Chef's Dalat — Restaurant in Da Lat City

Extremely disappointing.

It was my last day in Da Lat, and I really looked forward to having a great time and meal at this place. Although the food was nice, what entirely ruined the evening was a smoke. They allowed someone to be smoking right outside the entrance while all the door and windows were fully open; therefore, its nauseating and disgusting smell came in and completely ruined the flavor of my main dish and wine.

The biggest disappointment here was the fact that none of the servers cared until I mentioned it, which made me realize either they were poorly trained or smoking was the norm at this place. If they are quite ignorant about the effects of smoking, they shouldn’t pretend to be pretentious. I have been to so many fine dining restaurants, and this has been the only place so far where smoking is totally allowed next to someone’s table.

Furthermore, they said no when I asked for another piece of bread; I was willing to pay, but they just told me they could only provide one piece of bread for each customer. I’ve never been denied extra bread at any restaurants I have been except this one. It’s such a shame.

I’m still giving two stars to this place, but that is only for the kitchen. Needless to say, zero stars to the management and servers.

Response to the owner: I did bring up my disappointment to one of the servers as she asked me how the dinner was when I asked for a bill. However, she just said, “Oh, okay.” and that was it. There was no further conversation to follow the matter up. That became the last straw, and I just left feeling still hungry.

This is a very good example of how important it is for a sophisticated place like yours to have professional and well-trained servers as they stand at the frontline and takes a huge part of the representation for the place. The quality of the servers I came across that evening was not acceptable. I can totally expect them at a fast food chain or convenience store, though. But not at a place I will be spending more...

Stumbled upon this place as I was walking on the street, hungry, at around 3PM. On a Monday afternoon, I was the only crazy diner. The place is super airy and tasteful decorated. It brought me back to Southern France or Tuscany as I sat down.

The menu is quite extensive for such a small place. I cant imagine how hard it is to manage all the ingredients. I ordered the tart for entree and the steak for main. The presentation is 10/10, something you only expect at high-end establishments.

The tart was beautifully cooked, crispy yet soft and buttery, accompanied by the rich yet delicate cream and paired perfectly with pine nuts. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Oh and the dinner bread was superb.

For the steak, it was left much to be desired. Since I haven’t had a piece of proper steak for a while and when my tummy rumbling at 3PM with nothing to eat all day, it seemed to be my perfect choice. The jus was one of the best I’ve ever had. The veggies were cooked to perfection and the mash potatoes were divine. Considered it is labeled as” the best seller”, it is unfortunately overcooked. I ordered Medium Rare toward Rare to make sure that the most I had would be Medium Rare. The steak came out Medium Well. I should’ve communicated with the staff but my fault I didnt.

All in all, i enjoyed the meal and the place. The staff was polite and quiet. I would definitely be back to try out other dishes if Im around town and have another...

Edit Dec 26th:

The manager Thao noticed my review and invited us for dinner on the next day to make up our experience.

This time they gave us a wonderful food and service. We really enjoyed their great dishes and service from their kind and professional waiter. We really appreciate how the manager and chef Hao seriously took our feedback and tried to give us better experience. We will definitely visit here again when I’m Dalat!

———— I’m writing my honest review here.

Food - 2 Price - 1 Portion - 2 Service - 2 Atmosphere - 2 Overall - 2/5

I visited here with my partner on Christmas and they had only one course menu which costed 2,240,000 VND per person.

The first 3 dishes were not good and had not much taste. I felt all dishes were experimental and incomplete, not good enough to serve customers for such a high price.

There was only one waitress on duty on such a busy day and she didn’t even explain what she’s serving.

They took 2-3 hours to serve all dishes from the course, and the portion of the course was too small to make us full.

Also there was no music.

All the other customers besides us also complained the course was not enough and price was too expensive. We are glad the manager listened and gave us free pizza and vodka to make it up, but including this treatment I am giving 2 starts.

Otherwise I would’ve had...