Hotel de France restaurant

The restaurant was empty except for 1 other table ... My starter was a 'messed up' smoked salmon. Smoked salmon is 1 of my favourites, but the chef attempted to 'adjust' the flavour by mashing it and combining it with other unsuitable ingredients - and...More

This restaurant is providing one of the best facilities and iam happy and satisfied with service and staff..will visit again..and suggest to my friends.

We visited this restaurant on a 'tripadvisor' review in the middle of january on a cold and wet evening. There were very few people in the restaurant which was large. The open fire wasn't lit so the atmosphere was dull. However, we were warmly welcomed by Virginie, one of the owners who explained what was on the menu and that there was no a la carte. There was a choice of two dishes for each of the three courses and as there were four of us, we were able to sample them all! Every dish was delicious; my Boeuf Bourguinonne was the best I've tasted and the cuttlefish was both tender and tasty. In our experience of rural France, a limited choice menu usually means the chef can make use of fresh local produce rather than resorting to the freezer and the microwave.

My wife and I were taken for lunch by two friends. We booked in advance and my wife, whose French is excellent, told them when making the booking that one of the four of us was a vegetarian. They said this was noted and the chef would be told. We thought, given the rather ecstatic reviews by others, that this was going to be a cut above the average menu-du-jour place, and therefore that, despite local attitudes, they'd be creative enough to cope with a vegetarian.We were wrong. The waitress was friendly enough when we three omnivores ordered our steaks and magret from the a la carte menu, but when my wife said "I'm the vegetarian - I phoned yesterday" the response was a heavy sigh - clearly implying that this sort of customer was a nuisance. "What sort of vegetarian?", she asked with muted rudeness. Told that my wife ate no meat or fish but did eat any and all dairy products, she offered an omelette with or without cheese, or a goat's cheese salad. So on top of the discomfort of the restaurant's attitude - discomforting to all four of us - there was the heart-sinking bore of the choices: the least imaginative, most predictable of ho-hum food. Lunch was not the happy treat we'd envisaged. The rest of us were satisfied with our meals: the steaks were pronounced very good and my magret was irreproachable, though it came with no fresh vegetables except potatoes and altogether there was nothing imaginative about either the cooking or its presentation. If they don't want to serve vegetarians, they should say so when people phone to book. On the other hand if they want to live up to the reputation their reviewer-pals have claimed for them, they need to improve their food and their attitude. The chef should ask for a vegetarian meal at Cafe Daroles in Auch - he'd see what standard he's up against; and the waitress should be nice to all her customers regardless of their diets and her prejudices.

First time to south of France, recommended restaurant by TripAdvisor. It was absolutely gawgus little family run restaurant the quality, flavour and such a delightful lady running it, not to mention her delightful little girl too, our French is extremely minimal but they spoke little English with humour too, so between us we had a very special time, will be revisiting here before our return home.