Le Marais

I attended a grilling class earlier this month. Chef Mark was hilarious, thoughtful and quite helpful. Now Mark is my buddy; he comes out and says hello when I come in. The veal, the duck and the smoked short ribs are awesome. The atmosphere is noisy, but the place is nice. Comfortable seating and friendly staff. Love the scotch menu too.

Tourists in NY, we went to Le Marais for what we expected to be a very special meal. We ordered a veal chop medium rare. It came well done. When we pointed out the mistake to the waiter, he called the chef who insisted that this was the right way to eat veal! He was a bully. We were left with a very unsatisfactory meal. The other dishes we had were very ordinary. This is a zero star establishment.

I have gone to Le Marais many times. There are two problems that drag down the overall rating. First, it's VERY noisy and you cannot even hear the people at your own table. They should invest in some white noise reduction devices. The number one issue is service. It is poor and consistantly poor. I asked for a soda 5x and never got it. I asked for extra sauce and got it after I finished my steak. The steaks are very good but if I want good steaks and decent service, I will probably have to start going somewhere else.

Save your money. Go elsewhere if you want good service, good food, and good prices. The only thing this restaurant has going for it is the decor, which is drab at best. Charging high prices does not make it good. I have been taken to Le Marais many times, so I can review objectively. The service is slow. This is the only restaurant where I have sent my food back. Unfortunately, I have sent my food back numerous times. The food is either overcooked, dried out, or raw. Today we brought food into our office. I ordered a steak that was served raw. After an hour and a half, they sent a replacement steak (without any side dishes). The replacement steak was a different cut of meat and one quarter the size of the original. The meat was tough and once again inedible.

Starting off, do not go here for dinner. Or if you must, stick to Mondays! This place gets so incredibly crowded and loud at dinner, it really drops the pleasant atmosphere from off hours to a horrendous one at peak hours. Peak hours, its over crowded, no shoulder or leg room, not even elbow how they cram you into tables trying to fit everyone, and service is near non existent since they're literally running at times trying to keep up. In mornings it's extremely pleasant and you practically get the entire upstairs for yourselves, with very comfortable couch chairs. Food is pricey but as long as you dont get the steak frites, quite tasty. The bread is always cold though, takes like 15 minutes if you ask them for warm bread.

It's hard to understand why anyone likes the food here except that they think they're supposed to because it's "Le Marais" which has an unexplainable hype around it. The coq au vin tasted like a microwave meal and the mashed potatoes had the texture and flavor of powdered mashed potatoes from the box. The steak was way oversalted as well. The food wasn't just average, it was bad. The decor was incredibly boring and uninspired. Nothing French about it. We had a good waiter so from that one experience- the service was good.

Went there for dessert on a night out... A table there was so loud and obnoxious, but no one asked them to be quiet. I literally choked on the chocolate mousse when people at the next table started shouting, repeatedly. And when I told the management about the problem, he cut me off saying theres nothing he can do about it. Terrible management, tired service, and lackluster desserts