La Chatelaine French Bakery and Bistro — Restaurant in Upper Arlington

I ate a delicious lunch recently at [12-27-2019] La Chatelaine French Bakery and Bistro at 1550 W. Lane Ave. I have eaten there only occasionally over the years but now definitely plan to return when I am in that area.

My first visit to La Chatelaine had been on 10-6-2012 when Upper Arlington Progressive Action had held a "Coffee and Conversation" event with Pat Lang [a Democratic candidate for the 15th Congressional District] in the back room.

My second visit to La Chatelaine had been to eat breakfast on 1-30-2017 while I had been staying next door at Homewood Suites by Hilton [because my furnace had stopped working and could not be repaired until after the weekend].

I had been able to study the La Chatelaine lunch menu – on-line -- in advance of my 12-27-2019 visit and had known before my arrival that I would be ordering a "Housemade Seafood Sausage" Baguette Sandwich.

I certainly am familiar with sausage but had never before heard of "Seafood Sausage." I later asked the chef [that may not be the correct term], while he had been clearing tables, whether "Seafood Sausage" is unique to La Chatelaine or if "Seafood Sausage" is popular somewhere in the world.

The chef went into the back, asked one of the owners or managers, returned to my table, and told me that "Seafood Sausage" is "popular on the Atlantic side of France but not on the Mediterranean side." "Seafood Sausage" is made in the same way that sausage is made except that it includes seafood as one of the ingredients.

The chef then gave me a free coconut macaroon [in a nicely-decorated box] which immediately became the final course of my...

I look forward to hopefully changing this review because the food is AMAZING, but the restaurant does not currently have a reliable system for their advertised curbside pickup, at least not the location on Lane Avenue. My wife and I scheduled a noon pickup for our Valentine's Day dinner, but I was not able to get anyone on the phone for 20 minutes after I arrived. Honestly, if the first person I talked to had remembered to bring out our order (which was a pre-packaged sous vide dinner), I wouldn't be leaving this review. She was very polite, and I understand V-Day is super busy. However, after waiting another 25 minutes, I had to call several more times before reaching another person who finally DID bring out our order. Again, everyone was polite, but I didn't think 50 minutes was a reasonable amount of time to wait for a $100+ order with a scheduled pick-up time. I also left a message for the manager to this effect, but I never received a call back. I'm not recommending anyone avoid this place, as I imagine my experience is unique, but I did want to express my disappointment that no one made any attempt to...

Awful. Just terrible. I wanted to take my mom out for some food at a cute french place and post a review on my blog, so we thought we'd try this place. It's very similar to another french bistro chain La Madeleine, so I was thinking the food would be good too.

I was very wrong.

We ordered 4 Vol Au Vents and two ceasar salads, one chicken, one salmon. The Vol Au Vents were served with the sauce temperature hovering around negative 20 degrees. Chicken chunks covered in frosty mushroom sauce aren't pleasant to chew on so we asked the server to reheat them...no such luck. They brought it back maybe half a degree warmer.

I tried to choke it down but just couldn't, so I decided to move to the salad. The greens were wilted, the chicken tasted canned...I silently cursed myself for driving by McDonald's, which would have been far superior.

I'm normally the world's most accomodating diner but we dropped nearly $100 on food we couldn't finish. To their credit, the employees were lovely about giving us a refund, so they can have a...