La Ripaille — Restaurant in New York

The owner and staff do not communicate well and do not understand how to use opentable reservations.

Twice we have tried to dine at this restaurant, 8 months apart. Both times we had multiple problems with our reservation being cancelled by the restaurant, calling them more than once to confirm and still being cancelled, being called on the wrong day by the restaurant to see why we didn't show up (3 weeks ahead of our reservation).

The first time we ate there the food was nice and so we chalked the confusion up to a one time staff glitch. It wasn't.

This last time I had called the day before to confirm on my own (we had two separate tables reserved at the same time rather than one large table), and then had my opentable reservations cancelled 3 hours before dinner. When I called them to straighten it out not only did I get no apology but when I asked to speak to the owner he was even less interested in sorting it out and instead screamed at me, insulted me, accused me of being one of those people he claims make multiple fictitious reservations (when I was calling of my own polite accord both times to confirm we were in fact showing up - they never called me to ask for confirmation) and then, hung up on me when I tried calmly to explain what had happened and ask why our reservation was cancelled after we called to confirm on our own the day before. He kept yelling - this is why we are calling YOU! when I in fact had called him - the only communication from the restaurant was an automatic cancellation message from opentable.

This is not a way to treat someone who was trying, for the second time, to bring 18 lovely, foodie people into his restaurant. This is not someone who wants our business and has no sense of...

This is a poor example of fine dining in one of the greatest cities in the world. Located in such a charming location, (west villiage) this French restaurant was the pits. The restaurantuer was very kind early in the night, and accommodated our group to sit outside, and this is what constitutes the second star. As for the rest, terrible execution of service, extremely slow, and very poor quality food. I ordered the bass, which was burnt to a crisp covered in a very plain white cream sauce - hard to cut through with the butter knife provided. My wife orders a special (mixed seafood) with about 10 mussels, and a again a very plain wine sauce, perhaps only white wine and cream....not cooked down, and tasteless. She said it tasted as though it was not cooked, but microwaved...The other guests were equally displeased with a Salmon Dish, and a pasta dish. I vocalized this after our meal to the either owner or manager and he was displeased with my comments. As for my personal experience in restarsunts, I have over 6 years of cooking under my belt in 4 different dining experiences. Carluccis Bakery, SLC; Trio Cafe, SLC (both excellent) and then as a line cook at two Utah ski resorts. This was the worst meal I've had that I can remember, and it really kills me that it was in such a prime location while on a lovely vacation to my favorite city. Save the $300 dollars you'll spend here (ya, dining for 4 people) and head up to Bleeker St. to Fiore's...

This was by far the worst dining experience I have ever had in New York, having lived here for 30+ years. We made a reservation for 8:00pm, but didn’t get seated until 8:40. The wine glass and knife we received were dirty and bent out of shape. It took 45 minutes for the waiters to replace the glass, so we waited before drinking the first glass as a table. All 4 of us decided to order the popular steak frites. 30 minutes after ordering, they informed us that the kitchen had run out of steaks, and that two of us would receive lamb instead - this was mandated, instead of offering us a choice or allowing us to look back at the menu. An hour later, they informed us that the chef had decided none of steak was good enough to serve, and required that we all have the lamb. In return, they offered to pay for an extra bottle of wine, which we didn’t want, but when we received the check, we were charged for the steaks. After complaining, it took another 30 minutes to get the check amended to our correct bill, because the calculator they were using was broken. The 2 course meal took 3.5 hours. By far the worst dining experience I have ever had as...