Le Troquet — Restaurant in Albuquerque

A bit disappointed, or maybe I had high expectations based on other people’s reviews. I walked in without a reservation and wasn’t welcome, even though the restaurant never filled up its maybe 30 seats. The hostess was nice but obviously poorly trained. I wasn’t even properly sitting as she was already asking if I wanted wine. The menu is in French, I speak French and the poor girl had no idea was I was ordering. You don’t need to speak French, but at least know your menu. So, I ordered the Soupe a l’Ognion and the Truite Amandine. A few minutes later, the trout is brought, to my surprise. I asked if the soup shouldn’t be first…. and the guy, the only other service person who acted like Maitre D’ and dining hall manager said the girl never mentioned a soup. Ok, back to square one, and another ten minutes or so before the soup came. It was well presented and tasty, but it seems they rushed it so the gratin wasn’t all ready and the actual soup was lukewarm. Ok. Then, for some reason, the waitress had brought a steak knife, so I asked her if she could bring me a fish knife instead. Nope, the knife never came. Then, as I was dine with the fish, which was well made; I asked if I could have a chocolate mousse. The Maitre D’ replied: “let me see if I can get you one”. Really? So, the kitchen confirmed they had chocolate mousse….. but after ten minutes, I got tired of waiting and ordered an espresso (very well served, btw). So, with the coffee came the check, and the mousse was in it. Oh, surprise!, “it was never brought to you?”… Wine was fine, soup was lukewarm, trout was fine, coffee was good… but can’t report on the mousse they might have been keeping for someone else? Serious service issues though. Sad. Don’t feel tempted to return, even though the menu is...

I would definitely not recommend this restaurant. The rating of 4 to 5 stars is definitely misleading. I initially went to read more reviews in hopes of confirmation of my poor experience and some of the 3 star reviews state clearly that it not a restaurant to try (I wish I had noticed them earlier).

We ordered the cheese platter which is completely overpriced for the quality, nearly 18 dollars. We received 4 cheeses with nearly no variation in flavor or texture with the exception of a brie looking cheese that was very neutral in flavor. The board also came with candied walnuts, that were not complimentary to the rest of the platter, and some fruit. When we did not want it packaged up the server implied that we were odd for not wanting to take home the very generic cheese.

For entrees we ordered Saumon Grille Dijonnaise and the Filet en Croute. Both were not good quality for the price. The filet, a 40 dollar dish, was overcooked. The meat was dry and was only rescued by the duxelles. The Salmon was similarly overcooked and was clearly not fresh salmon. The flavor was overly fishy for salmon and under seasoned. I would expect a far better dish for a nearly 30 dollar plate. Finally, both of these dishes came with nearly identical sides made up of underwhelming steamed veggies.

I would hope that customers would be wary before choosing Le Troquet. Or would much rather hope that the restaurant sees this feedback and is able to improve. After spending over a hundred dollars on what I had hoped to be an enjoyable dinner, I am left very disappointed and aware that I did not get my money's worth in...

Went here with my girlfriend for a special occasion. I will say that the food is absolutely first rate. We enjoyed our meal from a culinary standpoint.

That being said, the meal was completely spoiled by the atmosphere. I am going to STRONGLY recommend that nobody gay, or trans ever eat here. It was very easy to tell that our waiter was very unhappy to be serving us. Their outer demeanor made us intensely uncomfortable.

The other patrons were even worse. The dining room is quite small and intimate. People are spaced closely. The other patrons did not want us there. They made no secret of this, and we received dirty and hostile stares throughout our meal.

We were both properly dressed in formal women's attire and used proper etiquette. There was absolutely no reason that we should be treated this way, and it was very clearly bigotry at play. When we left, one of the patrons made sure to give us such a look of abject hatred that my girlfriend was quite literally stunned, having never encountered this level of bigotry before.

I've never had to leave a review like this before, but it needs to be done. No one should ever endure the type of treatment that we did. Especially not in a place like Albuquerque, which prides itself in equal treatment of all the diverse people. I hope that Le Troquet takes this seriously and addresses it, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Either way, the treatment will have the desired effect, because we will never return to this place. I will also make sure to tell everyone I know about this.

Edit: Wow, the response from the owner makes it even worse. It speaks...