Balthasar - Gland

Sometime I forget how good it is due to I can walk from home to Balthasar, it’s being in Gland for as long as I remember but new management took over a couple of years ago and push it from a traditional Swiss steak place into the best steakhouse in the region!! You need to book in advance to get a place as it is always busy.

The restaurant was taken over since I last came and I found it is an improvement. The food is very good, nicely served and the staff are friendly and efficient. The service is fast without rushing you and despite being full (must definitely book) it was not noisy nor did one feel overcrowded

Wow this place is popular! Tried to book yesterday for today 5:30 but the only time slot left is 3:30, and when we went there it was still packed. Lovely food and service, with a very friendly price. Would recommend 100%. It is in Covent Garden, so there are a lot of shops around too.

Jazz on Wednesday should be weekends aswell

Service was awful. They put seven of us at a round that would comfortably fit four to possibly five, even though we had reservations in advance. They squeezed us in in a back corner next to the big tray where you put dirty dishes, and they never cleared our already tiny table, so at least we had the tray next to us and could start busing our own table as beverages or other dishes arrived. We ordered caviar two separate times and then when it never came, they said we never ordered it even though he acknowledged it and pointed at the two people who wanted it when it was ordered (in addition to everyone at the table acknowledging we did and witnessing the whole conversation). There was another dish that didn't arrive, but since they were so firm about the caviar, we didn't even want to bother bringing it up to be told we never ordered it. They put our champagne across the larger aisle by another table, which is fine, but we had to go get up and walk over to that table and grab it from the bucket and bring it back to refill then return because they almost never came to us for water, bread, etc. they absolutely saw us clearing the table ourselves and didn't seem to care at all. I don't mind getting my own champagne or consolidating dishes, but I was up and bouncing back and forth we between the table, the bussing tray, and refilling people's champagne that I felt like I wasn't present with my family. This was lunchtime at 11:00am, right when they open, so I don't even know what I'd expect for a weekend dinner. I realize complaining about caviar and champagne already feels super pretentious. I suppose maybe all of the fanfare of what a great place it was set the expectation a little high. I still think it's strange for a place of that caliber to crunch a party of seven into a small table and also never really care about checking in on us or clearing the table that was already too small for us. Just felt like we weren't supposed to be there/were wanted. Eh. The entry was really pretty though.