Bistro La Baguette — Restaurant in Florida

We went to this restaurant because my wife wanted to try a French restaurant and I liked the name "Lafayette". I am a fellow combat veteran, also. We were seated inside and the atmosphere, at first, was pleasant, with piano music being played. We were given two menu's with all the choices. Because of health and dietary restrictions, we usually pick something we both like and just share a meal together, wherever we go out to restaurants. When I told our server that we were going to share an order, her demeanor changed immediately and the smile disappeared. We were told that there would be a $10 "sharing fee". I ordered water and my wife a juice. We both felt an air of condescension from her. While we were waiting for our meal, a group seated close by, were talking loudly, to the point that it drowned out the music. Probably all the alcohol they were consuming "liberated" their manners and increased the volume. It became intolerable and we asked to be re-seated outside. When our meal came, it seemed to be smaller than expected, given the considerable cost. This was a disappointment. After our "meal" I suggested to my wife that we get a bowl of "French" onion soup each. Surely, this would be tasty, considering it was a "French" restaurant. Wrong! The soup tasted like a salt lick and neither of us finished our soup completely. To get the salt taste out of my mouth. I asked our server for a glass of water. She returned with a full pitcher of iced water. After filling up my glass, she promptly dumped out the remainder onto outside plants, next to us (what's good enough for the plants was good enough for me). The optics of this reinforced the feeling of condescension and contempt. We were both very dissatisfied and disappointed with the lower quality of the food and service, that we had expected. When we were presented with our costly bill, I started not to leave a tip, for the reasons already given, but decided to leave $5, instead of nothing. My wife wanted to salvage the experience and go inside and take a few "vacation" pictures of the restaurant. We were doing this, when our server approached me and told me that I did not give her a big enough tip!!! Instead of causing a scene, I gave another $10 and we later left disgusted. We will never go back to this restaurant. I do not recommend it to ANYONE. It was a terrible experience. We have since deleted all the pictures of this restaurant and have tried to forget it. This was the worst restaurant experience in my...

Utterly underwhelming. The most French thing about it was the overstressed owner practically threatening me with decapitation if I and my party didn't arrive on time on the dot of 7.45. Which we duly did, to find the place only half full and no one waiting. We were rushed into ordering from a stereotypical French menu of limited choice and zero invention. I chose a Lyonnaise salade which owed little to Lyon and can best be described as 'Americanized', followed by duck à l'orange which should be a no brainer to a good French chef but managed to arrive dry and tasteless. Finally my party ordered two Grand Marnier soufflés to share between four. They were small, dry and I have my doubts that they were ever in the same room as the bottle of Grand Marnier! On top of that I was brought a wine I had not ordered because, I was told, they were out of the one I found in the wine list (a French St Émilion that looked like good value for money). When I questioned the wine offered instead, the waitress was a little surprised but went to ask the chef(!) if it was as good as my first choice. Surprisingly the chef recommended a slightly cheaper bottle ($79) from the same area so I accepted it. It was drinkable but nothing to write home about. I don't really want to quibble here but I would have preferred it if the waitress had taken the trouble to walk around theto serve us the wine from our right side instead of reaching across us. Probably no one had trained her. My point is that Bistro la Baguette claims to be a genuine French Bistro where you can eat authentic French food and even have cooking lessons and buy their breads (the small sample we had on our table want bad actually) but I found it pretentious, totally lacking in atmosphere with a tired menu produced by an apparently bored chef and run by a hysterical French lady who couldn't wait to get the customers out of the place. All in all an expensive experience not to be repeated.

And on top of it all both the ladies and gents lavatories had broken and were unusable!

PS. There was, however, some light relief provided by the cheerful young Turkish barman who, upon learning that there were Argentines in my party, came over to sing the praises of Mauro Icardi, the Argentine footballer who plays for Galatasseray - the team closest...

Inauthentic, overpriced, poor service, and low quality. My husband is French and I’ve been to many French restaurants both in the US and France. Our entire party of French and non-French agreed it was a huge disappointment and will not be back.

We went for breakfast and ordered the croque madame sandwich. This is a basic french standard. It was $18.50 and we paid an additional $2.5 for a side of soup. $21 total. The soup tasted like it was canned and was served in a tiny cup. The croque madame bread was served soggy with the béchamel sauce and tasted like a cheap white bread. It is supposed to be toasted. The tiny thin slice of ham looked like it was from a kid’s lunchable. None of us could finish it.

The French onion soup just had a slice of square cheese floating on the top.

I ordered a tea and it was $4.50 for Stash (cheap grocery store brand).

They also kept the front door propped wide open when it was 43°F. It was so cold that the servers were wrapping themselves in shawls and agreeing it was freezing. At least 3 separate parties asked them to close the front door and they said they could not because delivery/pickup folks needed it propped. We didn’t see one person come to pickup or deliver while we were there. Other guests were sitting there will full jackets and hat on it was so cold.

Just because some of the workers or owners speak French, it does not automatically mean the food is good. The total for 3 breakfast sandwiches, 1 crepe, (3 with soup upgrade), 1 coffee, and 1 tea was $105 BEFORE tax and tip.

We also got an assortment of baked goods to take home. Croissants were grocery store quality and lacked big air pockets. My husband said the baguette was way too hard. Maybe even stale. It should be crusty, but with a chewy center. Other desserts were overly sweetened and not authentic French. Take a look at other pics and one look at the kanelbulle being completely smothered with icing like a Cinnabon from the mall is enough to tell you it’s not authentic.

Maybe it’s poplar for people who think that this is French and are willing to overpay for the idea of being “fancy”, but this is laughable by any standard.

I wasn’t going to bother writing a review but my husband urged me to do so so that other French people don’t...