2. Brasserie Bofinger

Terrible food and service
We were so excited to be able to eat at one of Paris oldest brasseries. I had booked a month in advance and requested a seat near the glass dome downstairs. We also made sure we were dressed nicely for the occasion, but on entering the restaurant this quickly became apparent wasn't enough. Like many other reviews I have seen, we were quickly and rudely ushered up the stairs by the maitre'd and sat in the corner of a backroom away from the fashionable Parisians downstairs. This, we quickly realised was the "tourist room". The waiter eventually gave us some menus after about 10 minutes of waiting and then ignored us for another 10 without offering us any drinks or the wine menu. As the menu was written entirely in French I wanted to ask a couple of questions about some items to have them translated so I knew what I was ordering. Again when asked, the waiter was rude and impatient. I almost walked out when another waitress came over to serve the wine. She had the nerve to actually shout at me for not "tasting it properly" saying to swirl the glass first. The whole room of other diners turned round to stare at this point causing embarrassment for me and my girlfriend. The wine glasses themselves also had to be changed as they were filthy as was my girlfriend’s cutlery. All the dinner plates were scratched and chipped. After an unmemorable first course of foie gras pate that was just thrown on a plate with a sprig of parsley we were served a crab lasagne that although was tasty, was also full of crab shell so every other bite was like eating sand. After this we couldn't wait to leave, so after eventually being presented with a hefty bill of €75 imagine our surprise to see a queue of people out of the door waiting to get a table! We then realised that they seem to live off the hype of being the "oldest brassiere in Paris" so they don't need to care about their customers, people will flock here anyway. We decided that the only way you’re going to get good food and service in here is if you’re a French president, a film star, or a fashionable Parisian with more money than sense. I could have paid half the amount for a much better pub meal in the UK, with better service. This brasserie was, I thought, built upon the tradition of reasonably priced good food and service. Sadly it seems that in this case the traditions have been long forgotten.

I HAD the worst dining experience of my life in this restaurant. The beef was so tough I couldn't even chew or swallo it. The Matre'd was very rude and insisted we did not have reservations when in fact we did. He didn't even bother to check. Don't waste your hard earned money in this establishment.