This was once a very fine restaurant (I had an excellent meal in 1986 here) but thas becom a tourist-processing factory rather than a restaurant. It seats 400 now, and is certainly efficient, but the food is very ordinary. I ate a pleasant prawn rémoulade, an adequate salad, and a decent filet mignon. There were no errors here, but it was all just ordinary, and not cheap. The wine list was fair in terms of selection but more expensive than most. The good chefs have long since moved on to set up their own places – so I recommend avoiding.
If you do go, mistakenly thinking that Zagat’s guide cannot really be that wrong, the restaurant is directly opposite the entrance to Lafayette cemetery, which can be reached by trolley car. Get off at Washington and turn left (3 minute walk). Getting a taxi seems beyond the wit of the door staff, who just mill around helplessly, though it can also be a struggle getting a street-car, so insist that they order you a taxi from your table; we waited almost 40 minutes for a taxi before we gave up and eventually got an overcrowded street car.
Val
We visited in 2015. We enjoyed the experience and the food was pretty good. The shock came at the end of the evening and 6 weeks after we got back from the States. We were a party of 8, my husband and I were going to pay for one of the other couples who had hosted us for a weeks stay, the other couple and two girls were paying their own part of the bill. After the other 4 had settled their costs, my husband paid the remainder and added on 20% tip. When he left the restaurant he was barred by the management, who told him he hadn't paid enough. After a lot of discussion, which continued across the restaurant and out onto the street, the management of the restaurant agreed that they had in fact received more money that the bill total, and finally allowed us to leave. It left a somewhat bitter taste in our mouths after a pleasant evening. We finally worked out, when back at our hotel, that the other people had each said how much they would pay, but the amount they gave included their tip....and the waiter hadn't realised this, and thought the amount paid was net of tip.... obviously, this meant he received a bare 10% tip. However, I cannot imagine being barred from leaving any restaurant in the rest of the world for leaving too small a tip... Worse still, when we got home and received our credit card bill, we discovered that the restaurant had refunded our payment and then retaken it adding in a 20% tip on the whole bill!! A short sharp phone call using such words as fraud and police got us a refund, but I must add, the management argued that they had only taken the amount they thought we had really wanted to pay! Needless to say, it's not a restaurant we will ever return to.
Chris
Personally, I'd give it more than the 1/10 rating. I thought it was quite good. Not up to the level of Arnaud's or Antione's, but still good. There are places better and worse and this one fits in the middle, with being perhaps just a little more pricey on value for money. And fortunately for me, I was already planning to walk, so we did not have to wait for a taxi that never came.