Petit Robert Bistro

We tried this restaurant for the first time and will never eat here again. Of the four people in our party, none of us enjoyed our meal and we ordered a variety of dishes...salmon, trout and short ribs. The short ribs were extremely bland and needed to be salted to be palatable. The salmon was very fishy tasting and also quite bland, with the trout being much the same. Even the julienned vegetables were unappealing. The lobster salad which we shared before dinner was also unappealing and quite small for $12.50. The waitress, while initially available, disappeared during the course of the meal, and we needed to ask several other staff members for help in getting our drinks refilled. All in all, we wish we had chosen another restaurant in Needham and will not return here again. more

Given it several tries since it is closest to home relative other comparable (e.g. Aquitaine Bis - Chestnut Hill). Positive: Food is decent, though not remarkable by far, kids menu is available which is a big plus. Negative: service and kitchen are really slow and appear to operate in a constant state of crisis. This appears to be true on any qiven day (Weeknights or week-ends). more

My husband and I were so ready for a nice evening out. We live right in Needham, and had never before visited Petit Robert Bistro. We honestly can't believe that we missed out on such a lovely restaurant for this long! more

It was the WORST experience we have ever had at a restaurant ? and we eat out a lot. At 9:50pm the manager came by to tell me that they were sold out of sole (I ordered the sole over 40 minutes ago). My husband and daughter had just been served their meals. The wine was half gone. She offered to make the dish with scallops (I do not eat scallops), salmon (I do not eat salmon) or halibut (I declined). Then she got snippy with me and said: ?You only eat sole??. What business is it of hers what kind of fish I eat? I ordered sole meunier and that is what I expected to get. Had they come back within a few minutes of my order and said they were sold out I would have been disappointed, but I would have ordered something else. To come back over 40 minutes after I placed my order and tell me I am out of luck and then give me attitude is totally out of order. My husband and daughter were enjoying their meals and I was hungry, tired (it was 10pm by now) and annoyed, and she was sassing me! I asked to see the menu and she brought it right away. Then she said: ?Whatever you want we will make it fast for you.?. I explained to her that I was not interested in fast food, to please take their time and make it right, I had waited this long and I wanted a good meal. I ordered the half chicken with some trepidation (you can?t cook a half chicken fast, unless you are trying to poison someone). She assured me it would be good. Everything on their menu takes time to cook. It is a French restaurant; that is the point, it takes time to cook the food properly. My chicken came out in about 10 minutes and it was dry and tasted like cardboard. I like my chicken moist and juicy (who doesn?t)? I got the impression that they either took the acetylene torch that they use to make the Cr?me Brule crispy and fast cooked (and in the process dried it out) the chicken, or it had been sitting under the lights for too long and had been destined as a staff meal after closing. I called her over and said that it was unacceptable. She again copped an attitude with me and I told her she was a bitch. Then she started crying and told me: ?You have ruined my evening!?. She then stomped off. The waiter was hiding in the kitchen. I have never had such poor service and seen such childish behavior in a manager in my life. I was wronged twice and this is how they behave! The owner was in the restaurant and he never came over to see if he could make things right. By now my husband and daughter were done eating. We asked for the check. They did not credit us for anything. I called her over again and she grabbed the check from me said it was all on the house and told us to get out! We still had a ? of an $85 bottle of wine that we intended to finish, so we sat there and finished it. As we did so, we observed several other patrons in a large party next to us complaining about the poor service and the mediocre food. Then several of the wait staff walked by shooting us dirty looks. By the way, our waiter came by and said that the manager is a bitch and is very unprofessional, and he hates working for her. I will never set foot in this place again, and I suggest everyone else avoid it like the plague. We eat out often, we are pleasant people, we order expensive wine and tip generously, and all we wanted was good food, good service and a nice night out. The only French food I had last night was the Stouffer?s French bread pizza I cooked when we got home at 11pm. This was the worst restaurant experience I have had in over 30 years of eating out. STAY AWAY from this place! Pros: Non Cons: Very, Very Poor Service more

Granted, I've never been to the Bistro's Kenmore location, but I've heard people rave about it. So I was excited to learn that one opened in Needham. What a disappointment! The service was obtrusive, very un-bistro like (after practically every bite, the server inquired ""How was it?""). The food was an even bigger letdown. It was served appallingly hot (I can't imagine any restaurant in France, big or small, ever serving food at that temperature), with the food clearly having been ""nuked"" together with the plate (the sauce all but melted into the porcelain). We had to face a dilemma -- either wait for the food to cool off (which at those temperatures would have taken a good 20 min.) or start blowing at it in a childish fashion and waive small pieces of it in the air, hoping to cool it down at least somewhat. We were starving, so we chose the latter. Most of the time, it would still be too hot and require dowsing with ice-cold water (to prevent mouth burns). As far as I could surmise from those few bites, the meat was underseasoned and the vegetables dried out. My dining companion had soup and fish, both of which were equally lackluster. Pros: Low prices Cons: Mediocre food, poor service more

I booked a table at Petit Robert Bistro for my wife's birthday (which happens to be on Valentine's day). This was a truly memorable experience. Our waiter was very fast and extremely polite and friendly. The food was delicious. We tasted the home made pates, lamb shank with white beans, liver and finished with a delicious fruit mousse desert. All the dishes were prepared with the same attention for detail, and the portions were perfect. This is definitely a hidden gem in the Boston suburbs that offers great French food like Brasserie Joe, but in a smaller and cosier setting. I am originally from France and this is probably one of the French restaurants around Boston that offers the best value for money and tastes just like home. Pros: Gourmet food, cosy ambiance more

Needham's Petit Robert Bistro bears no comparison to the Petit Robert in Kenmore Square. The setting is drab, the food preparation is dreary, and the service is poor. \r \r We ate there early in the evening and found the restaurant empty of diners but filled with staff hanging around and chatting with each other. We waited several minutes for attention from them and then had to interrupt our waitress's launch into a recital of the ""specials"" to ask for a drink. Even though there were two bar tenders and no customers in the bar section, it still took them nearly ten minutes to deliver our drinks -- a neat whisky and a gin martini, nothing fancy. Throughout our meal, as the restaurant half-filled, the wait staff continued to lounge around the room chatting enthusiastically with each other. One of the discussions we overhead centered around their amazement and dismay that the diners were families and middle-aged people, not the young rich people they expected! (Why?? -- it's Needham, not Beacon HIll!)\r \r The dreary food began with a single half-sized loaf of ""french"" bread with a very hard crust, an interior obviously heated by microwave, and a single pat of nearly melted butter in a too-deep dish. Every spoonful of the lobster bisque contained grit. The blue cheese that topped the romaine salad was in lime-sized lumps. A very over-cooked and tasteless mixture of green beans, onions, and carrots accompanied both the vegetarian dish and the steak dish. The ""poivre"" sauce for the steak was about 70 % onions, 25% thin sauce, and 5% poivre and the ""frites"" were tasteless and cold.\r \r I would not recommend this restaurant to anyone. Cons: Service, Food, Ambience more