What a nice looking restaurant and what average food! Risotto too salty, meat bland, vegetables overcooked, service was ok if you like 2 people pouring the wine every 5 minutes, when I complained abou the salt levels they said 'you could have sent it back'. The bill was huge as expected too!

and no olives!

give it a miss!

Hi,

after being away over Christmas I have really noticed the amount of salt that restaurants put in the food here. Sadly it seems to be a common problem.

Have fun

Martin

in all fairness, you could have sent it back...

mmm... I've eaten in most of the restaurants around the city and still haven't found one I look forward to seeing again (maybe.. Lillys, Mandir.. and Manor). It's almost always the same.. expensive, poor food and poor service (we went into Piccobello the other day and a friend asked if we could take a corner table.. 'No, it's reserved.. if you had reserved it, you could have it.. ' was the fabulous reply.

Good job France and Germany are so nearby

Have you tried Bonvivan, Au Violon, Atlantis, the Spanish place on Rumlinzplatz?

a similar thing happened to me last month. I didn't buy tickets in advance for a concert and when I got there it was sold out. They told me I couldn't get in because I hadn't bought a ticket. The cheek!

nice sarcasm - maybe you should be a waiter in basel - but you've missed the point..

... the place was practically empty, my friend couldn't see the little 'reserved' sign.. the waiter could.. and his reply to a perfectly reasonable request from someone about to help pay his wages was.. unhelpful

What if somebody specifically reserved that table? Can happen..

I have been so perhaps that's why I tend to take the other side.

I wasn't there so I can't comment on what tone the waiter took with your friend but I can't see anything wrong with him telling you that the table was reserved for someone else.That is his job now isn't it?

I guess "sorry but it is reserved" would have been enough, right? The thing is for a non native speaker, maybe he/she wasn't being rude just trying to excuse himself...still it makes you wonder if the whole place was empty

I usually am at restaurants with my mum-in-law and have never had anything but at least "decent" service and usually good service... then again, she tends to have favorite places she likes to go so maybe this is part of why.

On the other hand, she has taken us a time or two to restaurants she's heard of to try them out if we've been out swimming at a lake or something... and again, only have had good service then as well.


Meanwhile, even when m-i-l is cooking, things are more salty than I'd make myself, I figure it just has something to do with Swiss palette, kind of like my father (or an ex-boyfriend) describing fairly spicy food as "tasty" when I ask how hot it is. They like it that way / are used to it, so don't necessarily think it is "too" salty.

sad to hear that Oliv isn't great.

I havent been there for over a year, but it certainly *was* really good. Pricey, but worth it....

A restuarant I can recommend in Basel is Gundeldingerhof. Great food, friendly staff and reasonable prices. The chef is british and english is spoken by all staff so there shouldn't be any language barriers there.