Club Gascon

Thomas Holmes (1 January 2007)

It was my birthday and my girlfriend had booked the restaurant for that evening, hoping for something special (we love food from this part of France and had heard good things about the place).

It didn’t start well, having said to her that they would try to do something special for my birthday, when we were ushered to the table nearest to the door. We rectified this and then sat down to enjoy dinner.

The wine-list was fine, but very southwest centric (understandably). We thought over-priced for what it was and the sommelier’s choice was nice enough, but not for £55. Equally, sadly, the sweet wine recommended for the foie gras was not great. Disappointing. We would have liked a red burgundy, but it was not to be.

The menu is a little bizarre and does need to be carefully studied – the basic deal is that they expect you to buy three courses (excluding dessert), as the dishes are not very big. There are also no vegetables with the “main” therefore after the £15-20 for this course, a further £7-10 is required for vegetables.

Sadly, considering how good M. Thomasella’s foie gras is (we tried it in Auch and at his farm), we felt that they could have done much better with such good produce than the grilled foie gras and grapes – very uninspiring and not flash-fried in a hot enough pan.

Anyway, I could go on forever, but thankfully we didn’t. We left it at a shared starter and two main courses plus the vegetable dish, one glass of sweet wine, water, and a bottle of red. Total cost: £85/head. No dessert, not as many courses as recommended, no coffee, no Armagnac at the end… I.e. a very expensive meal for not a lot, we split it between us and are going to do a proper birthday meal at a better restaurant another time.

This establishment has been living off their city-clientele for far too long and is simply not good enough.

We recommend the Table d’Oste in Auch, about 35 euros a head and the best foie gras we’ve ever had!

M Fowler (6 October 2005)

My husband booked a table here for our wedding anniversary. The booking was made six weeks in advance and they cancelled two days beforehand - no explanation and no apology. Outrageous!