Sarah Leeder
Google
We came to La Fromagerie on Valentine's day for dinner, we had booked online a month before. We were taken to be seated downstairs as the upstairs was full, and we were placed towards the back of the basement. We were asked if we wanted water, and we asked for tap. Our reservation was for 6pm. Around 6:15pm, another couple were bought downstairs and seated near the stairs and asked if they wanted water which they did. Around 6:20pm, someone came down to hand them water. 20 minutes we had been waiting for someone to come and serve us, so eventually I had to get up and tell a member of staff that we were waiting for water still. Someone came with the water a few minutes later and took our drink orders. The drinks turned up another 15 minutes later and our food order was finally taken. It took a full 40 minutes for us to get our first drink and someone to take our food order. We were actually looking on our phones for somewhere else to eat when our drink finally turned up because 40 minutes to hand over a drink and take someone's order is FAR too long and we had given up waiting. I ordered the espresso martini which was very small and for £14.50, I expected a bit more. The drink was around 1 or 2 mouthfuls so I literally had to sip it to try and make it last. The drink definitely wasn't value for money and to date is the smallest espresso martini I've ever received in a restaurant or bar. Whilst we were waiting for our food, another few couples turned up and were seated downstairs, and we were offered drinks/water more often after that so it was clear that in the beginning we were forgotten about. The food arrived quickly. The cheese soufflé was amazing and probably one of the nicest things we had ever eaten. The side of potatoes was great too. However, we ordered the valentine's special, the Baron Bigod "I love you" which was supposed to come with bread. It arrived with no bread, which you can see in the picture I uploaded. We waited around for someone to come by so we could say something, but they didn't so we gave up and ate it as is. We used the side of potatoes we ordered to dip in the cheese. Although nice, I think it was around £23/£24? for the cheese and bread and we never got the bread... So I thought it was VERY expensive for what we got. Lastly, we had ordered a cheese board. I actually thought £18.50 was a reasonable price for the board itself. We had a little stack of crackers and some apple (although personally I think a little more apple would of been nice) but still a good selection. We had ordered a bread side along with the cheese board which was nice. Despite the price though, I was really disappointed in the taste of the cheeses. Once again we had ordered the valentine's cheese board, but literally every cheese on the board tasted like mould. The small brie type cheeses were the worst, they were so strong they actually tasted like blue cheese. The blue cheese itself on the board was super strong (I don't like blue cheese but my husband loves it and he said it was too strong and very intense) there was also a hard cheese on the board and after eating down to the rind, I found it also tasted of mould and upon looking, there was green mould on the rind of the cheese. Not sure if that was supposed to be mouldy but we didn't enjoy it and we left the rest of it. We came mainly for the cheese board so having 5 cheeses all taste exactly the same, like mould, was really disappointing. We originally planned to stay for dessert but at this point we changed our minds and decided to go elsewhere for that. All in all we were very disappointed in our visit to La Fromagerie. We live really far away and had travelled just over 2 hours to visit this restaurant, another 2 hours back home, and we both left feeling rather like it was a wasted journey. Based on our experience, we won't be visiting again or recommending to anyone else.