It seems like everyone is talking about Les Grands Buffets de Narbonne, but is this Guiness World Record-holding restaurant in France actually worth it? And what about for vegetarians?
I recently ate at Les Grands Buffets de Narbonne and I have a lot of thoughts about my meal at France’s most famous (and hardest to reserve!) buffet restaurant. Some parts of my dining experience were good, some things were okay, and a few moments left me scratching my head wondering if what I’d just seen was real.
In this review of Les Grands Buffets de Narbonne I will dedicate a small section to my experience specifically as a vegetarian, including a comprehensive overview of exactly what vegetarian items are on the buffet. However, the majority of this review will apply to omnivores and meat-eaters as well, as I will go into detail about my experience arriving at the restaurant, the service I received, the timing of the meal, and also the meat, seafood, poultry, desserts and drinks that I noticed during my visit.
Disclosure: I paid in full for my lunch at Les Grands Buffets and didn’t inform the staff that I was a blogger. This is an unbiased review.
What is Les Grands Buffets de Narbonne?
Les Grands Buffets de Narbonne is the most famous all-you-can-eat buffet in France (and possibly in all of Europe). It’s been around for years, but the rise of social media introduced the restaurant to a global audience, who were entranced by videos showing the restaurant’s lobster tower, world-record-holding wall of cheese, foie gras buffet, caviar station and ice cream room.
Nearly all of the dishes at Les Grands Buffets are French in origin, and many are either taken from, or heavily inspired by, a cookbook written by Auguste Escoffier in the early 1900s. The dining rooms are equally classic, with four elegant indoor dining spaces and a seasonal outdoor dining garden.
Making a Reservation at Les Grands Buffets de Narbonne
The #1 thing you need to know about making a reservation at Les Grands Buffets in Narbonne is that you need to book early, especially if you’re visiting in high season. If you’re thinking about going, first read this whole review, then book on their official website ASAP.
The #2 thing you need to know about reserving at Les Grands Buffets is that you can’t just do it on your phone while you’re waiting for the bus – it takes about 30 minutes to go through the multi-step reservation process, which is entirely in French. It’s easier to make your reservation on a computer rather than on your phone.
With that in mind, I wrote a separate guide to making a reservation at Les Grands Buffets. I wrote it several months before I visited the restaurant, right after I made my reservation. Read that guide and book your table as soon as you know (or even think) that you’ll be in Narbonne.
How to Get to Les Grands Buffets in Narbonne
Les Grands Buffets is located just south of the center of Narbonne, in a recreation center shared with a swimming pool, bowling alley and paddel court (in case you want to burn off all those calories after you eat).
From my accommodation in central Narbonne it was a twenty-minute walk, or a five-minute taxi ride, to the restaurant. If you’re coming from the train station, both Bus #10 and Bus #15 make the trip in ten minutes or so. The free shuttle Citadine #2 also connects the city center to the parking lot adjacent to the restaurant.
If you’re staying in Narbonne overnight the restaurant recommends Hotel du Midi, which is the closest hotel to the restaurant. However, just a few blocks further away there are much nicer options, like Hotel La Residence and Hotel Le Mosaique.
Arriving at Les Grands Buffets de Narbonne
Although the restaurant has a broadly-interpreted semi-formal dress code, don’t expect a red carpet, valet parking and a doorman. Instead, you enter through the atrium of the recreation center, passing through a whole-body disinfectant sprayer before you can access the interior of the restaurant. Note that there is nothing stopping you from simply walking around the machine, or walking through very quickly (so quickly, in fact, that the nozzles don’t have time to activate…).
At the time of my visit the lobby was undergoing renovations, so travelers had to stand outside in the heat (during a record heatwave) or pay for a drink in the basement bowling alley pub until showing themselves upstairs to the entrance. Entrance was then through what appeared to be temporary shipping containers converted into a reception area.
You then proceed through a number of queues. After the general queue, you then move into a queue for the dining room that you’ve selected. When your turn comes, you are then invited into the restaurant, where you queue again for the hostess stand. Eventually the hostess confirms your reservation in the system and has a second hostess take you to your table. You can speed up this process by bringing the QR code that is sent by email the day before – either printed or on your phone is fine.
For a sense of timing, my reservation was at 13:30. I arrived at 12:55 and since it was too hot to wait outdoors, I had half a beer in the pub before going upstairs at 13:22. It took me nineteen minutes of queuing to be seated at 13:41, and then another fifteen minutes before I was able to place a drink order and be released to the buffet. In other words, I lost about 1/6th of my allocated three-hour reservation to queuing.
In a lot of circumstances I wouldn’t mind queuing, but the issue at Les Grands Buffets is that they begin closing the buffets during service. They close the appetizer buffet at 15:15, the hot dishes at 15:30 and the the desserts and cheese at 16:15. If your reservation is at 13:30 but you can’t even walk over to the buffet until 14:00, you’ve lost about a quarter of the time you’re allowed to be serving yourself food. (Dinner closures are 22:30, 23:00 and 23:45, respectively.)
The workaround here is obviously to book one of the earlier seatings rather than the later seatings, but I have my doubts about whether solo diners can ever book early seatings. I booked eight months in advance for a weekday and could only select from 13:30 or 13:45. Today, I’d have to book sixteen months in advance to get a table at 12:30, the earliest time I can find.
Tables at Les Grands Buffets
I made my reservation in January for a lunch seating in August. At that time, two of the five dining rooms still had availability: the Max Verrier room (shown at top) and the Ann Carrington room. With no context I booked the former, and found myself seated in a dark, wood-paneled room with a crystal chandelier and some decorative palms.
I poked around in some of the other rooms on my way out, and what I would say that is that Max Verrier runs on the darker side (better for hiding all the cheese you’re going to eat) while the Salon Doré Jean de la Fontaine and the Tente Apparat Jean Baptist (also shown above) were very bright (better for anyone with vision difficulties or kids who might need help with their food).
I do mention this in my guide to reserving at the restaurant, but I highly recommend that you choose one of the indoor dining spaces, not the Jardin Hervé di Rosa. There are about ten warnings throughout the booking process that in cases of rain, wind or snow, garden reservations may be unilaterally cancelled with no notice. On the day of my visit the garden was open, but it was sweltering at the outdoor tables due to the heat and humidity. I can’t imagine a plate of cheese would have survived more than a minute or two out there.
Les Grands Buffets de Narbonne for Vegetarians
Before I made my reservation, I checked the official website for Les Grands Buffets. There, they promised, “The restaurant Les Grands Buffets offers a large amount of products suitable for a vegetarian person.” Or, in French, it said, “Le restaurant Les Grands Buffets propose une grande quantité de produits pouvant convenir à une personne végétarienne.” Emphasis mine, but that sounds promising.
The next thing I did was read the online menu. It listed very few vegetarian dishes, so I assumed that it was incomplete. I figured that the vegetable dishes just didn’t have fancy names like “foie gras creme brulee with port sauce” and “veal sweetbread vol-au-vent with morels”, so they didn’t bother featuring them on the website. Or at least, that was what I hoped.
I then searched reviews on TripAdvisor and Google Maps for mentions of “vegetarian” and even “vegetables”, but nothing came up in my search. Later, when I was reading older reviews, I found a small number of reviews mentioning meatless options, with some saying the selection was great and others critical of the limited selection.
So, what was actually available for vegetarians at Les Grands Buffets?
Three Cooked Vegetables
I wish I was joking, but I’m not. When I couldn’t find the rest of the cooked vegetables I asked the staff where to find them, and they confirmed that Les Grands Buffets serves exactly three cooked vegetables: mushrooms, potatoes (two ways) and green beans. The mushrooms and roast potatoes are on the regular buffet, along with plain rice. To get the green beans and potatoes dauphinoise you can skip the line at the meat station (confirmed by staff) to go to the service counter, where a member of staff will serve you these intended garnishes.
Scrambled Eggs with Truffles
The only source of cooked vegetarian protein that I could find was the station doing soft-scrambled eggs with cream and black truffles. They were good and you can see them in the middle of my plate above.
The Salad Bar
If you want to fill up on crudités, there is a salad bar that includes mostly organic vegetables. There was nothing interesting on the salad bar, and as I’d lost the first half hour of my reservation in the queue, I skipped it. There’s no self-service bread but I had a basket with three slices of baguette on my table when I arrived; they would have refilled it if I’d eaten all three slices.
Three Amuse Bouches
The appetizer section also had three vegetarian amuse bouches (amuses bouche? amuses bouches?). There was a cold tomato soup, a singular cherry tomato stuffed with goat cheese, and a goat cheese mousse with cucumber and dill. Near the amuse bouches there was some fig jam and onion jam intended to be served with meat, but I ate it on my bread and it was the highlight of my meal.
The Record Holding Largest Cheese Buffet in the World
Can a girl live on cheese alone? At this restaurant, the answer is yes. Les Grands Buffets de Narbonne holds the Guinness World Record for the largest cheese selection in a restaurant, with 111 varieties of cheese available to sample. I’ve previously done several wine and cheese tastings in Paris, but this was on another level.
I saw a Instagram post from one of the judges on Master Chef Canada, and she said that she tried 65 different types of cheese during her visit the restaurant. Personally, I started with a plate of twelve varieties and didn’t feel the urge to go back for more afterwards. If you already know which cheeses you love then you’ll certainly find them here, or you can do what I did and choose random cheeses you’ve never heard of and hope for the best.
You do have the option of taking a small label for each cheese that you sample, so that you can make note of which of the 111 cheeses you like, and which you don’t ever want to try again.
Desserts at Les Grands Buffets in Narbonne
I sampled quite a few of the desserts and some were definitely better than others. The two standouts for me were the tarte tropezienne and one of the chocolate tortes (specifically the one shown above). I also enjoyed the frozen coconut sorbet from the ice cream shop. Some of the desserts were definite misses, like the flavorless rice pudding and the soggy macaron.
Non-Vegetarian Foods at Les Grands Buffets
So maybe you’re traveling with an omnivore and you want to know what they can expect at Les Grands Buffets. As a vegetarian I didn’t eat these dishes, but they are definitely what the restaurant is best known for.
The lobster tower (plus crabs and other shellfish)
Oysters
Caviar served with blini and cream
Roast beef carving station with sauce au poivre
Self-service hot appetizers including frogs legs, cassoulet and wild boar stew
Assorted ham legs to shave as you please
The photos above represent only a small number of the non-vegetarian dishes available at Les Grands Buffets. They’re mostly just the ones I could photograph without other customers, out of respect for their privacy.
I haven’t eaten meat in 22 years so I don’t know what half the stuff I saw was (for example, I freaked out when I saw “civet in its blood”, but apparently in France that refers to a game stew, not a cute kitty cat). What I can say is that the menu on the website is comprehensive and accurate. If it’s on the menu you can expect to find it, and if it’s not on the menu (like, say, vegetables…) then don’t expect to be pleasantly surprised.
Drinks at Les Grands Buffets
The way that Les Grands Buffets works is that you pay online at least thirty days in advance for your meal, and then you only pay for drinks on the day you visit.
The restaurant is known for having an extensive wine list, and they advertise that they sell the bottles at the same price as you would get directly from the producers’ cellars, with no extra mark-up. They also have a selection of wines by the glass, bottled water, cocktails, spirits and soft drinks.
I had a glass of local red wine with my “main courses” (and I use the term loosely), then their signature champagne-strawberry cocktail with my desserts. I also had a bottle of still water. The total cost for all three drinks was a very reasonable €15, which was payable at the table before departing.
I got the impression the restaurant does a steady business in selling cases of champagne, as I saw many tables leaving with large shopping bags filled with six bottles. There was a card on my table mentioning something about this, but it was only in French. Another table in the restaurant took pity on this poor Canadian vegetarian eating alone and kindly gifted me a bottle of the house champagne. 💕
Service at Les Grands Buffets
This is where I struggle. Right off the bat, the experience of queuing multiple times and being passed around between multiple greeters and hosts was annoying. I don’t believe that’s appropriate to leave a solo diner waiting for a drink menu for fifteen minutes while you clear other tables and stand around chatting with other guests. I always try my best to speak French when I’m in France, but even after asking my server to speak more slowly in the noisy restaurant environment she continued to speak more quickly to me than to the adjacent tables of native French speakers, presumably to make a point.
I had another incident at the cheese buffet where I took one of the large plates from the center of the buffet (near the meat) to serve myself cheese, since again there were only three cooked vegetables, rice and salad that I could eat! A server then told me I wasn’t allowed to use that plate at the cheese counter, made me hand it back (again, I’d touched it) and put it back in the pile for meat eaters. I tried to politely explain that as a vegetarian I was hoping to eat more cheese and he told me that I could only have a small plate. I didn’t see other people piling plates high with crabs, lobster, caviar and foie gras being policed that way, and I was a bit offended.
Adjacent to the service, the hygiene practices here were definitely far below the Canadian standards that I’m used to. For example, I saw one man shaving ham for himself, but he dropped the ham shavings on the floor. He then used the tongs to pick up the ham off the floor, putting the meat and the tongs back in the food service area. That was just one of several incidents I saw that made me feel a bit squeamish and I think it’s a result of too many customers being crammed into too small of a space with too few employees who are there to actually help customers.
Is Lunch or Dinner Better at Les Grands Buffets?
I personally think it’s better to go to Les Grands Buffets for lunch, rather than for dinner.
I didn’t eat any of the meat, poultry or seafood that the restaurant is famous for, and I still left feeling like I was done eating for the day. I would have been uncomfortable if I’d gone to sleep shortly after eating that much indulgent food, so I was glad that I had the afternoon to digest and hydrate before going to bed that later evening.
A 2025 study also confirmed what many people have intuitively known for years – that eating too much cheese before bed can cause nightmares. I don’t know how much cheese the study’s participants ate before bed, but I’m guessing it was less than 111 different varieties. If you don’t want to dream of being attacked by a vengeful lobster tower, lunch looks like an even better choice.
Other Dietary Restrictions at Les Grands Buffets
If you’re a vegan you absolutely will not get your money’s worth at this restaurant. You’ll also probably be disgusted by all the meat on vivid display. Even I was a bit squeamish seeing some of the carving stations. I ate at a lovely restaurant in the city center called Compose It that does a beautiful vegan plate each day for lunch and I promise you that you will enjoy your meal a million times more there than if you went to Les Grands Buffets.
If you follow an organic diet the restaurant advertises that most of their meatless ingredients are organic, and it’s possible to piece together a completely organic meal. However, you might be put off by the machine that sprays you with disinfectant as you enter the restaurant, so consider if you’re willing to pass through that to reach the buffet.
For people who follow a gluten-free diet, I’ve heard the experience can be hit-or-miss. There’s a pretty significant risk of cross-contamination, and I’ve heard that the staff err on the side of caution by warning you about what you probably shouldn’t eat, rather than by confirming what you definitely can eat.
Les Grands Buffets does not serve halal meat, so if you eat halal then you’d probably want to stick to the vegetarian dishes I’ve highlighted above, along with maybe the seafood that aligns with your values (I’ve read frogs legs are off-limits?).
I’ve never seen this on a menu before, but the restaurant clearly indicates that they also do not offer discounts for guests with a bariatric sleeve. There are also no discounts for children, even if all they end up eating is plain rice and the chocolate fountain.
Is Les Grands Buffets de Narbonne Worth It for a Vegetarian?
No, it’s not. When I booked my lunch at Les Grands Buffets I took them at their word that they would serve a large assortment of vegetarian dishes. That is not true, and you won’t leave feeling as though you’ve eaten a proper meal. You might be full from eating bread, cheese and desserts (and potentially from drinking a lot of champagne) but your €65.90 didn’t buy you a real lunch or dinner.
If you’re not a vegetarian, you can look at my photos of the non-vegetarian food and kind of decide for yourself if it’s worth it. Definitely try to secure one of the earlier seatings, as I can’t imagine how rushed I would have been if I’d had to queue for pressed duck and roast beef after already losing 30+ minutes of my reservation to the queue.
If there’s anything you’re still wondering about after reading this review, feel free to pop over to my Facebook page and the post about this review. You can leave a comment on the post and I will answer it the next time I’m online.
If you’re visiting Narbonne, check out my guides to these nearby destinations:
🎨 The Best Things to Do in Collioure, France
🖼️ The Best Things to Do in Figueres, Spain
🪻 The Perfect One-Week Provence Itinerary
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