Bistro Perrier Reviews

great experience for the price.

We were very excited about this new place having read all positive reviews. It was either their "night off" or the restaurant really needs to step up its game. The inside decor was very nice and welcoming. It is made to resemble a southern European plaza with a fountain and inside/outside tables. The wait staff looked professional and efficient. The food has a lot of room for improvement. French Onion Soup was about the only dish that had a well balanced taste and temperature. Monk fish was extremely rubbery and cold. The red mush it was sitting in reminded a quick skillet warmed tomatoes. Duck confit was hot and super salty. It was cooked right but did not taste as a duck at all. Side sausage was nothing special. We wanted to give a try to the desert provided they have a pastry shop next door. The ordered apple tart was very ordinary with a quite tough dough base. Not even close to French pastries. Overall - would not recommend or visit again. Prices were OK.

Going here was always on our to-do list....glad we got around to it . Four themed restaurant settings are offered and we opted for the international. So lovely ...it reminded me of a courtyard in Brussels. The students are learning here and get to experience both the back and front of the house. There is a $21 prix fixe menu with several offerings in an appetizer,entree and dessert course. There is also a special $8 cocktail menu. The students were eager and attentive as wait staff and the food was excellent. The menu changes every 9-10 weeks and the restaurant is closed for 2 1/2 months in the summer. Bonus- free parking! So glad we came and we'll be back !

Came here on the recommendation of our friends. We sat in the courtyard which was pleasant. The students were very attentive but discreet. A good choice of menu, food served plentiful and hot. As visitors from the UK we found these portions manageable unlike other places we have eaten at this week. A good selection of wines and cocktails. There are other restaurants to choose from and the pastry shop is worth a visit.

Absolutely charming restaurant where you are served by students and the food is prepared by students. Great menu and beautifully decorated

ambiance , grace, fine food & culinary arts students. The rooms are delightfully decorated. Main dining area is castle like. Menu is liberal & changes frequently. Food delicious. And free parking!!!

I went there with 3 friends and we had mixed reviews for the restaurant. I had the Buffalo Wings for my appetizer, which were average in taste. Nothing special. 2 of us had the Pork Chop in sauteed onions with on a bed of either lentils or black beans which was bland, little taste with the pork chop. The others had the rabbit which they said was good. I had the Passion Fruit Torte for dessert which was absolutely excellent. Can't rave enough about it, and would suggest to anyone to try it. It's very very good.

The premise of the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill is for students to get real time training in their areas of study. These students are trained in the art of fine dining and service. They are supervised by a maitre d type who is present but never intrusive. A man of obvious refinement. Depending on which area you dine, there is a prix fixe menu with 5 star selections which is reasonably priced per person. The wine list is impressive. Cocktails are very good. The interior spaces are beautiful and range from being able to, in my opinion dress business casual to being able to dress up. My daughter and I try to dine here at least yearly and would highly recommend The Restaurant School.

Students did a good job, clearly are very well trained but the food wouldn't be up there with my experience of fine dining. Solid effort for good value though.

This French restaurant is staffed by students who are very eager to please and to understand your needs and opinions. If you bring a date, or if this is a business meal, one needs to have one's sense of humor. Come for the food; it will not disappoint! Highly recommend; students are eager to answer any questions you may have about the wine list and dishes.

Great place to come to--affordable and good service from students

Excellent food in unusual surroundings. An old mansion with lots of interesting objects and exciting lighting. Loved it!

Great way to try gourmet meals at a reasonable price.

fun..very good

We recently dined with another couple at Bistro Perrier and really enjoyed the food, which was slow to arrive...coffee and desert took so long that we cancelled and ran out the door to be in time for a show at Annenberg. They are trying hard and learning but really need to catch up on the service side of a restaurant experience. The food was special and the environment very European...prices are reasonable for the quality of food.

I got dreadfully ill after eating here in the winter; the meat was undercooked; not much room for our group to move around ...we wanted to move some seats around and were told we could not. I would never take a chance on eating here again!

kids at this school needs extra tutoring.

Recently went for the Christmas buffet with friends. It was nicely done with a variety of appetizers, pasta, carving station (ham and turkey), chafing dishes and desserts. The beads pudding was outstanding. It was beautifully decorated for Christmas. All in all a nice evening.

Although not high on the tourist radar, a trip to the Restaurant School is worth considering. As a party of five, we recently went there for a birthday dinner. The meal was prix fix consisting of three courses at an incredibly low price. The quality and service by students attending the school were excellent. The menu was varied and the food delicious. Our party had monkfish, steak and a chicken dish for the main course. All got very high marks. In addition, they have a great selection of wines, beer and mixed drink that are reasonably priced.

We understood before going this is students cooking and serving so we were optimistic and excited. The servers were friendly but honestly the food was very disappointing and served lukewarm. We ate in the Italian restaurant. The menu was very limited and the pasta dishes needed more flavor. The Servers were courteous and filled your water often and served rolls individually. The atmosphere was decorated for Christmas and nice. Overall it was a nice experience but the food could use some improvement.

This is our "go to" to cakes and desserts! Excellent quality! The restaurant here is also very good, where you can get a three-course meal and wine for a very affordable price and great food!

You are fine here if you keep in mind that the lion's share of staff are College students being taught the gastronomic ropes at Walnut Hill College. So, if you expect subtle, expert explanation of themes from experienced people who've been there and done that, you must lower those explanations. The somelier, head chef and our main server were experienced hands, but the rest of the folks were bubbly, effusive and over-explained everything. Again, they were really just learning their lines and they had that Sophomoric (or Junior or Senior) student thing going, so it is unfair to slam them on that. So what if they juggled the (endless) pieces of bread brought to table because they were trying to handle those delicious morsels in the "traditional" style with spoon and fork rather than more modern implements? So what if a stream of young people paraded to table to ask over and over again if our experience was going well? Again, this can be annoying if you don't tailor your expectations. What is not annoying is the food. Flavors, appearance of food and aromas are wonderful and very complex as the chefs, teachers and students strive for incredibly unique themes and pairings of food. I might turn the complexity down a notch if I were cooking, but remember in a teaching environment the chef is prodding the students to learn as many varieties as possible. My smoked chicken empanadas were excellent appetizers with a little sweetness to the dough and fine chicken. These were certainly, to my taste, the rival of the far more expensive empanadas served at Jose Garces restaurants including his newest venture in Atlantic City. My wife and I did feel the sauce could have been a little hotter and should have stuck more readily to the empanadas instead of sitting there relatively unseparated. My wife's beef tartar appetizer was also fine. My wife, (Barbara)'s Onion Cordon Bleu Sumac main course also could have been a little warmer but that is a tricky proposition because you don't want the mustard cream sauce to curdle and you do have the students watching every step of the process, eagle eyed, as these dishes are prepared and plated. Once again, there is the tension (if you want to call it that) between detailed instruction and perfection of presentation. But once again, the flavors were awe-inspiring and we would have received the clean plate award if they were awarding such a thing. Actually, Barbara did hold back on finishing the Cordon Bleu as she wants to incorporate it into an omelet this morning. My main course braised beef ravioli was just about the best I ever had. Finally, the Baklava with pistachio sauce, jam and cardamon dessert was amazing. Again, it must have been amazing because, as our server explained, it took a long...very long time to arrive at our table because students were dissecting the very complicated process of it's preparation. This was a dish that they (and we) (and most people) never saw before and might never see again. Portions are not large (fine with us), pours on the Jack Daniels are not robust (fine again) but prices are unbelievably reasonable considering the gourmet quality and the UPENN area location. Two terrific appetizers, two fine main courses, a great dessert, two Jack Daniels and one Beaujolais Nouveau, all for $90 before tip. There are several rooms to dine in. We ate in the central room, the "European Courtyard", There is a French Room and Italian Room and an American Mainstream Room. These rooms and the central courtyard look like they were designed by the folks who designed Le Parissiene in Las Vegas or the Venetian in that city or the Quarter at the Tropicana in Atlantic City. Depending on the night and who is in the kitchen you can dine off the main menu in any of the rooms or sometimes have theme-centered menus unique to that room. (For example, all kinds of pasta varietals in the Italian Room. Call in advance to see what's shaking. Dinner concluded, we enjoyed a tour from an extremely exuberant Senior who we are sure is off to great things when she graduates. The bakery tour was great and, as to the tour of the main kitchen, the aromas could have held us there all night. This is not an everyday experience, but as mentioned, if you customize your expectations and love food, you will probably love going there at least once.

What a great place close to Penn. I was surprised by the slim pickings of nice restaurants in the area. This place was great, with fantastic ambiance and food. Good for date night, or a Tuesday night!

Loved it! Ate in the middle room, can't remember the name. The students were wonderful. I am looking forward to going back.

I attended the Christmas buffet. It was magnificent. Not only was the decor exquisite, but the food was delicious and by a hospitable student waitstaff who were more than receptive to any comments, questions or suggestions. I ate in the room that they call the Italian Trattoria, for obvious reasons. It was exquisite with many holiday lights draped from above and wrapped around the trees to create a peaceful and warming ambiance. And so creative. The decor had a creative touch. Now to the food: there were 6 stations: appetizer, antipasta, salad, meat, main course, dessert/flambe. There were no bad dishes. My personal favorites were the brisket and coq au vin. The mashed yams made me discover the true meaning of light, fluffy and soft and the best I have ever experienced. Other notable food items were the desserts and the bread. I ordered the flambe for dramatic effect and the taste left no room for the weak minded. The wine selection is respectable. I had a very nice glass of Clos du Bois and Cabernet Sauvignon. Both were quite nice and paired well with their respective foods. Next time I would like to try the Beaujolais. It is a nice French grape. If you have any questions, speak with Eric. He will prove to be a wealth of information and very charming. By dessert, I was satiated but somehow managed to fit in a pistachio petit four and chocolate truffle after I asked for the flambe. Really a fantastic experience. The students are so eager to learn and are unpretentious that it only adds to all of the breath taking beauty and entertainment of fine dining. Be sure to visit the white room and the pastry cafe on your way out.

This is a critique of our dining experience last night - Wednesday, 3/26/08. On the plus side, the European courtyard setting was very unique and quite appealing. Some background music may have been nice, but overall we definitely enjoyed the ambiance. In addition, our server did a nice job. However, there were several disappointing aspects that should be noted. For example, the pedestrian enriched white flour rolls were less than impressive. They really should do better at a restaurant school. The first thing they serve their guests to eat should be unique - not something a customer can expect at any diner. Check out the bread bowl at the William Penn Inn by comparison. Are whole grain rolls so hard to come by? Why is the bread loaf at the Outback Steak House more engaging than what is served at the Walnut Hill Restaurant School? My companion's soup was very good and it filled the bowl. However, I ordered the shrimp, endive salad appetizer. It was tasty - but the serving size was inadequate. And the skimpy portion was even more apparent on a large dish. Plus my salmon entree was unexceptional. There was NOTHING noteworthy about it sauce wise. So I had to ask for some lemon slices. And the lack of any sort of creative, side dish starch was disappointing. Again, the lonely piece of fish with a little bit of spinach seemed even smaller on a large dinner plate. They should have beeen embarrassed about sending such a skimpy, uninspired meal out of the kitchen. By comparison, my ladyfriend's sole entree was generoulsy sized. But it arrived at our table in a luke warm condition. She said she would have sent it back - if not for the fact that we had waited so long for our our meal that she was too hungry to wait any longer. Lastly, while our dessers tasted very good, the two spoonfuls of ice cream served with my apple tart was pitiful. So all in all, the European Courtyard Restaurant has a lot of potential. The food isn't bad, and the service is good. But we were a bit disappointed by trhe overall experience instead of being impressed.

We were a party of six. Everyone enjoyed their meal. I would agree that the presentation was lacking - at a culinary school they should at least be able to make things look appetizing. We tried the barley soup (sounds boring -looked boring -but was very good,) pumpkin soup,warm mushroom salad, monkfish, hangar steak, chicken and turkey. All very good but would say that it seemed as if they cooked one potato to share between 4 dishes. We had the torte della noona and crepes for desert and were excellent. Corn Ice Cream was intriguing! Service was slow but we were enjoying ourselves so it didn't matter.

With a group of five students I ate at the restaurant School. The greeting was professional and friendly. The servers were relaxed and with a good sense of humor. Food all around was from good to excellent. The room is large and well-spaced so we could carry out a conversation and hear each other. When we wanted a group picture one of the students happily assisted and was willing to take more pictures in other locations. Finally, the price was very reasonable; actually cheap.

The pastry shop is separate from the restaurant and has different hours. It is open in the mornings for breakfast... Outstanding selection of muffins,croissants, breads, etc. It was our 1st time visiting and I like my fresh breads with coffee. After terrific selection for breakfast we couldn't resist buying some treats for dessert that night. Our dinner party guest were very impressed with the creative and yummy deserts.

Years ago I used to have dinner quite frequently at the Restaurant School and was never disappointed. This came to mind when we planned a dinner outing and I suggested same. Off we went for an early dinner. Parking was available and there was plenty of seating, though we reserved a table beforehand. We had the three course pre fix menu at $25 in their international restaurant and enjoyed what we ordered. I especially liked the Pulpo appetizer, butter soft and delicious. My coq au vin did not disappoint, the chicken skin was crispy, how do they do that? The desssert was a little tartlet. I enjoyed the rolls with my meal as they were baked inhouse. Could not get enough of them. All in all worth the visit. My glass of Cahors was excellent at $8. From what I understood all staff are students, supervised by their teacher in all aspects, from the cooks to the wait staff. We were also told that there will be a Christmas Buffet pre fix from December 1 - 23, served throughout all of their different restaurants. Certainly something we will keep in mind. They decorate beautifully and the ambience was lovely. We enjoyed our stay - once more.

We visited because it was convenient to our hotel and we ended up really enjoying our meal. The interior is really unique and beautiful as it’s made to look like a French village. The menu is partially in French but servers are willing to translate and explain. Food was quite delicious. No problem getting a table at dinner time on a Wednesday- in fact there were only three groups including us there when we dined. The service was a bit slow but we didn’t mind as we enjoyed the ambiance.

The food was good, disappointed the course meal was not available for lunch, that part is not clear on the website. The choices are from a board in the terrace and they bring out your food. I'm not a fan of eating with plastic ware, but the value was good, just not what I expected.

They do go crazy filling your water glass and honestly it gets annoying after awhile but the meal and service are fantastic!

Fun, and nice ambiance, but the food isn't great.

I've been here 15 years ago and it stills a very nice place with good food! I had lunch and dinner - a large tuna wrap with fries only cost 4 bucks! At dinner, for 21 dollars you have entree, main course and dessert - all served by well trained staff. The place looks like a small villa, very pretty.