No go-er: L`esquisse

It was my intention to never send  any negative messages on this blog,  but I see it as my civil duty to warn people for this restaurant, because this restaurant (or bistro gourmand, as they dare to call themselves) crossed the line. Main problems of L'esquisse (7, Rue du Lac, Genève) are that they lost every reasonable sense of  a normal quality price relation and  that there is a ridiculous laziness in the kitchen.  I have to say that we had the "luck" that we went to eat here with the assiette genevoise card, so we only paid half price for the food, but still this was far too much.

As a starter we took nems filled with langoustines. We got 4 nems filled with a little bit of langoustine and vegatable. Next to that a few leafs of salad that were literally thrown on the plate and as "sauce" a sweet chilly sauce  that you can buy in every supermarket. And imagine that if you pay the full price you have to pay 28 CHF. As a cook you should be ashamed if you dare to sell such a poor dish for this price and as a waiter you should really train on your poker face to serve dishes like this without laughing the customers directly in their face. Apparently the cook has a problem with sauces because both our main plates didn't have any and a quick look at the menu told us that almost any plate had sauce with it. Maybe I didn't understand their "concept" but to me this smells like a lazy cook.

Well, as main course we both  took fish: Loup de mer and Sole. Respectively they cost at full price 52 CFH and 59 CHF. Well normally for astronomical prices like this, you would really expect something. But after the starters we already didn't have high expectations anymore. Well the loup was prepared quite okay, grilled in the oven with some herbes and still juicy. But too big for one person and it missed salt and inspiration. The sole my girlfriend took was dry and I doubt if it was really fresh fish and it was also far too much. The other things we found on the plate almost made me cry: Tasteless basmati rice and a mix of not well cooked vegatables.

After this we didn't even consider to take desserts and asked directly the bill. We paid 130 CHF (it also included a few glasses of wine that we drank as a substitute for sauce) but if we had to pay the full price, we would have to pay the ridiculous price of 213 CHF. So please rather burn your money......