Diamant Noir - Bourg-Saint-Maurice

The prospect of lunch on the alps in a 5 star luxury hotel filled us with excitement. Sadly we were most disappointed with our food and service at the bistro of the Taj Mah. The waiters were blunt, disinterested and did not seem to want our business. The food was overpriced, bland, cold and unremarkable. This is our first bad meal at les arcs 2000 and it happened to be at the most prestigious location. They narrowly avoided a 1 star rating only because they forgot to bill us for the wine!

This hotel occupies an undeniably fantastic spot on the pistes and my family and I stopped several times in anticipation of a 5 star apero to match the view sitting on the piste level terrace. Every time we waited 45 minutes and often more to be served flat drinks by disinterested and disorganized waiting staff who claimed to be too busy to take orders, remember them or bring them. Drinks were flat cold food came with no drinks and vice versa. I finally lost the will to live when 100% of the waiting staff (3) were sat outside casually having a cigarette break, apparently run off their feet. I would describe the staff as rude but that would require them to care enough to actually talk to us. Not a one off, we visited on 4 separate days. Same thing every day.

Visited for lunch as a family of 4. Extremely slow service. Food served all was undercooked. Salad comprised of lettuce and 1 tomato. Awful.

On arrival we were met by a confused waitress who didn’t show us any courtesy or interest in our booking, couldn’t find us on the system and was sure we were eating at the bistro! Luckily, a lady working on a laptop near the entrance was aware of our booking and told the waitress that our booking was for the fine-dining restaurant. The waitress did not offer to take our coats/jackets, despite a huge coat cupboard at the reception area, and she just marched off into the restaurant without gesturing to us to follow her. My wife had to ask the lady with the laptop if we should follow the waitress!We ran after the waitress to our table and put our bulky ski jackets on the back of our chairs. We were left with the menus, but no explanation of what the courses were or the set menu package or costs. We were not handed a wine menu until we asked for it. Eventually a waiter came over to explain the menu and take our orders, but only after we caught their attention and asked for them to explain. Four of us went for the set menu and one went for the a la carte, leaving one child's menu. No sooner had we ordered than the first course arrived. With the child's starter arriving after we had finished this, but before our actual starter. The child’s menu was completely out of time with our set courses. Timings were awful.. and we felt so rushed. Our starters and main courses flew out as soon as we had finished the plates. The starter (cauliflower veloute) being of minuscule proportions but very tasty, was barely warm. Three of us had the fish as our main course and it was not good at all! Certainly not fine dining. They were glorified and very expensive fish-fingers that were very dry, and the coating was soggy. The vegetables were nice but there was no sauce. The whole dish was hard to swallow. We shared this with the uninterested waitresses who just smiled and ignored our feedback and marched off in the opposite direction. The restaurant was becoming busy and we couldn’t help but notice how arriving guests were having their jackets hung up at reception - a courtesy that we had not been shown.During the course of dinner, as new courses arrived and plates were being removed, the waitresses were leaning across the table from one side to another and were leaning across two guests to reach plates at the bottom of the table, rather than walking to the end of the table to collect or deliver courses. I had arms reaching across my face and the wine waiter kept leaning on the shoulders of our smallest child, which was most unwelcome. When our wine was being topped up we had waiters leaning over the table to fill glasses on the opposite side, rather than walk around! This is not fine-dining service! The staff had no idea of how to run a fine dining restaurant. One of our children - 12 yrs old - had the lamb from the a la carte menu. We couldn’t help but notice that everyone else in the restaurant who ordered this dish got a little explanation of the course and the waiter/waitress took the lamb out of the pot and presented it on the guest's plates, we however, received no such service - very disappointing for our party. After flying through our first 3 courses (far, far too fast), we then had to wait quite some time for our desserts, which were actually the best thing to eat on the night. Once we had finished I asked for the bill. We waited for 30 minutes and tried in vain to get the attention of staff to ask again. One of our party managed to get the attention of the waitress and asked again for the bill but she was clearly annoyed at our apparent impatience and she spat out an explantation that it was ‘coming’. She was clearly annoyed. Our bill finally arrived and we then had to wait another 10 minutes for someone to come to our table to take card payment. We left the restaurant without a single acknowledgement from a single member of staff.We plan on visiting Les Arc again, but will avoid The Black Diamond. You have a long way to go with both the food and the appalling service, before you can call this a fine-dining restaurant.

A short walk from our chalet, this was the place to get bread in the morning and also pick up some treats. Their bread was fresh and oh so good, and was