Ghini's French Caffe — Restaurant in Tucson

You know me, i’m always on the lookout for something, ANYTHING to make me seem more cultured & smarter than my peers. This includes talking about A24 films before the trailers even drop. Notice how I call them films not movies. It also includes booking flights to random exotic locales just so I can take photos for my dating profiles & put entrepreneur, day trader and philanthropist in my bio & also includes me walking around art galleries nodding at everything w/ a fancy scarf even in the summer months.

That being said, when I saw that there was a place called Ghini’s French Caffe and it was spelled with TWO f’s in cafe instead of one, I HAD to go check it out. It was near the Catalina Foothills, so I had to be prepared to bring my A game for this brunch adventure. I streamed Amelie and Jean-Luc Godard films repeatedly without the subtitles to get in my parisan mood and ordered a red wool French Beret & an obnoxious pair of Octagonal shaped sunglasses to wear indoors from Amazon. Then I spent about 20 minutes transforming my facial hair into more French-wannabe Johnny Depp style than my normal ambigiously sad Mexican style.

I decided to come inside just after they opened to make an impression. I had to find an open seat and establish my cultural dominance to get the full experience. It was pretty busy with the breakfast crowd, but I brushed by several people arrogantly holding my head up and saying “excusez-moi” loudly over and over and using my scarf as a slapping device to let them know I wasn’t just some normie. I sat down at a small table right before some stupid, slack-jawed family of 4 tried to soil it with their American ignorance and immediately adjusted my beret and pulled out a newspaper to read while crossing my leg. I noticed a few of the waitstaff attending to the crowd & so I pretended to read the newspaper while progressively coughing out loud to get some attention. When that wasn’t working, I figured it was time to level up my French presence and pulled out a Winston cigarette and lit it with a candle I snuck in with me. Of course I immediately recieved angry glares because people don’t know how to relax in this country. I saw a father begin to approach me and I was ready to throw fisticuffs, but luckily for him, a waitress rushed over and said “sir, you can’t smoke in here” to which I replied “tellement stupide”, burned the cigarette out on my tongue and said “excusez-moi” to go sit on the patio instead.

Fortunately, there was a smaller table available outside as well, and jokes on them, it felt more Frenchy to be outside anyway. I lit another Winston and resumed my newspaper reading and almost immediately that same waitress came outside to tell me that I couldn’t even smoke outside!

I yelled another French term I googled: oh allez! (Oh cmon!) and then flicked it away. Then I put on a sad french face while imagining a bunch of accordians playing in my head as if I were in a foreign film. She knew kicking me out was going to be a problem, so she just asked what I wanted to drink and since every french person in every movie drinks espresso out of a tiny cup, I ordered that and said ‘tiny cup, oui?’ and then she nodded.

She asked if I wanted anything to eat and I, without making eye contact, said loudly ‘omelette du fromage’. She looked at the menu and said ‘well we have the omelette du soleil’ which is three cheese, garlic and herbs. I said ‘no no no, OMELETTE DU FROMAGE” and had to repeat it until she rolled her eyes and walked away. I then yelled out "sacre bleu!" which apparently interuppted a lot of patio conversations and everything finally got quiet so I could continue reading my newspaper. When my tiny cup espresso arrived, I sipped it as pretentiously as possible and when my Omelette Du Fromage arrived, I ate it while twirling my mustache and making unsolicited eye contact with everyone around me. My authentic French experience even warranted me leaving a tip (never had to do that back home in France). Overall fantastic experience & I made my impression. Cinq...

My mom went to Ghini’s back in January and absolutely loved it. She took us to try it and we had an awful experience. Staff was rude and like another review says, appear to be extremely tired and lacking customer service. When my aunt went in, she was told to seat herself inside and be put on a list outside. She said she’d sit inside but had a group of 6. The waiter sighed and appeared annoyed by that. He told her he would then set up a larger table. He set it up but when she went to sit, he quickly told her not to sit down yet. Our group of 6 awkwardly stood in the entry way, staring at our ready table. The server then took the outside list and sat someone from the list inside and when we asked for clarification on the wait list (and if we should have signed in?) he made 0 eye contact and said “people don’t want to see you guys sit down before them.” Another couple then tried asking a question and he quickly shut them down as well. He came back and told us “ok now you can sit.” Nobody came to get our drink order for 20 minutes. We informed them we were ready to order and could order our food too, in which they told us no….. We ordered drinks and they came out. Eventually we ordered food, which took forever, despite 5 of us getting the same exact thing. The crepes were ok, but I’ve definitely had better. Extremely over priced for what you get. The hash browns saved the review and were actually the best hash browns I’ve ever had, despite being a bit burnt. Most of the wait staff continued the rude behavior and had very limited hospitality. My mom also let me know that while looking in the bakery display, she saw a small clear cockroach…….(the infestation kind?) We will absolutely not be returning. It is surprising how good of reviews there are. They must have had the experience similar to my mom back in January.

Edit from the response received: I did not complain about the food because as I said, it was ok (meaning good but nothing spectacular) and the hash browns were the best hash browns I’ve ever had. I also never stated the wait staff were “miserable” - I stated tired, as did another review. We also had wanted to sit outside, but due to the wait to sit outside, but not inside, we opted to sit inside. We didn’t say it was too hot outside because we do prefer to eat outside. The table was ready when we went inside, we were just told to not sit down for several minutes. We were also holding the children during that, so they definitely weren’t running everywhere. They did get in the way sometimes and I apologize, but they were right next to our table and definitely weren’t running everywhere. We were there for over 2 hours and left shortly after we finished eating, so I wouldn’t say it...

Atmosphere is welcoming on the cafe side. Service here was attentive and could also be a bit much.

Me and my friend ordered Le croque monsieurs. I got the French onion. It was bland and tasteless. Would not order again. I thought it would have the richness of French onion soup but it didn’t. It seemed maybe the leftover onions used for French onion soup needed to be used and this is where they put them. My friend got the traditional croque monsieur with ham. That was better but it was also just okay. The tricky thing about French food is you either like the seasoning level or you desperately want more. This was definitely the latter for me. I’ve also been to France and this place sticks to the very French way of under flavoring. Was hoping Ghini’s had more to offer. The side of hash-browns was perfectly crispy, however it has no salt. Just shredded potatoes and oil. I had to add salt and pepper aggressively to my whole dish.

We also got the French toast Suzette to share. It had a grand marnier sauce and whipped cream topping. Underwhelming to say the least. It was extremely one note. Just orange and nothing else. Would have been nice to taste some cinnamon or nutmeg in the French toast batter, but it was seemingly just egg. Also the bread in the Le croque was the same for French toast. The bread didn’t have any discernible flavor or texture. Just very boring in both applications.

We did try the eggnog and both thought it was good not great. It was sweet with vanilla but no spices, and thin on the egg flavor. Could have been richer and thicker. For $7 it’s a tiny glass that’s 1/3 filled with ice. Store bought taste better bc it’s much thicker and richer. And for half the price you can have a quart to yourself.

Went to the bakery afterwards and the people manning it left much to be desired. No one is friendly or nice. Very much get in get out which is sad bc that’s one of the things about French pastries, you want to gaze and inquire. The woman working couldn’t describe the flavors at length for the pastries that were unfamiliar to us. Which was a bummer bc we could have learned something new and ventured out. I ended up getting the frangipane pastry that was dusted in something; a combo of flower and powder sugar maybe since it had a chalky mild sweet flavor. The filling was okay but there was maybe a teaspoon spoon of it so the effect overall was chalky and mildly sweet. Would not get again.

This is one of those Tucson places that is meant for the snowbirds or people with very mild palates. If you’re looking for wow, grand, delicious flavors this isn’t...