Sabrina's Passions' review of Hache

I have only ever been to Hache a handful of times, largely because when I do get time on the weekends to eat there, the place turns into a Kid's nursery and the accoustics, coupled with the screams and loud yapping of other peoples little darlings, become just too much for me to cope with. The service has never been entirely friendly nor efficient, however they did always have one of the best burgers around.

I went back again yesterday and the restaurant was less than half full. We ask for a ‘comfortable’ table and the waiter looks at me and actually has the nerve to say “As you can see we are quite packed…” – which I thought was more than laughable, but I was in no mood to argue. Despite oodles of comfortable banquette seating in various sections of the restaurant, he plonks us down on literally the worst table he could find, sandwiched in between two large parties and, rather more annoyingly, a pillar. Great. Anything that we needed, included menus, ordering of food and drinks, condiments and extra napkins, we had to stop what we were doing to grab his attention as no doubt we would never have gotten to even see a menu!

I order my usual Catalan burger, which is a normal beef burger topped with Chorizo and chutney with a side of Hache ‘Frites’… And from what I can remember, the food was always good here. What arrived was anything other than good. Chewy, not crispy mock-frites and a beast of a burger cooked for much longer than needed for ‘medium’ was a big bland slab of dull grey meat. Not flavoursome, not tender and NOTHING like the burgers they used to serve. The Chorizo is now a cheap substitute for what used to be wonderful juicy sausage of proper cooking Chorizo and the bun was dry and hard and the smattering of flour on top of it made it even harder to swallow.

How utterly disappointing. The fact that the staff STOMP around like elephants on the wooden floors make it feel like you are at the summit of an earthquake, which does little to make you feel better. It seems the waiter has seated every other party of 2 at nice, plush banquette tables for 4 since we walked in, so perhaps his absent personality made a come back after we were seated. I can definitely tell you it may a come back when it was time to pay the bill. He is very lucky I paid service charge… I dont believe I should punish everyone just because 1 person had absolutely no interest in looking after us.