Le Chalet - Grospierres

We were driving back north with a couple of friends from a trip to La Grande Motte and passed Le Chalet at Grospierres which boasted a menu du jour at 12€. There were quite a few cars parked with local 07 number plates which was a good sign so we went in. There is quite a large terrace, and although it is next to the main road the shrubbery does make it less intrusive (though sadly not less noisy). The menu du jour was a slightly odd combination of Thai nems and salad followed by N. African couscous and fruit cake with chantilly cream. The nems were OK but nothing to get excited about. The couscous was with chicken, a couple of little bits of lamb and a small merguez sausage, plus some vegetable “stew”. Again it was edible, but all the meats were very overcooked. My wife chose the river fish sandre from la carte instead. The fish was fairly good, but it had a whole load of other things on the plate that were totally unnecessary and unpleasant. The service was competent and reasonably friendly, though it was slightly mechanistic and I did notice that the smile dropped abruptly if there was any query. It is probably a good enough stop if your main determinant is price, but I’d not want to return.

Also has an outside garden which I don't think existed when we were last there in 2015. I chose a steak tartare which I had to prepare myself. The meat was good and there was a tray of 7 or 8 accompanying ingredients, plus some spicy sauces. The chips were very good and prepared in an out of the way artistic form. Cut with an apparatus from Thailand???? The chef did not want to give away his secrets! Service was fast and the welcome warm. When you drive past this restaurant you really wonder if you should stop or not! Please do.

We ordered moules marinieres and Salade chèvre . The mussels didn 't taste very fresh but were ok. The salad was huge and well presented. The goat cheese was served on nice pieces of bread although I personally didn 't care for the touch of honey added to the cheese. The ice-cream served for dessert were delicious (we tried nougat and caramel au beurre salé . I would not recommend the tarte tatin. The profiteroles looked great though. The restaurant also serves large/gigantic portions of meat on kebabs. We may try that another day...

We went to this restaurant to celebrate our granddaughter's 21st birthday. We made a reservation for the 7 of us, as it was important to be sure we had a table. When we got there our table had been given to another group. Apparently the restaurant did not even ask the name of the the other group because they would have known it was not us. They put us out on the patio, alone. The food was fair. they were going to charge our granddaughter $1.50 euros to serve her pizza without the olives, so she picked them off herself. The shrimp had sand in it and was gritty. The most offensive was the steak entrecôte which was not edible. It was all grizzle. When we reported to the waitress and then the owner that the meat was unedible he screamed at us that we were trouble makers and insulted the French family we were with. This was the most appalling demonstration of poor customer service we have ever encountered. I would not recommend this restaurant.

Went with family and friends and everyone really enjoyed their food. Extsensive selection in a lovely setting. Reasonably priced.