Fondouk El Attarine — Restaurant in Tunis

My first dinner in Tunisia, thought of getting a good iftar menu from this well recommended restaurant. The food was not too bad, but the attitude of the servers and the staff was horrible. No proper cutlery provided. The fish soup was served, even before I could settle down. And it was very cold. Not sure if that is how it should be? Halfway through the soup and starters (well, have to agree that there were quite a few of them, which was interesting), the staff decided to dump the main course on the side of the table. So there it stood getting cold while I ate through my soup and starters. The staff was pretty quick in snatching a plate from the table as soon as it looks almost empty. But no, they were not interested at all in arranging the table or giving me the right cutlery to eat my main course. So after staring at my main dish for quite some time, I had to finally ask one of the staff ( who were all zooming around the place) to get me something to eat with. And then the dessert. A cup of something (no one explained what it was, just dumped on the table by someone passing behind me, but tasted decent) and a basket of nice dates, decent oranges and very sour strawberries. But again no side plates to put the seed of the dates or the skin of the oranges! Honestly, if I could possibly rate the service with negative rating, that's what this deserved. The ambience of the place was quite nice with really good traditional live music being performed and the place being very nicely lit and decorated. For an iftar set menu meal costing 140TND, I would have expected a bit better service. I mean, the host obviously understood that I was a foreigner (we spoke English and when he came to ask for my main choice, I told him that I have no idea of the food names he was saying), yet never bothered to try and explain the things which were presented. I even embarrassed myself when the brik (I think it was brik, from pictures I saw online. No one in restaurant bothered telling me!) I tried to bite into had a lot of sauce dripping all over my hand, the table and even into that cold fish soup!!

Terribly disappointed with...

Took my mom for a cozy authentic lunch for 2.... or thats what I thought 😶 Service : veryyyyyy slow (cant even start to emphasis on that) ... took us at least 20 to 30 minutes to get our entrée... then another 20 for the main courses... waiter was rude to us : left us to the menu thought it needed some explanation (the menu wasn't clear, no available mebu cards on the table, only chalkboard that is taken from one table to another) ... when we called for help he didnt offer much ... Also DISCRIMINATING locals and tourists (we are paying the same... not getting the same service ...) Food: Endorsed as authentic Tunisian food, Im afraid that what we had lack in taste and presentation to raise to the original Tunisian traditional food ... the couscous with fish (كسكسي بالحوت) we had taste like its made for the vegetarian version (كسكسي بالخضرة) with a side slice of fish ... thought as Tunisians we all know that it has a singular taste that's so different from the later ... We also had another plate with beef (3 small pieces of meat) and 3 stuffed olives ... the chef's salade is not well presented (pieces of fruit and lettuce everywhere, didnt taste that good .... a veryyyyyy ordinary brika (one that should cost less than 5 dinars) ... the zgougou creme was very sugary and watery ... the topping tastes very awful... Veryyyyyy overpriced +++++++ You literally can have better for quarter the price 😐 The atmosphere: at first the music was a bit loud ... the decor and the place were amazing, beautiful and eye-catching... the only positive thing about the experience... Wholeheartedly, I do...

What a huge mistake. We should have known better. We do know better but we arrived around 3pm and because everyone recommended it, we figured we would just stay. If you find yourself in the same position, leave. It’s a tourist restaurant, it’s all tourists and no locals. The food is substandard. We had the “chicken ravioli” dish which was a really dry piece of chicken and small pieces of square pasta with almost no sauce. We had chicken at a roadside stand the day before which was so much better. The service was terrible. We were told to wait in a side room. They forgot about us until I went to remind them we were still there. We were finally seated and shown the fixed menu which included dessert. When it was time to order dessert, they were all out. They then wanted to charge us full prices for the appetizers and main dishes instead of the cheaper fixed menu price because we didn’t get dessert. This place is a factory. I’d much rather eat in a place where locals eat...