Crêpeaffaire — Restaurant in St Albans

One star for overall experience, three stars for the staff trying to make up for it! I visited Crêpeaffaire in St Albans for the first time on Sunday 10th November. I was excited to see gluten-free and dairy-free options on the menu. The ordering process was swift and efficient with a smile and easy breezy attitude from Micaela. My friend and I ordered hot drinks and savoury crêpes for lunch. I received a matcha latté instead of turmeric, which was quickly replaced for the correct drink. Then the wait began... 40 minutes in total... for two crêpes. I had ordered Eggs Royale with a couple of ingredient swaps (buckwheat crêpe, egg, salmon, spinach, and hollandaise sauce on the side). By this time it was after 2pm and I was starving! Boring presentation, but I was really looking forward to my meal. First bite, no real flavour... so i decided to open the pancake. OMG!! There was NO FILLING except a few spinach leaves and a smear of hollandaise INSIDE, not on the side. I took the plate to Micaela to show her my naked crêpe and said "I'm going to eat this because I'm so hungry, but I'd like to speak to the manager afterwards". Cut a long story short... Cue Georgia the manageress, who was very professional and polite. She refunded the whole meal and apologised for the "new team". I hope the owners are now giving their staff the proper training and support they need. Upon reflection the take-away customers seemed to be served before the dine-in customers, which is probably why we waited so long for fast food. I'm sorry to say......

It's not usual I'll give a 1 star review, but I have nothing positive to say from my experience.

I was drawn into this place after seeing a glimpse of the professional photos of crepes on their page. Everyone loves a crepe. The last time I had eaten one was on the street in Paris, it was made and served in less than a minute, was filled generously (banana + nutella) and at a fair price.

Hoping for a similar or better experience (professional equipment not street food), I ordered two crepes and two drinks for take-out in Crepeaffaire, it came to around £18 and I had to wait over 30 minutes for the food. I could see that the staff were extremely unorganised, during my wait, other customers were asking where their orders were, and it was obvious that the staff had forgotten about them. When I left, some people who had ordered and were seated to eat-in before I had arrived, were still left waiting.

Trying not to feel annoyed by the long wait and the high prices, I was just happy to have the food at last and was looking forward to trying these amazing crepes - or not? The savoury crepe was very flat and tasted very badly, so much so that I couldn't finish it.

Oh well, I was looking forward to the sweet banana + nutella one. This one wasn't as bad, but not great for the price that was paid for it. It tasted quite bland and tasteless which is strange for a dessert, probably because it only had one small spoonful of nutella and 5 thin slices of...

Use to love the selection of crepes here and hot drinks. Have been here a few times. My favourite is Le goat deluxe. Hubby loves all day breakfast. We complement it with carame latte or mocha. Ordering process is via app but at times I find myself confused so I either seek help from the staff or order at the till. The plus side to order via app is that you get 10% discount.

Wouldn’t recommend the veggie Mexican chicken crepe option as this has been over engineered and does not taste great (a particular sauce used to make soya chunks taste more like real chicken is just off putting and not sure why vegans or vegetarians want to know what real meaty stuff tastes like in the first place?). Keep it simple like your other stuff. You were doing so well not sure what happened?

The other issue has been availability of seating downstairs and having to sit upstairs. Which I dread as the upstair section is not that appealing to sit in. The forced and tired industrial look that the owners have gone for makes it look like some one forgot to finish the ceiling, paint the floor and clean properly after themselves. Definitely needs a deep clean as seems to have been neglected. The area around toilet downstairs is almost always wet almost making it perfect for a serious accident to...