié), a sliced veal a la Zurichoise and a soup and cheese slice. Food arrived after 45 min although there were less then 10 tables occupied and most tables had already finished the lunch (remark that the service was much faster in the past even when the whole place was packed)

the fondue was ok but nothing more (again I remember it to be delicious in the past)

the worst part were the potatoes. They were rewarmed, dry inside and outside (skin already shrimpeled from dryness) and had a bad taste of rewarmed. I am cœliaque and cannot eat the fondue with bread. Upon complaining i was informed that they prepare all potatoes for the day at 10am and then just warm them up the rest of the day to save time for the customers to be served. They also told me that I am the first person to complain. I have reasonable doubt on this point. I got no excuse other then being told that they are sorry that I feel like this because nobody ever complained. the sliced veal was also sub-standard. Meat was dry and not in the sauce. Looked like warmed up too. And this is a dish I really know since I am from Zurich originally and love this dish the girl serving looked very exhausted and she tried to di a nice job but it was obvious that she was overloaded. There were only 2-3 servers for this huge place so she is not to blame.

Recommendations: staff up in the kitchen and the service to ensure an efficient serving time and quality food. And to allow staff not to be so stressed (because as a customer it feels very uncomfortable when server is so stressed and cannot make the guests feel welcome) inform customers of the warmed up potatoes and give them the choice to have freshly cooked potatoes (having said that we waited 45 min so the excuse to avoid long service with warmed up potatoes isn’t really justified) check on the product quality because there is a serious decline over the last 2 years

I gave nevertheless a fair 3 stars in the hope that management takes this review serious and to return one day and see noticeable improvements. Its such a magic location and the...

I went with my friends. We were 6 people in total and apparently staff at the restaurant have trouble with that. After we were seated, we ordered drinks. A friend and I were scammed. We asked for small beers and were served and charged the price of the big ones (we noticed when we payed). After that, we ordered the food. We ordered a fondue and what offered to be "ilimited raclette". After 1 hour and 45 minutes of not being served (not exaggerating), the waiter had the decency to come to our table and tell us the food was taking longer than expected (no sht!). He promised food would no take longer than 15 minutos more. He offered to bring some free raclette. As I mentioned, we were 6 and he only took 2 servings. We had to stay since some of us were taking a train back to Geneva that afternoon to take a flight, and going to a different restaurant would take longer. 25 minutes after this, food was not in our table. We started to try to draw attention from our waiter. He MULTIPLE TIMES LOOK AT OUR TABLES AND IGNORED US. He just went back downstairs. We decided to stand up and look for him downstairs. When we found him, we had to explain the whole train and plane situation. I must clarify that our native language is not french or english (we were communicating in english with them). At some point, we forgot how to say plane and instead acted it out (it was imperative for him to understand what was going on). A waitress (who had NOTHING to do with our service) walked by, started laughing and in the most condescending tone said "that is called a plane". At the end, we had to wait around 2:30 hours to get our food. Remember when I said "unlimited raclette"? Well, their definition of unlimited consists on serving ONE serving of raclette at a time (between 3-4 bites). Once you finish it, you have to pray to whichever god you believe in for a waiter to show so you can ask for another serving. A TOTAL SCAM. After we finished, we asked for the bill. Surprisingly, they brought that right away. That is when we realized we were served a more expensive beer than what we asked for. In summary, worst restaurant i have been to in Switzerland. If tipping was common in Switzerland, I would have left NONE. Horrible staff, horrible service. Food is not bad, but not...

At first glance, I thought it was cozy with warm atmosphere when we entered the restaurant. So much hopes for this meal. But then, when they led us to the back room everything changed, from a 9/10 to 6/10. I mean, I know we didn't have a reservation on a Sunday night, and it was a full house, but this backroom they showed us our table, was dimmed and shabby compared to the main dining hall, also a bit cold on a rainy night. On top of that, after the poker-faced waiter who served our table, it turned into a 5/10... I would give the credit that their fondue was pretty decent, good taste, but honestly the whole experience was bad. I mean, I keep hearing good things about this place, and it was my first time eating there, it really turned out to be a huge disappointment. Maybe on a different day, with different weather, a different waiter, we could...