Marie Louise Bistro — Restaurant in Baltimore

Over the past few months, my wife and I found ourselves returning to Marie Louise on regular basis. We found the food and service to be consistently good with reasonable prices. We liked it so much that we had left positive reviews, talked it up to our friends, and taken my parents when they were last in town. Unfortunately, we had a bad experience a little while back that will keep us from returning which is a real shame.

Usually, I order the bison burger, and my wife orders the linguine with clams. However, this particular evening my wife was in the mood for a burger, so she ordered the bistro burger. When the food arrived we realized that the bistro burger came with bleu cheese on it.

We were shocked since bleu cheese is not a standard burger topping and is known to be a pretty polarizing ingredient. My wife isn’t a picky eater, but she happens to hate bleu cheese. She immediately got up to look at the menu to see if she had missed something within the description. We found that the menu didn’t actually include a description of the bistro burger or really any of the entrees which seems like a disaster waiting to happen. My wife brought up the issue with our waitress, and she immediately apologized, saying that she understood and she should have mentioned the bleu cheese to us beforehand.

She took the burger away, presumably to replace it with another one without bleu cheese. A short while later, a different waitress brought us out what we assumed would be a new burger. We examined the dish and noticed new fries, but the burger clearly had a bite out of it and green residue on top from the bleu cheese that they must have tried unsuccessfully to scrape off.

Upon realizing this, we flagged down another waiter and explained the situation to them. He left to look into the situation and came back shortly to speak to us. He explained that the burger we ordered was the last burger they had in stock which was the reason they didn’t make us a new one. He took the burger off our bill at our request but walked away without any real apology or solution to our problem. We left shortly after, now having to figure out an alternate dinner plan for my wife.

The experience really bothered us and felt deceptive and disrespectful. Why don’t they include descriptions of their entrees? Why would they put a divisive ingredient like bleu cheese on a burger without telling you beforehand? Why would they only have one burger left early in the dinner hour on a typical weeknight? Could that have just been a lie to cover up the fact that they just didn’t want to make us another one? Isn’t it unsanitary to put a partially eaten burger back on a grill with other patrons’ food? What would a pregnant woman who has been instructed to avoid bleu cheese do? Why didn’t they do anything to make the situation right, such as comping a drink or allowing us to order another entree at a discounted price so that my wife wouldn’t leave hungry?

Since we were so confused and bothered by the service, my wife decided to reach out to them on Instagram to make sure they were aware of what happened. We hoped that maybe we could get the apology and closure we were looking for or at least receive the confirmation that management would make sure something like this wouldn’t happen again. More than a week has gone by, and she hasn’t received a response, despite the fact that they remain active on social media. You would think that management would find this information valuable and would appreciate a customer speaking directly to them rather than leaving a negative review. I guess that is not the case.

My wife and I live in the neighborhood and feel bad that we lost one of the relatively few nice spots we both enjoyed. We care very much about local businesses and our community, so we feel doubly disrespected to be treated this way and ignored by people who we would normally consider neighbors. Bottom line: I recommend avoiding Marie Louise due to...

I REALLY like Marie Louise so it pains me to have to leave this review but I messaged them privately and haven’t yet received any acknowledgement of my complaint. I’m hoping this can make its way to a manager just so I can get some closure on what happened a few nights ago.

I went out to eat at Marie Louise. I LOVE this restaurant and have come here 4+ times in the past couple weeks. I even brought my husband’s family here last Sunday. On Thursday evening, I ordered the bistro burger. It had no description so I figured it was just their regular burger (have had it before so I had no reason to think it had changed). I take a bite and realize it is slathered with bleu cheese. I HATE bleu cheese so I go inside to look at the menu and make sure it wasn’t my mistake (I wouldn’t have sent it back if I’d misread). The waitress (who was lovely) asks if everything is ok and I tell her i really don’t like bleu cheese and she’s like “oh yeah I should have told you. No problem, I’ll get you a new one”

It comes out suspiciously fast and lo and behold there is a BITE taken out of it. The kitchen staff just scraped the bleu cheese off and put a piece of cheddar on top. Naturally, it still tastes like bleu cheese so the manager (?) I think tells me “oh, they did that because it was the last burger.”

I just can’t figure out where this judgment call came from. It’s so beyond gross to me to imagine the staff scraping it off into a trash can or something and sending it back out with a bite taken out of it. It just felt super deceptive and, frankly, unhygienic. It grosses me out to think they refired a burger with my saliva on it on the same equipment they were using for other guests. The whole situation just made me sick. I don’t understand why they didn’t just tell me they were out and offer me something else on the menu.

I really, really like this restaurant so I hope this was just a very bad lapse in judgment but I was a little upset that they made very few attempts to make things right. I didn’t ask for anything to be comped but no one even suggested bringing out the menu to pick something else out. It was just a really bad experience that left a really bad taste in my mouth about this restaurant.

I’ve privately messaged the restaurant with no response so I’m hoping someone will take note of this review and at least acknowledge that this was just very poor judgment and address it with their staff so that it never...

The only reason this bistro is getting one-star is because that is the lowest rating allowed. I drove from Michigan to Baltimore to visit some friends and they recommended this restaurant. I am a foodie and truly enjoy gourmet cuisine. I have traveled all over the country and even to Japan to experience delicious foods - I will never return to this bistro. At the beginning of our $400+ meal for (6) our waiter spilled my drink and did not do much to apologize for it. The food was $25+ a plate and left much to be desired. My friend's order came late and my other friend's order was a poorly executed (but pricey) scallop dish. If I wanted to eat frozen food I would have stayed home. When the meal was almost over our waiter took plates (that still contained large food portions) without asking and reached over my friend to take her plate. Rude. When we finally received our bill there were items listed that we never ordered and for some reason the waiter lacked the capacity to split out bill as requested at the beginning of the meal. We asked the waiter to split our bill and he told US (the customers!) to split it for him and he would charge the cards. After 45 minutes of trying to figure out how to split the bill with vague food items like "hot food," I decided to speak with the manager. The manager never apologized or seemed empathetic. She told me that she could split our bill but then stated that it was our fault the bill was confusing because we had (6) people and we ordered (3) appetizers. As a supervisor for a 4 Diamond AAA Resort, I can say that blaming the customer for terrible guest service is beyond ridiculous. I have never had an issue with restaurants like Applebees splitting bills without second thought. After an hour we finally figured out the bill (no help from waiter or manager). While we were trying to understand what we were being charged for the manager took it upon herself to gossip about our table with one of her employees at the front of the building. I will NEVER return to this bistro. I have received better guest service from a McDonalds and far more attentive waiters at an Olive Garden. Worst dining...