Le Sel Bistro — Restaurant in Tacoma

Ray was very sick last week so I had to cancel PT as I am still not cleared to drive. Fortunately, we are both over it so I was able to make my PT appointment.

Following PT, it was off to breakfast. We have literally exhausted the restaurants in downtown Tacoma, except for those with no free or available parking.

We had driven past Le Sel bistro before today, but parking is very limited. Today, luck was in our favor and were able to find a parking spot right in front.

The restaurant is in a very old part of Tacoma and built on a hill overlooking Commencement Bay. We were greeted by a hostess who asked if we were a walk in or had a reservation, so I thought we were going to be turned away. I told her “ walk in”, to which we were asked if we wanted to eat indoors or on the heated, covered patio. We chose outdoors, and weren’t disappointed. We were seated on the outside edge which gave us an unobstructed view of the bay.

Our server was very friendly, attentive but unobtrusive. She was right there if we needed something without hovering or pushing us to eat and go.

Food and drink menus were delivered and of course, I looked at everything. I chose the bacon, cheese and arugula omelet with country potatoes. Ray chose the special of the day which was a caramelized pear French toast with caramel sauce, instead of syrup, and garnished with toasted hazelnuts.

We had the choice of espresso and French press coffee. We chose the French press coffee and then had to decide whether we wanted 2 or 4 cups. I picked 4.

The coffee was delivered along with 2 demitasse cups, raw sugar and a small pitcher of cream. I set a 2 minute timer and then pushed the plunger. The coffee was excellent with no bitterness or aftertaste.

Breakfast was delivered part way through our second cup of coffee. It was so nice to not feel rushed. This was all about atmosphere and the experience. Our meals were tastefully plated and tasted as good as they looked.

Our entire stay was an experience; n nm m from the coffee to the food to the view. The only blight was the sound of a weed whacker which finally ceased right before our meals were delivered.

This is definitely a restaurant for special occasions. It is a little pricey for day to day meals but it was worth eating there. I look forward to going back for dinner. I am sure it will be an experience to be...

I have been wanting to try this new restaurant for a while now and boy was I upset with my experience. I came for brunch on Sunday with a friend of mine. I got there before my friend did, so I went inside and to get on the list. Said it would be 10-15 minutes. No big deal, waited outside. 15 minutes go by and the owner comes out and confirms I was waiting for someone and then decided to take the couple sitting next to me inside instead. Wasnt sure what that was all about, but I'm pretty laid back so no big deal. Another few minutes go by and I decide to go inside to wait. The owner asked me if I was still waiting on my friend and I said yes, but that I would still like to be seated. She explained to me that she will not seat anyone unless the entire party was present. Mind you- I was a party of two and we would be taking a two top so it wouldn't matter if I was seated a few minutes early or not. Totally get it if I were a large group, but for two people that didn't make sense to me. When my friend did arrive she was shocked I hadn't gotten a table yet, so I explained to her their policy. The owner overheard our conversation and got extremely rude and said if we didn't like it then we just need to leave and then went on to refuse to serve us. This went on for a few minutes. We explained that it was fine, just a little silly since it was just the two of us. I was completely thrown off because of how unprofessional she was. She didn't have one customer service type bone in her body.

Moving on- ordered the french press coffee. Came with sugar cubes & creamer. Ordered the pomegranate mimosa but was served the blood orange one. No big deal- didn't want to "create a scene". To eat I had the open face poulet omelet, It was decent. Didn't have to wait too long for our food which was nice.

Few more takeaways: Only one check per table, regardless of how many people in your group. No alterations whatsoever to your order. Reservations only available for dinner. 21+ only

Overall, I will not be back here again because of the owner's lack of professionalism. I'm completely blown away by how rude she was. The place is also pretty overpriced, but something I would expect for a newer...

My daughter and I went for brunch-our first time here-on a Thursday morning around 1130. It wasn't particularly busy so we didn't need the recommended reservation for which I was glad as I'm not fond of giving credit card info to random booking sites. To us the concept is 5 stars, however, the execution was only 3 and the cost is 1 star. The atmosphere is nice, pretty chandeliers, nice presentation of cloth napkin wrapped cutlery, decanter of water along with glasses on each table. We ordered the Pommes French toast and the Brown Butter mushrooms and burrata. The French toast itself was well made-thick sliced brioche and not soggy in the middle. The apples were a different story-very thin slices and very few of them compared to the amount of French toast. My biggest issue though was that the menu says "caramelized apples", what we got was sauteed until limp, (but NOT caramelized), apples and an overabundance of caramel sauce that was way too sweet. (Note to the Chef-caramelized means the item itself has had the natural sugars in it cooked until browned.) It did have a nice amount of chopped hazelnuts. If we'd known that was the way they do it we'd have ordered something different. Then there was the mushrooms and burrata. At least they were actually wildcrafted mushrooms, unlike some restaurants we've tried that say wild mushrooms and then the dish arrives with portabellas and oyster mushrooms from Sysco. BROWN butter is supposed to BE brown not just melted clarified butter which is what arrived at our table-and a LOT of it, too much in fact. The bowl looked like butter soup quite honestly. Decent flavor, a little heavy on the lemon and the dish could have used a generous sprinkle of fresh thyme or chiffonade of fresh sage and a grind or two of pepper...something to elevate it. Overall the food was pretty lackluster for the price point. At $70 for 2 people with only 1 cocktail, 1 hot tea and 2 entrees I certainly expected better quality and execution. What you get is average food for...