Cafe Belge, Canterbury

Good food but the staff kind of put me off. They ask for tips and also check your bill coz they just add the tips without asking permission. I had to call watch-dog and also wrote to Canterbury Council see if some inspector can check this matter. I also cantacted the Mystery Shopper industry.Its illegal what they are doing. The waitresses are foreigners and if they manager don't pay them good money its not our fault. She starting telling us about her wage and that she needed money... I don't care just dont cheat and add it on my bill without telling me. I do tip but in cash but not that way. So they put me off that day.

I want to enjoy a nice day out, eat good musels without having the staff to make me unconfortable at the end of my meal and begg for tips.

My wife and I went to Cafe Belge,Canterbury for the first time recently and I must say we were not impressed. It was around 8.30/9 pm and not particularly busy, the staff were pleasant enough but when it came to eating, the calamari was not cooked properly, still frozen in places,and that was just for starters. We complained and it was replaced. For the main course I had sea bass with a garlic sauce which was quite nice but my wife ordered a salmon fish cake which seemed to be more potato cake. We decided to leave the food and just enjoy the beer, however we were sitting near the kitchen when the chef came out....lets just say I'm glad we hadn't eaten much. In fact we wouldn't have eaten here at all had we seen him first-his long curly hair was not tied back, his clothing was filthy and he had trouble keeping his trousers up. We were both shocked and disgusted by the fact that he could of been cooking our food. Then to top it all, he sat down in the restaurant and was joined by others, drinking and being very loud and rude. At this point we got the bill and left sharpish. We have since found out that Cafe Belge has a low hygienic score on the door from the council, and to be honest we really are not surprised. Needless to say we will not be eating there again.

Cafe Belge is great good feel restaurant with great food and atmospere

Cafe Belge, Canterbury, is overpriced, lack of ambience and poor customer care. The food was nice but not memorable, the waitresses were unengaging and unwilling to move our table. we felt compelled to give the 10% tip which was added to the bottom of the bill even though we did not feel the service had warranted this. Would not recommend

It was not a busy evening at Cafe Belge, and the food was not bad. Lots of choice of beers, if that's what you want & the mussels were just about acceptable in my opinion. We thought the noise of the background music was so loud that we asked if we could have the volume reduced as we could not hear each other speak. The response felt to me like "if you don't like it, don't come here!" So we don't & we won't!

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 a member of staff who wasn't nice to us.

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 staff member seemed to make several attempts to make her feel extremely uncomfortable and was obviously annoyed that she had requested what was sarcastically referred to as ' holy water. '

We ignored the comment and decided to enjoy our Saturday night however this was made increasingly more difficult when our order was taken as there were further comments.

Astonishingly yet another rude comment followed by the staff member who again singled out my partner and caused 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 owner.

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 an 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 staff member ' 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 this staff member.

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. My conclusion is by all means go to the Caf Belge and enjoy the various beers and mussels on offer but be prepared if you meet the wrong member of staff...