Falling standards ?

[john]

Over the last 3 weeks,I've dined out in eight different places,4 in here and different parts of France,2 in UK, and 2 in Spain. Establishments have varied from chain places, quite upmarket restaurants,small village brasseries and an Indian restaurant (in UK of course !). I travel widely,and like to try a wide variety of food.

I'm afraid to say that in every single case either the food ,or the service (or often both ) ,has been absolutely abysmal. I've neither the time nor the inclination to go into much detail,but I have to say that I've spoken to a fair number of people recently who have had similar experiences. In particular,there is a general feeling that standards (though never very high in this part of France) have really slipped alarmingly recently . Fair enough,the UK has never been renowned for the quality of its food,and Spain has all too often been lacking,but,time was, that you were pretty much guaranteed an excellent dining experience in France ,at a moderate price,anywhere. It would appear that this is no longer the case. There will be those who suggest by spending more, and not just going for "moderate price",you will get better quality,but that has certainly not been my finding.

I just wonder if others have experienced the same thing,or am I just being unlucky ?

[Santiago]

You could be just unlucky John, or your expectations are getting higher. I can't say I've noticed any fall, although I don't eat out that often.

However, it could be that the cost of various ingredients has increased, transport costs have increased, wages have increased and the 5.5% TVA has disappeared so we cannot expect to get the same quality of meal as we did last year at the same price.

[Allan]

The problem is that it is really hard to make any money running a restaurant so inevitably most of them cut corners.

Chain restaurants in particular place more emphasis on cost when buying ingredients and because they don't employ proper chefs, they have a standard way of cooking everything that may involve microwaves or reheating.

I have real sympathy for small restaurants since the majority seem to work on an unsubstainable business model.

We ate recently at the Commerce in St Laurent, a place that gets rave revues from it's (mostly french) diners. The menu offers Oysters, Squid, Zarzuela,several types of fish as well as various meat dishes. Yet on a Saturday night they only had 20 diners. So either they throw away vast quantities of fresh food or more realistically rely on the deep freeze.

Their total turnover including VAT on the night we went would have been around €800 - running a restaurant 'Gastronomique' with such turnover seems impossible.

The restaurants that do seem to be bucking the trend are those offering much smaller menus with genuinely fresh food. Domaine Cazes at Rivesaltes and Le17 in Perpignan are good examples.

The UK may not be renowned for food but you can undoubtedly get better chinese, japanese, thai and italian there than you will find in almost all of France, generally those cuisines lend themselves to more cost effective catering. You get very good french restaurants in France but few examples of other cuisines.

[john]

I agree with pretty much all you say there Allan,but,if it is so difficult to make a restaurant pay,why are there so many of them ? It seems to me that,if one looks critcally at this, there are far too many. And,as you rightly say,in this financial climate,chasing far too few customers. The point you make about chain places is fair up to a point,but the opposite side to the coin is that they have the financial muscle to ensure that quality and customer service levels are kept to an acceptable standard,surely ?

I'm sure that staffing is the key problem here. In all the disasters of the last 3 weeks,the one common overriding factor has been lack of suitably trained staff. The dreadful service I've experienced has largely been caused by far too few serving staff,and the lack of attention to even the most basic detail (I had to ask 3 times today in a restaurant in Carcassonne for a glass of lemonade for my granddaughter). It's always difficult to judge what's going on behind the scenes in the kitchen,but paucity of decent staff there will have a negative effect not only on the food quality,but also the service quality too. This is what I mean by falling standards. I take what Santiago is saying ,also,but I cannot remember having so many poor experiences in such a short period of time.

[Debbie and Noel]

We have only been here for about one year. In that time we have eaten out just a few times. What we had did not impress us. On the other hand we have been invited to several private functions where they used outside caterers. The standards were consistently high. Both in terms of quantity, quality and presentation.

Noel

[blackduff]

Noel
Look back on this forum for the restaurants that have been said "great". I think you will find very good places to meet your tastes and often, within your pocket too.

blackduff

[john]

Noel
Look back on this forum for the restaurants that have been said "great". I think you will find very good places to meet your tastes and often, within your pocket too.

blackduff

Normally sound advice,BD,but the problem is that some of the poor experiences recently by both myself and friends have taken place at restaurants that have indeed had good reviews on here or other fora in the past.

Unfortunately things seem to change rather quickly in the world of eating out. Noel's other point was a good one. Some of the best meals I've had recently have been at functions with outside caterers or a special menu.