Chez Renée French Bistrot — Restaurant in Milford

2023

My first review 6 years ago was pretty frank and not so approving, so I was hoping to see something different and unique tonight. What a pleasant surprise! The food was excellent, maybe a little unsalted but well prepared. The decor was the same sweet Tiffany teal and old family pictures on the walls. I'm glad that's still here. The menu though, has changed dramatically and was full of classic French dishes with American tastes. There was still a nod to the create your own salad from all those years ago but now proportioned correctly within the menu among the other dishes. Honestly the highlight was the perfect French press coffee. It was the best I've had in an age and the crepes we had with it were light and soft but firm enough to hold the orange marmalade. In fact the coffee and dessert after dinner was so pleasant it made my evening. Both my husband and myself reflected that we should go for the coffee and dessert next time we're in Old Milford. I've never had heavy cream with my coffee but I can't imagine having it any other way now. I can't believe I'm still buzzing about the coffee, and at 9:00 at night I'll be buzzing for a few hours more because we finished the entire French press pot... 3 cups each. Thank you for such a lovely evening Chez Renee!

old 2018

I was so excited to visit for the first time. I had heard the buzz and the story so I brought my 23 year old daughter out for lunch. The decor was cute and adorable with a hot teal pop of color. They used a chalk board menu that they brought to the table. Also a cute idea. Our waitress was not dressed in a uniform just street clothes. It would have be much more interesting had she just worn a long white apron to align with the bistrot theme. Also no name tag.The menu was a bit confusing unfortunately. It was lunch time and the limited entree menu was available all day. You had 2 options on one side of the board, a create your own salad with choice of greens, and choice of meat. When we asked the waitress how the meat was prepared she said it was lunch meat. Polite pass. I inquired about the sandwich. She said it was ham and swiss. Didn't mention that it was deep fried and battered Monte Cristo style. My daughter ordered the salmon skewer. I had a sparkling water and she had a water. I was happy that the restaurant carried sparkling water but coke products are underwhelming. As this is promoted as an authentic French bistrot I would like to see some creativity in their drink selection. Without a liquor license why not spice it up with offerings like homemade lavender lemonade, a selection of fresh iced teas, etc? It took a while for the food. While we waited I overhead an older woman going on and on about how hard the bread was. She told the waitress. The waitress apologized. When we received our entrees my sandwich looked well prepared , no garnish, just a sandwich. I had a side kale salad. The salad was DELICIOUS. The sandwich unfortunately was cold and undercooked in the center and the batter was still raw. I would have sent it back but our waitress didn't return for quite a while. My daughter's salmon was overcooked with one cherry tomato on a bed of white rice. It lacked any visual creativity or flavor. Overall there's potential here but the offerings need to be much more French and much more creative...

Excellent food, quaint setting, horrible service! It is a shame that a restaurant with first-rate food has such horrible service. I should have read the reviews before going as there are many 1- and 2-star reviews over several review platforms detailing the appalling service and lack of customer care from the management/owner. These low reviews span over 5 years, so clearly not a function of the recent pandemic worker shortage. My personal experience in 2023 is that the attitude of the owner/manager hasn’t changed over the years. Here is a list of the less than stellar experiences I had on my first visit: CHECK-IN- No formal place to check in. Found a worker with an iPad in hand and she told us to sit in the bar to wait for a table to open up. We had a reservation and asked if she needed our name and she replied that she did not. Seemed a bit strange for a crowded restaurant on a Saturday night. Fortunately, the wait in the bar was very short. WAIT TIME- The wait at the table for service was interminably long- about 35 minutes. Note that the dining room was a small space with 6 or 7 tables, half 4-tops, half 2-tops and 3 servers buzzing around. Despite the fact that the tables are about 8 inches apart (don’t come here to share secrets with your group!), none of these servers stopped to say hello or ask us for an order. We finally flagged one of the servers down to ask who our server was. She said she didn’t know, but would get us started with drinks and an appetizer. We were thrilled until receiving these items took another 20+minutes. The appetizer was simply bread and brie. DINNER ORDER- A server finally appeared to take our dinner order. We had another long wait for our meal to appear and watched the tables on either side of us move through 3 courses and dessert all while we were waiting.

DISCUSSION WITH MANAGEMENT- I shared all of the issues so far with the Owner, Cathy. She apologized and said she would take care of our meal. This is where a problem of semantics or cultural differences arose. Note that Cathy is a native French speaker. In most restaurants, when the owner or maître de says that they “will take care of your meal” that means that they will comp the bill for the bad service and issues. Going by her words, we left a generous tip for the server, despite the issues, and left fully believing that our meal was comped based on what she said. Imagine my surprise when she called several hours later (near 11pm) to demand that I return to pay my bill. Clearly this was a monumental misunderstanding. She claimed that comping our bill was not what she meant, but that is what she said. Seeing that there was a clear language comprehension barrier, I told her I would be glad to pay the bill over the phone with her. We completed the transaction to her satisfaction. Unfortunately, despite the lovely food, the lack of service and disorganization of staff procedures (i.e. the bar tender took 32 minutes to make one cocktail despite no one at the bar- we checked, because she did not know how to make the drink that was listed on their menu: French Connection. Google French Connection- it simply equal parts Amaretto and Cognac. That’s it. Not a drink worthy of 32...

I have never left a restaurant so angry and I've never left a restaurant wishing for it's demise before I met Cathy, the owner. My wife and I visited here for the first and only time and were left flabbergasted. Our server was relatively inattentive, albeit with a pleasant disposition. She asked if we would like some bread before our meal. It never came, nor did we receive more bread for our brie when we ran out with plenty of cheese remaining. I ordered the Croque Madame, with a side salad. She ordered the salmon skewer, with a side of potatoes O grat. My sandwich arrived as ordered, but with potatoes instead of salad. Frankly I didn't pay attention as I ate the sandwich, which was quite good. She was given a dish that didn't exactly look like salmon, and it wasn't on a skewer. She took a bite and realized it was the wrong entree. She ate her potatoes, which thankfully was delivered as ordered. When our waitress finally made her way back to our table, roughly 15 minutes after our food had been delivered (there were only 2 other tables at that time) we told her about her entree being incorrect, and me receiving the wrong side. She pointed out that a bite had been taken out. She calmly explained that, yeah, that's how she realized it was the wrong entree. The waitress expressed confusion about how there could have been a mix up, insinuating that my wife was mistaken and ordered incorrectly. She told the waitress that no, she was certain if what was ordered, and recalled specifically how it was listed on the menu. She went to the kitchen to being the issue up with Cathy. After a few minutes she returned with what would basically be described as a shrug emoji, that Cathy wouldn't remake the entree, or remove the wrong item from the bill. At that point I requested to speak to Cathy. She came out immediately belligerent and scolding us that since she ate a bite we were in the wrong. We should have known immediately that a dish we've never ordered at a restaurant we've never visited was incorrect without taking a bite. After we objected, she snottily grabbed the dish, stomped back to the kitchen, and telling she'll just comp the entree. We never asked or demanded for anything, nor were we even asked what we wanted. All my wife wanted was to eat the entree...