Café des Délices (Café Sidi Chabaane) — Restaurant in Tunis

Café des Délices (Café Sidi Chabaane) is not an honest business and should be called out. The staff are rushed to seat you, rushed to serve you, a lot of shouting over tables by the servers, and when you are looking to order… the strange experience begins. Our server saw we took pictures of the menu that was mounted on the wall. When we were pointing to items on the menu, the server repeated many times “no, not available”. I looked at the server and directly spoke to him in Arabic asking him what exactly is available, and he said “only juice”. I looked around the cafe and people had food, a variety of beverages, and shisha. I asked again because I was very confused… again he repeated “only juice” and he mentioned the flavours. We decided to only order a lemon juice and a strawberry juice. However, this is when I sensed SOMETHING SMELLS FOUL about Café Sidi Chabaane.

When we decided to leave, I approached the server and requested my bill, and he said “38 dinars”. I repeated back to him what he told me earlier… that only juice was available and the juice price is 12 dinars each, also mention in the menu mounted in clear sight on the wall for everyone to see. The server replied back saying he gave us milkshakes. I corrected him, reminded him that he even said there was NO milkshakes available, that I’m pretty sure what we had was juice, not milkshakes. The sever started to raise his voice is Arabic swearing by God almighty he’s not a liar, that this is the price for what we ordered. I handed the server 40 dinars, walked out in complete confusion and dissatisfaction. I feel like I was completely taken advantage of because I was not on a date, not anyone appearing to be wealthy, and we were just two friends travelling which I sensed didn’t fit the image of the cafe.

Note that the cafe was packed with predominantly pretentious French speaking European travellers. As well as local and travelling arabs who very frivolously spending on whatever, and clearly removed from fellow Arabs suffering across Tunis, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon. A very sad sight to see this side of the coin here at Café Sidi Chabaane.

The cafe was not on our place of interest because much of this old Madina of Sidi Bou Said is built up as a tourist trap for overly priced restaurants, and other food options that you can find at the bottom of the hill for half the price. Plus dozens and dozens of souvenir shops all of which about 75% of the shops are selling pretty much all the same items, marked up at least 100%.

Such a horrible experience. There are SEVERAL look out views of Sidi Bou Said just about everywhere in the old town, as well as by the Menara Hotel. Earlier today we were in the neighbouring city La Mersa where we had shisa, 2 mint teas, a large bottle of water, 1 soda… all for 17 dinars at an adorable little cafe facing the grand mosque. AGAIN, stay away from Café Sidi Chabaane… they are not honest, and something about their...

I wish I can rate this Cafe 5- stars so bad with hospitality and with customers they want to catch you with any mistake and won't explain nothing I went there with my family and wife's family to have some tea .am not from tunis but I had a few experiences when it comes to tea mostly places in tunis surve tea with nuts and they put them inside and I don't like nuts In the tea so I asked the server plz don't put the nuts inside my tea leave out he said okay. We order 9 tea with 2 water, and then the server comes back with snacks. Arabic biscuits. He said, "Would u like some I said sure. Some placese would give a few snacks for hospitality. They gave us 1 in front of us and sneeked 2 under us, so it's 3 total when I went to pay the guy start bring out the menu to show me.the price normally they should just give u the bill but he wanted to show me the prices I felt a scam was coming my way so I was like what's going on ? He started telling me the tea was 7 dinar each total of 63 dinar and then he charged me for the nuts 12 dinar each 9 total of 108 dinar and the 3 pastries was 20 each total 60 dinar and 1 shisha for 30 dinar total of 261 dinar what a rip off I told them hows the tea he said with nuts I wanted the nuts out of my tea and they charged me 12 dinar per nut after arguing with the manager we paid 120 dinar .as we wore walking out of the caffe, one of the servents started attacking my .mother insulting her, calling us cheap and to get out and started insulting us in tunisa language and as we talked back, they wanted to attack us, and pushed my lil sister she is 14 years old on the side cause she was recording them insulting us they are in educated I use to like this place wasn't my 1st time there but I never been treated this way how they wanted to trick us cause we weren't tunisan I wouldn't recommend this place to anyone not even my worst enemy. We need to boycott this caffe so they will learn how to treat their customers. In an honest matter with respect I am a pilot for airbus 330 work for the airlines not cheap but don't like being taken advantage of me if he was clear from the Start we wouldn't had this problem and I wouldn't be typing this to you all but the truth has to come out I know most caffes and restaurants are not like these mafia people again I wouldn't recommend this to anyone .they are thieves...

Double Standards and Deceptive Service at Café des Délices -

We were at the café, the three of us—my wife, my sister, and I. We wanted a table with a sea view, but the waiter told us that those tables were reserved for groups of at least five people. We accepted that and moved on, and the waiter then blocked the table with a bench.

Two minutes later, three women (two Spaniards and one Tunisian) dressed in white—very Instagrammable—sat at the same table we were told we couldn’t have. I approached the same waiter, and he told me that they had changed the service. Incredible—just in two minutes, like magic!

You can probably understand my frustration. I wanted to get up and leave, but I decided to stay for the sake of my family and avoid any conflict, especially since we had driven an hour to get there.

We were lucky, though, as a group next to us left, and we quickly took the opportunity to sit at the sea-view table. The waiter didn’t comment at first.

After an hour, we were leaving when another couple of two persons tried to take our table. The same waiter rushed over and explained the “rule” again—minimum of five people, blah blah.

Feeling empathetic and experienced, I approached the waiter and told him that this was absurd. His response: “This is none of your business, and we have changed the service.” Again, magically, they changed the service. It was the same waiter since our arrival. He must be mentally switching services depending on the customer.

In short, the treatment was terrible. The value for money was terrible.

The name sells well because of the location and history. My review won’t stop people from coming, nor is it my goal. I just want better service. But who am I to demand that? If you don’t want to work, you won’t achieve anything. Time reveals the...