Le Bouchon Breton

This seems a wonderful restaurant and located perfectly in the Spitalfields Market area... but my recent GroupON experience was very disappointing. £7.20 Sunday roast at Le Bouchon Breton (value £18) not worth it at all. Service charge, cover charge in addition left a bitter after taste.
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1 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Monday, February 21, 2011

Myself and my partner absolutely loved this place. I hardly ever write reviews but Le Bouchon Breton really deserves it.

The Ribeye steak, french fries and bernaise sauce we had was out of this world. The steak was prefectly cooked and melted in your mouth. Mind you, it took me ages to get to the steak because I couldn't stop eating the french fries that I tried first. They were amazing.

The service was wonderful. Attentive but not in your face. Thw waiting staff served you with a genuine warmth so rare in restuarants these days.

Don't get me started on the desserts. Just awesome.

Five stars!
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Jo
10 Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The WORST dining experience of my life!!!! The Sunday buffet.....baked beans, a unedible (corn beef?) burnt meat dish, rice and peas....cheap tasteless chicken with so many bones difficult to eat....a vat of strawberry YOGURT for dessert!!! We ordered two large glasses of red wine rather than a bottle (this was before we saw the food on offer) as we were told we only had 45 mins to eat. My friend and I were so outraged we made a complaint to the manager (who looked embarrassed but didn't offer solutions) who then hid in the kitchen. After he didn't return she actually went into the kitchen to find him. She saw him and a group of "chefs" desparately trying to russle any sort of food for the growing disgruntled diners - one was chopping up uncooked sausages into peices.

He didn't seem to want to discuss the complaints - and said we could not have a refund. We informed him we would NOT be paying the drinks and would be leaving immediately. As we left other customers were disputing their bills - one man having ordered 7 cocktails at £7 each - but then food was inedible - he too refusing to pay!

It seems they get away with it by taking advantage of the British relunctance to complain....totally unacceptable and should be shut down!
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0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Sunday, February 13, 2011

We went to Le Bouchon Breton for Sunday brunch. It was very disappointing. I appreciated it was going to be buffet so didn't have high expectations but this place was just dreadful. I don't really regard baked beans as 'French' just like last time I checked white boiled rice and dry tomato pasta wasn't 'French' either. To be fair the staff were trying their best but for Sunday brunch I would avoid this place.
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kiwiscanfly
3 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 2
Sunday, February 06, 2011

Just dont do it !

What an awful experience. the only french food was the baguette, the butter which is pretty poor for a french buffet brunch you can eat. I went for brunch today. They were allowing 45 minutes dining as they were busier than expected,

in a french restaurant can this be true? you bet.

Dessert was mixed berry yoghurt.

It was an dreadful experience and on principle I would never eat there again even if they offered it for free.

I had to pay a cover and service charge, ( it was a self serve buffet) they should have paid me.
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Dee Nurse
1 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Sunday, January 23, 2011

I just got back from Le Bouchon Breton. I would have to say the best way to describe my experience is that it has made me VERY angry. I have seen, not on this site, but elsewhere some pretty good reviews. This has caused me confusion. I can only surmise that they are operating a two tier system one for the normal customer and one for the poor people (like me and others on this page) who have foolishly opted for the ‘Sunday Buffet’.

I got a voucher from Groupon as I thought it would be a good way to try the food. They offer an ‘all you can eat’ Sunday buffet which they say is usually £12 (if I had paid this, I would have been VERY angry – well, I would have refused to pay it!) but you get it for the bargain price of around £4 –( well it isn’t really, I will explain later) I think (which is way too much anyway). This does seem very cheap, but for those who don’t know groupon, these deals are normally quite good. I have visited many restaurants using these vouchers and had a great experience, for example at fakhreldine and Albannach which were both wonderful. This however was not.

Basically what happens at the ‘Sunday Buffet’ is that you join a large queue of other poor unsuspecting people who have gone there in good faith. You sit down and nobody comes to ask you if you want drinks. Eventually you go and get the food from the buffet and decide to try again later. I cannot emphasise enough how utterly cheap and DISGUSTING the food is. There was some bland couscous some coleslaw beetroot, cubes and cheap looking ham (I don’t know what that tasted like as I didn’t venture to try it)...oh also some watery vegetable soup. Following this there was some very cheap, cold and basically inedible meat dishes. Some pasta with barely any sauce, some lumpy rice and peas, very oily potatoes and baked beans...yes BAKED BEANS! For dessert a bowl of strawberry yogurt with a ladle in it to dollop onto a plate. I tried it out of morbid fascination and it tasted like a poor imitation of Muller Light. It was so very awful I felt really embarrassed to have taken my husband and my sister there.

This is the best bit. Once you have decided you have had ‘all you can eat’ which happens pretty quickly, you ask for the bill, which doesn’t arrive (as with the drinks) so you go up and pay. You are then charged for service (I was laughing by this point) and a £1 cover charge per person. A cover charge?? WHY?? – I basically said I want the service taken off as we did not have any and no I am not paying a cover charge. Then I was told it was compulsory. I said, OK then but no I’m not paying it. Eventually as there was still a queue of people who were next to me at this point, and who the restaurant very much wanted to remain uninformed about the truly terrible experience and general theft they were about to experience, they decided to accept the fact I was not going to pay these changes. They were wise, I was about to have, in my opinion, a justified and fairly epic tantrum. They are literally banking on people being too embarrassed to challenge them.

As I said previously, I have seen some good reviews and thought - What the HELL are they playing at???! Basically they are using their reasonable reputation and Groupon’s service to con people. I really hope this does their reputation irreparable damage as it rightly should. I am utterly disgusted by this place and so should Groupon be as they are making a fool of them and their customers. I am generally a fairly generous reviewer, but I really cannot find anything good to say about this place. It really feels like they are laughing at their customers and I have very little respect for that. No, I will not be back and I strongly advise you to steer well clear as there are some lovely restaurants around that area.
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Mandi
1 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 1
Sunday, January 23, 2011

A massive room that wasn't too busy. Our waiter was very friendly and chatty, but the food wasn't stand-out. Nothing wrong with my fish soup and steak, but pretty much what you could have knocked up yourself fairly quickly and the quality wasn't tip top, and didn't justify the price tag. You can eat better for less, definitely.
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Tony Cavaldoro
5 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 3
Wednesday, January 05, 2011

I made a bad judgement choosing this le Bouchon Restaurant in Spitalfield to have our first family Sunday Lunch this year.

The food, how do I put it – DISGUSTING!!! In plain English.

We had ‘dine out’ vouchers to try out this establishment. To the owner of this establishment - the reason you have promotion like this is to entice new patrons, not to treat them like second class passengers on a train or to put them off ever coming anywhere near your restaurant.

We were put on a table with paper napkins instead of some tables with proper napkins, called the servise staff to take drink orders after ten minutes having no one come near us and no service at all at the entile time we were there.

Food in the chafing dishes were all cold and tasted vile, there are two choices of deserts, one chocolate made with cheap tasted chocolate and dry sponge, the other one is YOGHURT! Since when is yoghurt a desert?

All three of us picked at the inedible food and left in a hurry vowed never to return.

Although not before we were charged 3 pound for cover charge and £6.13 service charge on a £55.13 bill. Do not understand why there is a cover charge and annoyed about the service charge for the non-existing service.
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Issie
1 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 0
Sunday, January 02, 2011

A very poor dining experience. The arrival of our food was haphazard, three of us had nearly finished our main courses before the other three meals arrived. It was not possible to wait as it would have gone cold.

A complaint about one of the main courses was met with the offer of a free salad which never arrived. When this was pointed out to the "manager" his reply was " I am aware of that"

They then had the cheek to charge 12.5% service for average food, overpriced wine and appalling service.

Even at the 50% offer this restaurant was bad value and none of us will be returning.
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Malcolm Kays
1 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Sunday, November 28, 2010

Sunday buffet : poor menu , almost no starters, food was far away than being called french cuisine. Food was salty , only one kind of dessert which looked liked it was bought from tesco. Would never eat there again.
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4 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 3
Monday, November 22, 2010