Le Vallauris Restaurant — Restaurant in Palm Springs

Where to begin? I had heard nothing but great things about this French restaurant. I was really excited to enjoy amazing food with 4 of my best friends on the last day of the year. We were lucky to get a reservation (we thought) and our taste buds would be exploding with amazing flavors. From the moment we walked in, we were met with an overcrowded entrance/lobby which was surprising to me. I thought we had a reservation to start enjoying dinner at 845. Instead, we were moved into the bar area where a band was setting up and a dance floor, which was overcrowded with others waiting to be seated as well. We had to seek someone out from the restaurant in order to get a table after waiting almost an hour. That is not what you expect from an upscale locale. Once seated, we were surprised to discover that there was a pre-fixe menu with a cost of $160 per person. Having prior fine dining experience I wasn’t thrown off by the price, as long as the food was up to par. After placing our orders we each enjoyed our appetizers and the excitement was increasing for me, a great meal was about to be enjoyed. That’s where it went all wrong. Our waitress and her assistant started putting spoons out as cutlery for our next dish. We thought perhaps a pleasant surprise was in store, perhaps a nice French bisque soup or something exciting. Instead, our deserts were brought out. We all stopped the waitress and let her know we had yet to receive our main dishes. I had ordered the Branzino however when it came, I smelled it and immediately knew it had sat too long or was not fresh. We asked if we could exchange it for another item. We were able to exchange it for the lobster. Sadly, the lobster (3 of which where ordered by our table) was cold. That is unacceptable in a restaurant of this caliber. I took one or two bites and just left it, I was not about to go down that slippery slope of suffering through a bad dish. My other friend ordered chateaubriand and she was also surprised at the coldness of the temperature. Now I was upset that the restaurant we had been looking forward to all weekend was underdelivering on expectations. The meal ended with a subpar dessert, in which the main waitress had to correct the direction of the placement of the dessert. Before leaving I requested to speak with the manager, which never happened. Instead, we were given the on lobster off at market price ($48). I did make a call the following day and spoke with the manager, who let the owner know and he would be calling me back. The result of the call was as follows: nobody else complained about the evening and the pre-fixe price included entertainment (band), dancing and party favors. They don’t like to rush people so if we were expecting to be in and out they apologize for that experience. However, they have been having this event for the past 45 years. I guess we should know their history, despite this being our very first visit to the restaurant. He was unwilling to credit or offer a discount for our experience (nearly a $900 meal) but rather offer a complimentary bottle of champagne upon our next visit. No thank you, this place is dated and the way things are dealt with in a service industry that relies on reputation lets me know that we are not the caliber of diners they host. I sure wish I had a different experience. I will let any person who asks about this restaurant to steer way clear. Not impressed, extremely underwhelmed and...

We were SO excited to finally experience La Vallauris and made reservations months in advance. We love French cuisine, enlightened service and attention to detail. Unfortunately, the evening and meal were truly forgettable. The service was inconsistent and rushed. Unopened wine bottle left on table..we had to ask for it to be opened and poured. Entrees arrived separately by about 5 mins. The waiter apologized and was friendly, and I recognized they'd only been reopen a few weeks, so we excused most of the service short-comings. BUT--the food was a huge disappointment. I was worried from the get-go when my Manhattan arrived with a bright red marischino instead of a Luxardo or black cherry. Even the bars on Arenas serve their Manhattans with decent cherries! The amuse-bouche was ok, pretty tasty, but my Lox/caviar appetizer was dry, stale and obviously had been made in advance(possible a day or two before) and stored in a fridge. it was terrible. My partner's lobster salad looked awful and was not good. It was minced vegetables with two tiny disks of lobster. For my entree, I had the lobster ravioli. Bad presentation, very little lobster, not hot. I had to ask the waiter for parmesan which should have been offered or presented with the entree. My partner's filet was, again, not hot and very average/chewy. We spent nearly $500 for drinks, wine and dinner for two and it was, at best, average. There are at least 8 restaurants in Palm Springs that we could have chosen for our special night, and paid 1/2 or less for far better food and service. So disappointing ....especially at that price point. I understand Le Vallauris has new owners. I sure hope they take a hard look at what they are serving and strive to do better. The restaurant had a wonderful reputation. I'm sorry I never got to experience that quality or enlightened...

Given so few limited choices of decent restaurants in the area, we were initially pretty happy that we got a last minute reservation. However, i would not consider revisiting since i don't expect this restaurant to improve.

The dinner started pretty good. Escargots were cooked to tender. The chicken liver pate was flavorful and the endives paired well. However, the endives had way too much dressing which completely ruined this dedicate salad.

The bread was warm but very average.

We ordered four mains which were really disappointing.

Beef cheek: cooked to tender. The semi-glaze was just mediocre. The chef was clearly trying to cut the cost by using low quality wine...

Sea bass: overcooked and slightly rubbery..

Veal chop: way too chewy..

Studded duck: overall, the dish was very sweet. The duck skin was not properly seared and it was still really fatty. Not flavorful at all..

Dessert was even worse. We ordered the popular Grand Marnier souffle. It was tasteless..only sugar.. Sure, it was supposed to be fluffy. Yet, this one tasted like baked egg white without any souffle base.

The worst was the service.. extremely rude arrogant and disrespectful... Our server asked us how do we like it. I gave the honest feedback and said it politely, i was expec the dessert to have more texture. Our server replied by saying, this is how souffle is supposed to be done and added that the pastry chef studied under a some famous pastry chef. "He would be really mad when he heard this comment."...

Later he came back asked us where did we come from. We replied SF. He asked what's our favorite restaurant. We mentioned Saison. The waiter corrected us on the pronunciation and added "it's French".

We spent more than 100 per person and we deserved...