Péché — Restaurant in Austin

I am writing to share my unfortunate experience at Péché, which left me and my friends thoroughly disappointed and concerned for our health.

Last night, six of us eagerly gathered for a dinner we had been looking forward to. We ordered drinks, two salads as appetizers, and each selected a main dish. Initially, everything seemed fine, but shortly after finishing the salads, I started to feel extremely nauseous. I excused myself to the bathroom, where I ended up vomiting. Upon my return, I noticed that one of my male friends had also been in the bathroom for an unusually long time. Soon after, two more friends from our group fell ill and had to excuse themselves as well. By the end of the night, four out of six of us were sick, and we all decided to cancel our main courses out of fear for our health.

When we approached the manager to discuss our experience, we were met with defensiveness and rudeness. Rather than showing concern for our well-being or investigating what could have caused our sickness, they refused to comp our drinks and salads, which felt incredibly dismissive. It was alarming to see such a lack of accountability, especially in the face of multiple guests falling ill in such a short span of time.

After the encounter, two of my friends who were still unwell even took pictures to document our condition, as we felt compelled to report this to the health board this morning. My family has owned a restaurant in CA for over 35 years, and my mother was appalled to hear about our experience. She emphasized that in her years of operation, they never had an instance where multiple guests fell sick simultaneously, and she stressed the importance of addressing such issues promptly and compassionately.

Overall, I would strongly advise anyone considering dining at Péché to think twice. The lack of concern for customers' health, coupled with the rude treatment from management, left us feeling not only unwell but also disheartened by the whole experience. It’s clear that something is amiss at this restaurant, and it’s disappointing to see such negligence in an industry that should prioritize customer safety and satisfaction.

I would like to point out that the below response is from the owner not a patron. He is still not taking accountability for 4 of us falling ill from his establishment. And like we told you that night, 3 of us had never met before this group dinner and the cocktail I had in your restaurant was the first of the night for me. My friend wasn’t drinking at all and only had a topo chico and the others in the group said they only had one drink before meeting us for dinner. So no, we were not drunk. We are all professionals in our 30s and have no problem paying for dinners out. It’s appalling that 4 of us got sick and not only did you not care about us, but you did not investigate to protect your other patrons. We have all reported you to the health board. They will take...

Before I start I do want to say Rob briefly stopped by our table. He was very nice and I had no negative impressions of him during our visit. Myself and three others had a dinner reservation for Friday night. We'd never been to a French restaurant before and dressed up for the occasion. We had even tried researching the menu before going in order to gauge what we were getting into. We should have researched a little more than we had on both the menu and the restaurant. We were definitely overdressed. We were promptly seated and our server, Tony as he introduced himself to myself and my boyfriend and Antonio to our friends, came over to begin taking our orders. He kept telling us to ask him questions and we all assumed he was just very friendly and maybe a little pushy even though he constantly repeated there was no hurry. Between the four of us we ordered the braised rabbit, the veil sweetbread, the half chicken, and the quail. We all had a fun time trying each other's dishes since they were mostly a first for us. The braised rabbit looked like stew with very little meat in it and it was extremely salty. The quail was over seasoned to hide the gamey flavor, but it was decent. The veil sweetbread was the biggest shocker of them all since we had no idea what sweetbread was. Instead of telling us to ask questions when you know we are naive to what we're ordering just tell us and never get snarky with the customer. Your treatment of the customer reflects in your tip as Tony or Antonio learned that night. We won't ever order sweetbread again. The half chicken was the best out of the four, but I could have easily made it at home. I can't remember what the rest of the party had to drink, but I tried the Carajillo King. While it was very yummy Applebee's calls it a Mudslide and doesn't charge nearly as much. We also tried the Mac and Cheese as an appetizer and I can say that was absolutely the best of everything we tried. I wished I had simply ordered that as my main course. While the U-shaped booth we sat at may appear to seat between 4-6 people it doesn't do so comfortably. I'm not very tall, but I still had trouble positioning my legs to avoid the table post or kicking someone else. It felt great to get up an move around when we were done. The last little critique is the bathroom. For as much as we paid that night I expected the bathroom to look a little classier. It was no different than going into a gas station restroom. There was a noticeable odor, the toilet seat had seen better days, and the hand drier barely did it's job. When we finally made it home that night we were still starving so we ended up fixing ramen. We should have started...

Nothing was right. The only bad meal I've ever had in thirteen visits to Austin.

Tenderloin² : ordered medium - WAY overcooked

The replacement steak was terrible as well - proving that a piece of meat CAN BE "too tender" , to the point of being "flaccid & mealy" instead of tender & meaty. Texture of a sponge.

Basket of fries: A massive portion enough for 5 people. Perfectly prepared potatoes - The top one inch layer of which was salted properky , but oddly, the entire rest of the large bowl was terribly over-salted.

Tuna tartar : too much ginger & chive. Had a flavour profile closer to a breath mint than sushi. The lemon just threw it away even farther. The tuna itself was super fresh and beautiful, but all you could admire was the looks because you were oblivious to the presence of tuna.

[ In general, every dish looked beautiful but tasted bad]

Sweetbreads : This is a dish that most americans don't even understand ,let alone order. (*For those unaware, it is the hypothalamus gland of a calf. ) So in America, when you find it on a menu, you assume that the chef has an affinity for them and really knows how to prepare them.

I've owned a restaurant that served them, and would say that they should have been rendered more prior to grilling to break down the connective tissue. Think of the way you often boil baby back ribs before putting them in the smoker or on the grill. It needed that. Or it was just a bad piece of gland.

I know: you never even contemplated "a good piece of gland". I totally get that, I just happen to love them. It's a cultural thing :)

And this, the most annoying: French Onion Soup

The portion was small even for a 'posh place - but the color was way too deep. Instead of a deep brownish amber color, it looked like soy sauce.

It was as pungent as soy sauce as well, sadly. The culprit was not excessive salt ( although it was slightly too salty) The problem is it had much too much wine or sherry - whichever they used, they should have used none, instead of too-much. It was also allowed to reduce excessively , resulting in an unpalatable concentration.

No chef would taste this and declare "it's wonderful - send it." It was like ink. Even the laziest chef in the world would have added some chicken stock to reduce the concentration IF they tasted it.

The waiter was pleasant but did nothing to make the experience any better after I told him a condensed version of what was wrong with everything.

I didn't have to tell him the first steak was terribly overdone. All I had to do was ask him to look at it, and he saw.

Sorry, it's not personal...