Cafe Belge, Canterburyback to pub details please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
Closed. Turned into a hoity-toity fish restaurant.
|
Blimey. Here's a review from a visit paid three years ago, or more. What a memory, I can't even recall three days back, such is my copious intake of the amber nectar. You must av a very uneventful life milkman, either that or you've got total recall. I envy you.
|
just reading bruce adams review reminded me of a visit we made to cafe belge around 2007 , keeping it brief , we also had poor service and encountered rudeness from the manager , who even when we had paid the bill and left, then ran after us claiming that we hadnt paid the full amount, i offered to go back in and prove to him that we had already paid the full amount whereupon he declined my offer and slinked off back.
its fair to say that we have never been back although i have heard from others that they have had good meals there.maybe it is under different management now , i hope so.
|
Canterbury doesn't have many good restaurants, but this is definitely one of the best in terms of value for money and quality of food. It doesn't offer anything special - basically the level of good pub food. Great beer too!
If you go, you absolutely have to have moules frites. I don't think the mussels are exactly fresh off the beach or anything, but then that's true of just about every restaurant in the UK.
I've never tried anything other than moules at Cafe Belge, but to be honest it looks pretty average. With moules frites you get a nice big bowl of mussels, a big bowl of chips, and some bread & butter.
Washed down with a good Belgian beer (I can recommend Westmalle Dubbel) it's all in all a good value meal.
Some guy aka bruceadams42 rated this place badly because of rude service. Sounds like a case of serious culture clash. As a waiter I guess you need to realize when customers don't have quite the sense of humour that most other customers have, and that it's possible for people to take offence at pretty much anything other than total blandness and servilitude. In that sense the waiter/owner was at fault, I guess.
For myself, I've been to Cafe Belge a number of times and been served by various people, and never once had anything but friendly service.
Hey ho.
|
We hadn't visited a Cafe Belge before, but we were pleasantly surprised with this. It is clean and comfortable if pricey, the staff efficient and helpful. Although the beer menu is quite extensive, there are few exciting rare beers there unfortunately, and we had to go through several to find a beer they actually had to sell, so the list is misleading, however still quite a decent place to go.
|
I visited recently whilst taking a break in Canterbury and thought Cafe Belge was excellent. I didn't realise it was a chain before I visited but would gladly go out of my way to visit one of the other restaurants they have. I read the poor review that "Bruceadams42" gave and thought twice about going as service like that is totally unacceptable, but luckily I had no such issues (maybe because none of my party were vegetarians!).
It was very quiet when we arrived around 7pm and made me feel a bit silly for booking a table as there was only one other group eating, but by the end of our meal it was packed. The "Cafe" part of the name in very visable with cheap plastic table cloths on all tables and quite an informal atmos. It would make an excellent place for a work party or a fun meal with a large group of friends but I don't think it's the sort of place you'd take your other half for a cosy valentines meal!
I thought the food overall was very good. There was a huge choice on the menu (and it's not just mussels). I went for a crispy duck salad as a starter and thought it was very good. The sauce was a little bland but the duck and salad were lovely. I followed this with Mussels in a thai-style broth with chillis, lemongrass, etc. This too was very good, and for under a tenner including a big bowl of french fries with mayo and bread was very good value indeed. If I was to levy some criticism I'd say the mussels could have been a bit bigger and there was a lot of empty shells mixed in. My dining companions had a Halibut special and a chicken dish. Both looked very nice and were served very attractivly.
For pudding I went for the Banoffee Mess which was also very good. A bit sickly but you wouldn't expect anything less!
The real stars of the show I guess though are the beers. I was amazed by the menu and I counted 119 beers on it. Only had 3 or so and I can't remember any of their names but one was a strange cider/champagne/lemonade thing which was quite interesting.
As far as service goes, I thought whilst it was quite informal, the waiters/owner/manager seemed very curteous and were well informed of the menu dishes and gave some good recommendations on the beer. If anything i'd say they were a bit over attentive as we were asked if everything was ok with our food at least 6 times - this is about 5 times too many!
Overall, I would go back and would recommend it to friends. I'm just glad i'm not vegetarian.
|
On 8th March my girlfriend and I decided to visit Cafe Belge in Canterbury with another couple who had highly recommended the restaurant to us. I must say that none of the four of us have ever received a service as rude and discourteous as we received at Cafe Belge.
We started the evening with the grave misfortune of being served by the restaurant owner who clearly lacks the necessary people skills required to echo the establishments "service and the ambience" that we were very much expecting.
To begin with my girlfriend who has a quiet and polite nature was finding it difficult to locate a suitable vegetarian option for her main course and in fact made no comment of this and was more than happy to settle for a salad. The restaurant owner made several attempts to make her feel extremely uncomfortable and was obviously annoyed that she had requested what he sarcastically referred to as �holy water.� Indeed if he was worried that my girlfriend did not offer a lucrative return on her highly valued seat he needed not have worried as there were three others on our table who were looking forward to tucking into mussels and experiencing the various beers on offer.
We ignored the rudeness and personal attack and decided to enjoy our Saturday night however this was made increasingly more difficult when our order was taken as there were further attempts to single out my girlfriend by firstly offering to produce any meal that she requested to then amazingly denying her the salad that she had requested. A very uncomfortable and rude ordering process took place where I was ready to leave however not wanting to ruin the joint night we again decided to stay.
Astonishingly yet another rude comment followed by the owner who again sarcastically asked if my partner wanted her salad before we had our main courses further singling out my partner and causing further distaste. Indeed at this point she was close to tears.
As bad as the evening had been initiated it was about to get immensely worse. As our main dishes came out, accompanied by a pathetic green salad for my partner, it transpired that the other lady on our table had received the wrong dish. Again no complaint was made just a request to amend the order for only for the same dish to be returned with the addition of some herb scrapings. Another request was made to add the correct ingredients when at last I was forced to complain to the restaurant owner via the waiter.
After I was able to itemise our grievances directly to the owner, after being told by the waiter that the sequence of events was merely a misunderstanding, the owner finally issued a reluctant apology to my partner. At this point however, as she unsurprisingly was not used to such confrontations, burst into tears. After refusing to leave us be the owner�s bad attitude amazingly worsened further leaving us with no option but to leave the restaurant though apparently we had also asked us to leave.
I must say that our company comprised of four well dress respectable adults who all have professional and responsible occupations. We approached the evening in our usual polite manner and were profusely shocked by the utter rudeness, arrogance and intended offensiveness of the owner.
After leaving the restaurant we decided to go to a nearby Italian restaurant and received Italian hospitality at its best that certainly rescued us from our plight in the Cafe Belge.
I have never and genuinely do not expect to ever receive the bad service that we had in the Caf� Belge at any establishment. It is astonishing to read the bold claims on the website though the one about his wife leaving him is quite understandable. My conclusion is by all means go to the Caf� Belge and enjoy the various beers and mussels on offer but be prepared for the owner. I sincerely hope that the rest of the staff does not follow his bad example as the restaurants fate is in their hands.
1 point for the bruge zot lager!
|
I enjoy Cafe Belge. My first was the one at Eastbourne. This one didn't thrill me in quite the same way - though that may be partly to do with first experience being the most impressive, or that this one is not in a large, airy and well-lit building near the sea-front. The service here, however, is excellent, and the automatic hand towel dispenser in the toilet is a cool plus. Beer range is the best in Canterbury, so - even if not a pub as people point out - it is a popular location for beer geeks in Canterbury. �10 for a huge portion of mussels, including chips and bread is excellent value for money.
|
An extremely fine restaurant. This is not a pub or bar. Thus in the same way one could have a beer in the evening at a pizza parlour one can also drink beer here too - very fine beer at rather steep (restaurant) prices. Still, it's probably the best place to eat in Canterbury. And it sells Delerium Tremens...
|
this is definitely not a pub. but they have a great selection of belgain beers. i have sampled as least 20 different to date. as part of thier reward program, when i get to fifty i get two free dinners. cant beat that. i was going to try them all anyway!
this is definitely my favorite place to eat in canterbury. the service there is the best i have found in england. they are very friendly and attentive. tow big thumbs up from this transplanted american.
|
"kiwimaj" has got it spot on - it's a restaurant that happens to sell belgian beer.
Their menu actually says that all mussel dishes are priced at �9.95, unless otherwise stated. Personally, I think it's overpriced - but hey, it is Canterbury.
I can, and do eat "mosselen met frieten en boerbrood" in Brugge for half the price! - 1/10
|
This is not a pub, it is a Belgian restaurant. But saying that, it is one of my fav eating out (and drinking) in Canterbury. The food is just simply a delight, we always have one of the '50 ways with Mussels' and at just under a 10er is good value, you also get chips and french bread. I would recommend the mussels in red thai curry. They have an amazing selection of beers and wines, their fruit beers on tap is highly recommended. I have been about 5 times, never ever been dissappointed. I believe they have a branch in Brighton as well. Well done to this wonderful place. Excellent service, good atmosphere and nice people. Not overly expensive generally, though some of the specialty beers can be a bit pricey.
I happily give it 10 out of 10
|
|
