Bofinger Restaurant & Brasserie

calvinheath

Terrible! 6th October 2009

0 found this helpful

We were so excited to be able to eat at one of Paris oldest brasseries. I had booked a month in advance and requested a seat near the glass dome downstairs.
We also made sure we were dressed nicely for the occasion, but on entering the restaurant this quickly became apparent wasn't enough.
Like many other reviews I have seen, we were quickly and rudely ushered up the stairs by the maitre'd and sat in the corner of a backroom away from the fashionable Parisians downstairs. This, we quickly realised was the "tourist room".
The waiter eventually gave us some menus after about 10 minutes of waiting and then ignored us for another 10 without offering us any drinks or the wine menu.
As the menu was written entirely in French I wanted to ask a couple of questions about some items to have them translated so I knew what I was ordering. Again when asked, the waiter was rude and impatient.
I almost walked out when another waitress came over to serve the wine. She had the nerve to actually shout at me for not "tasting it properly" saying to swirl the glass first. The whole room of other diners turned round to stare at this point causing embarrassment for me and my girlfriend.
The wine glasses themselves also had to be changed as they were filthy as was my girlfriend’s cutlery. All the dinner plates were scratched and chipped.
After an unmemorable first course of foie gras pate that was just thrown on a plate with a sprig of parsley we were served a crab lasagne that although was tasty, was also full of crab shell so every other bite was like eating sand.
After this we couldn't wait to leave, so after eventually being presented with a hefty bill of €75 imagine our surprise to see a queue of people out of the door waiting to get a table!
We then realised that they seem to live off the hype of being the "oldest brassiere in Paris" so they don't need to care about your customers, people will flock here anyway.
We decided that the only way you’re going to get good food and service in here is if you’re a French president, a film star, or a fashionable Parisian with more money than sense.
I could have paid half the amount for a much better pub meal in the UK, with better service.
This brasserie was, I thought, built upon the tradition of reasonably priced good food and service.
Sadly it seems that in this case the traditions have been long forgotten.

susie24

Our First Visit to Paris 7th November 2007

2 found this helpful

My husband and I visited Paris for the first time in July 2007, we stayed at the Astor Hotel in Rue de Astorg, very nice friendly hotel, we were recommended this restaurant by the young man behind the bar at the hotel, on approaching the restaurant we were a little bit dubious with the outside, but we watched people entering and we decided to take a look, boy, were we glad that we did. We were made very welcome, by all the waiters, showed to a table, a little bit taken aback how regimented they were, in rows, tables quite close together, handed our menus, had a slight problem as they were in French, but when we spoke to the Matre'd he then handed us English menus. We were very impressed, my husband had the Sole and I opted for the Flambeed Lobster (Flambed at the table) we thoroughtly enjoyed our meal and the ambience of this restaurant and would recommend it to anyone.

Hugo

Classic parisian dining experience 28th October 2007

2 found this helpful

I had a terrifically memorable dinner at Bofinger Brasserie with a group of friends and would recommend it.

The setting is traditional, classic and elegant. The waiters are in black tie and if you want something a little special and fun to remember Paris by then this is a good bet.

The food was rich but extremely tasty and we had some fantastic seafood dishes.

My only dilema, when I go back (I would think I would, albeit not regularly) would be whether to have two super tasty appetizers which were fiendishly good!