Auberge Lou Courtal des Vidals - Fitou

Our visit to this Rstaurant started well, we were almost 30 minutes early from our booked time. cordial and very friendly staff have provided us with an enormous self-service buffet for starters as well as a very extensive main menu. Deserts were good and... the waitress wouldn't have done for us anymore.

Everything was sociable and everything tasted very good. Great wines to boot. We had an amazing grilled lamb, and my friend ordered vegetarian salad. And both were at the top of their categories.

This place gets a good a good write up so we thought we’d try it. Went in the night before and booked a table for 7.30pm. Arrived on time only to find that the local wine club awards were going on. Half an hour later...they were still going on and there was now a massive queue of people outside the restaurant who had booked and were left waiting in 37 deg heat. Finally, we were let in 45 minutes late and were shown to our table, but not given any menus or offered any drinks. After waiting another 10 minutes we just left. Why bother to book tables out when you have no intention of letting people in as you have another function on and then can not cope with the number of people who all need to be seated and served at the same time?

We booked the restaurant in person a couple of days before. We booked for 7.30 pm. We arrived on time with about 50 other diners. There was a ceremony going on in the restaurant. The staff were just standing around no one apologised or...explained. Eventually at 8.15 the ceremony ended and 100 people were seated at the same time. We were shown to a inside table in an air conditioned room with the doors open all very hot. We realised quite quickly that we were not going to be served any time soon and left without eating. We were very disappointed as the restaurant was highly recommended. I don’t think we will bother to try again!

We were very much looking forward to our meal here but left feeling very disappointed. The service is amateurish at best. We love to sit for hours in a restaurant but when a lot of that is just waiting for your order to be taken or your wine to arrive or someone to bring the salt it wears a bit thin. So, the best bet here is the set menus that have a buffet starter and dessert with a choice of main course. Theres plenty of food but my issue is one of sacrificing quality over quantity-. Its all pretty dull and mediocre fair - even the specials ( terrine and cod which were less than average, my 13 year old could have done better). The price we paid was 28.50 euros per head plus wine and soft drinks fir the kids. In a harvester we'd have paid less than half of that for better food. As for the ambience and the old boy with the saxaphone - nowhere to be found. Dont bother with this restaurant on your holiday .