Katz S.
Yelp
I've been wondering for a while whether I should rate Le Kitchen Café or not. I feel bad giving them only three stars but here's why.
I went there with my partner who loved everything about their food (hence three stars and not two) but I unfortunately had a bit of a negative experience being a vegetarian.
After everyone was raving about them, I was really excited to try the restaurant. The fact that there was a week wait for a lunch reservation only added to the anticipation!
We get there, nice table outside, waiter very friendly, everything fine. The menu is tiny, which is fine, I wasn't worried either that there was nothing vegetarian on it, usually there is something that can be done. I told the waiter that I'm a vegetarian, he needed to check with the kitchen and on his return he told me that there was nothing (nothing!) they could suggest because they couldn't accomodate people wanting to deviate from the standard menu without notice because of their tight calculations of the ingredients.
To be fair, the waiter seemed to feel pretty bad. He told me I'd have to tell them in advance next time I make a reservation (next time?). This is supposed to be such a great place! I was a bit stunned but we decided to stay anyway. So I sat through two courses of the meal staring at my partner's plate (luckily, the delicious dessert was meat-free!). Probably the best part was that the starter (tomato salad with sprats according to the menu) was a few chunks of farm tomato (delicious) with a tiny little smoked sprat on the side... so they couldn't have made a bigger version of this for me, minus the sprat!!??
Anyway, first I thought I would go back and try again but everytime I think about that lunch, it annoys me that a restaurant that wants to do things differently, be innovative and supposedly please their customers, considers it OK to let someone sit through a meal in front of an empty plate. Bref. Maybe I'll try again.