Le Berceau Des Sens - Lausanne

The BdS is always magnificent, but Chef Lucrèche, a newcomer for 4 months, brings a fine, innovative, fresh, tasty, original touch. The rest and the EHL school remains a bath of happiness from A to Z. In short, we want more :

Much as I like to encourage education, after last night's dinner at Le Berceau des Sens, I would only recommend it if your child was a student there. First, once we got to the EHL building, there was very little signage for the restaurant was very difficult to find until someone took pity on us and guided us there. (Hint: it's on the 3rd floor, good luck finding the right elevator. Once there, it was hugely disappointing, especially given the Michelin and Gault Millau accolades. Nice and eager to do the correct thing as the students were, the service was just terrible, and the apprentice staff were clearly very poorly managed. Once seated, it took at least 20 minutes to get a menu; the sommelière-in-training kept forgetting which wine we ordered. Our entrees arrived nearly an hour after we sat down. On finding that a server had given us the wrong tableware for the dishes, they whisked it away and we could see several conferring for 10 minutes to figure out which we were to have. After the entree, the main dishes took another 45 minutes, despite our asking several students and finally the man who seemed to be the manager what the problem was. No one spontaneously checked in with us about the long delays. There was a constant crowd of servers walking to and fro, but with little productivity to show for it. The food, once it came, was visually appealing, but the flavor mediocre. (I've never seen dry foie gras before, I don't even know how that's possible. It really seemed as though no one had bothered with practice sessions for these young people before throwing them into the dining room. It looked as though they were learning on the spot. Not only did we end up feeling we were the lab rats, but had to pay a lot for the experience. I'm really sorry to dump in the students, I think the blame goes to the teachers/managers. It was quite a waste of time and money.

We had a lunch on Monday which is the first day for most students working in the restaurant. It was a great pleasure to watch stressed students making mistakes. I believe it is a part of the experience. The food is expected for a Michelin 1 start restaurant. I highly recommend Voile d'encornet. Actually I don‘t remember many details after 4 glasses of wind. The wind selection was so good.

We had been to Berceau des Sense on three previous occasions, but all before they secured one star in the Michelin guide. We returned in Nov. 2021 for a wedding anniversary dinner and this time opted to eat à la carte. The prices have risen quite steeply since the award of the star,but that's to be expected. Our starters grilled octopus, frog legs, sashimi de St. Jacques were good to very good, with the frog legs standing out. My daughter's mallard duck dish was good, but my turbot main course was somewhat under seasoned. The fish was cooked precisely, but the truffle crust and sauce were a little bland.. we had a bottle of Chateau l'Evangile 2015 that was truly sublime and worth every centime. Service here is by the students of the hotel school so you may experience some ups and downs. What was less positive was the issue with finding a suitable parking (the old restaurant parking not being available) and an avoidable error with the bill which we pointed out (being charged seven mains and four starters instead seven starters and four mains) and which at that level should not happen,,,,,

We went with no expectation to the restaurant of the Ecole hôtelière but it was an amazing surprise: great food, great service. We could talk to the students and we even visited the kitchen! It is really a place to go either with your family or business partners but be warned that you have to make a reservation.