Chez Ma Tante — Restaurant in New York

EXPERIENCED DISCRIMINATION!!!

On Saturday, May 24th, my friend wanted a low-key birthday—just good vibes, no stress, and pancakes. We picked Chez Ma Tante in Brooklyn, known for serving some of the best.

Two of our friends arrived early to get on the waitlist and were told it would be about an hour, which was fine. But despite several open tables inside, they were told the only option was to sit outside—on an unusually cold May afternoon. No offer to wait for an indoor table, no explanation, just a flat “outside only.” The two women at the host stand (one white, one who appeared to be Hispanic) didn’t offer any flexibility. At that point, there were no other patrons who looked like us, and the energy felt off. Our friends decided to leave, feeling like they were being discriminated against.

To clarify the situation, the birthday girl called the restaurant while we sat in the car. She asked if they were taking walk-ins for a party of six and specifically confirmed if we could be seated indoors. The woman on the phone—Carissa—said yes, there would be a wait, but we could likely be seated inside by 1:15 PM. My friend repeated the question to confirm, and Carissa clearly said yes. We thanked her, took her name, and told our friends to return and ask for her.

When they did, they were told—again—that outdoor seating was the only option. They asked for Carissa and brought up the phone call. Carissa stood mostly silent at first, then claimed there must’ve been a misunderstanding. But there wasn’t—we were very clear, and so was she. At that point, our friends had had enough and decided they no longer wanted to dine there.

When we arrived, my friend went in to speak with the hosts. Their tone noticeably shifted—they were much more pleasant with her. When she brought up the phone conversation with Carissa, the white hostess repeatedly interrupted, prompting my friend to clarify that she wasn’t speaking to her. She held Carissa accountable for what she had clearly said on the call. Carissa apologized several times and offered to get a manager, but by then, the damage was done and we no longer cared to dine there.

What should’ve been an easy, joyful birthday brunch ended up feeling discriminatory and dismissive. The food may be great, but we didn’t feel welcome—and that’s something no pancake can fix.

We ended up at Sunday in Brooklyn instead, where the experience was night and day—warm service, great food, and a staff that actually made us feel valued. No regrets about leaving. Chez Ma Tante definitely made a...

We decided to take a ride to Brooklyn to try a restaurant that had been getting very good reviews and we made a reservation and off we went. It's a small corner store front that seats maybe 36 at most. No elaborate furnishings just a nice, clean and simple local restaurant. This is were all of the boring stuff ends. The restaurant was absolutely wonderful, the service was spot on and the entire staff couldn't have been more gracious.

Being that the point of our visit was to sample the cuisine, we basically ordered 5 of the 7 starters along with 4 of the 6 mains and a couple of deserts just for the heck of it. For the starters we had the Pighead terrine, don't get taken back by the name of it, it was flavorful and had a country flavour, this was a perfect segue into the country pate with prune and pistachio another winner. The steak tartare with potato chips was phenomenal, it makes you wonder how anyone can eat a steak that's ever cooked more than rare. We could have had plates of this serving. To close out the starter round we had the Boudin noir, fried egg and parsley salad and at the same time a plate of the Stracciatella with Marcona almonds and preserved lemon. This 2 offerings were excellent as well, but to me the first 3 were just a notch above.

Being that we were sharing everything we were sipping our wines, (they have a reasonable corkage policy, so for us we're always bringing our on bottles!) now came the 4 mains, Fennel sausage with dijon and lentils, it was much better then i anticipated it would be, This was followed with the Monkfish with fennel, olives and pine nuts. The next plate was the pork shoulder with a "blow your socks off," horseradish cream and potatoes. As that was placed on the table another server was putting on the table duck breast, with carrots, turnips and tarragon. The mains were worth the drive alone, if I could have only gotten a container of the horseradish cream to go, I'd have felt like I was in pig heaven.

For deserts we had the apple sorbet with Polish vodka along with a chocolate cake that was out of this world. Everything was truly wonderful and to have the hour drive each way was meaningless considering how great the...

What a waste of a beautiful day. We were at Chez Ma Tante for exactly 24 minutes from when we sat at 2:50, to paying at 3:14.

We decided to walk in without a reservation at 12:30, which was probably our own fault. The three hostesses were incredibly poor at communicating, and said to come back by 2:30. We checked back in around 2 on the status of the wait since there were empty tables outside, and they said they never said 2:30, and to come back at 2:50.

When we finally sat at 2:50, they said the kitchen closed in 10 minutes. We were baffled no one had warned us of that when we put our names down for the waitlist. We honestly would have preferred they say “we’re full for the day” and turned us away.

We placed our orders within 3 minutes to ensure we’d be fed. The waiter tried to encourage us to order more food, and if we wanted to add an order of sausage or bacon. At first we said no, but then decided to ask for sausage, to which the waiter said they were actually out of.

The wait staff brought plates and drinks over to our table mistakenly multiple times. It was likely that the party who originally sat where we were had changed tables when they realized the table was infested with flies.

We got our food, and the waiter asked to take and clear our plates multiple times, even though we had not even finished the food on them. He actually grabbed one plate, and we asked him to leave it as there was melon and cheese that we were still eating.

As soon as three of the people in our party finished eating, so the waiter asked us to pass our plates to him so he could clear the table. Our slowest eater was putting his final bite of pancake in his mouth when the waiter pulled the plate out from under him.

There’s not much else to say from our 24 minute lunch, except I wouldn’t ever go again but I would recommend this to my...