Auberge des Alberes

I have so much praised this restaurant in the past, but we have returned today to find it completely different. the service was friendly and warm, sad now cold, clinical and unpleasant. eating was always good, honest Catalan food with a flair. And fabulous aromen, what has become wrong? the food is so overpriced for what it is, the aromen and the heart of the food has paid us for the 29,90 menu quite expensive if we ate in port argeles in the week for 17.90 and had fabulous inventive food with flair. overpriced, without taste a cold sterile atmosphere with loud local radio play all through this wonderfully worth the cook back.

We have stayed in St Genis many times and have overlooked this restaurant as somewhere not suitable for dining with our son in tow. However this trip was sans son so we made a visit on a cloudy Wednesday evening. The restaurant was not busy...at all and we were greeted at the door by waiter who allowed us to pick our table. We chose by the window and were given menus. I chose the paella and my husband the steak. Very big platefuls of food arrived and very nicely arranged too. We had a 1/2 litre of wine with our meals too. Waiter allowed us to try out our poor French on him but usually replied in perfect English. We had desserts of panna cotta and dame Blanche with a coffee to finish. All in all a perfect evening out.

Having failed to find a parking place in Collioure, we decided to visit the villages inland and fell upon this restaurant at lunchtime. So glad we did! We both chose from the Eu19.80 menu, sampling two different starters and two different mains. We eben managed...two different desserts! All the dishes were excellent and served with panache by multilingual waiter- well,the spoke very good English anyway! The wine was a very reasonable Eu3.90 a glass and the rose went down very well. With coffees the total bill came to just over Eu50, not a bad price for such good quality.

Closest restaurant to our villa the owner was very pleasant and spoke excellent English. I had a really good salad which wasn't just a pile of lettuce and was very tasty. Good steaks and my daughter, aged 13, was allowed the children's menu!

The exterior and decor, of this excellent local restaurant, do not do the food and service justice. There is no English translation of the menu so be prepared for that. We had salad to start and then the mussels, fish of the day and paella...all of which were excellent.