La cantine des grands - Nancy

What an atmosphere! Light and fun decoration, superb service and excellent food. We both had fish and they were cooked to perfection, as was the rice, potatoes and luscious sauces. There was very good live music from 2 singers & guitar players. They even did a little mock-version of Champs-Elysees to amuse us tourists. It was a great evening out and very well-priced for what we got. The snow falling out from the floor-to-ceilling glass windows where the icing on the cake!

Nice to have dinner because of the concept. Price quality was in balance. We had a great evening! Visited with 2 kids.

We found a couple of good looking restaurants locally but the website for one said it was closed for the holiday and the other was closed for the same reason when we got there. Walking a little further we chanced upon La Cantine des Grands, just off the canal, which looked promising but had no customers in so we took our chances. It paid off.The place is really successfully done out in a playful way with the school canteen as the theme. The owner was welcoming and helpful but serious and provided menus in English. We were encouraged when a few more people arrived and the place came to life. The food was excellent and inventive. Tournedos of Brie with honey was literally melt in the mouth. The mains we had - salmon fillet with a burnt orange sauce, magret of duck and carpaccio of beef Thai style with chopped ginger were all brilliant. A finish of fruit compote with a tongue of meringue was just right to settle the tastebuds. Excellent value, great ambience and very good but restrained service equal a worthy last supper on our gastronomic tour of Europe.

I've been here a few times and I like the layout, the prices and the service - the salads are very nice, but then again, not difficult to make. However, the most infuriating thing about this place is the beer: yet to have a draught beer below room temperature, and I've tried all, but one out of the four. They also really need to get some air conditioning. On the whole it's a nice place to go with friends, serving pretty decent, simple food - just don't expect a cold beer after a hot summers day. The bread is good too.

As I was looking online for a nice restaurant in Nancy, I stumbled upon La Cantine des Grands, it's like a gourmet French school canteen, I found it was brilliant so I suggested my friends we try it out.It's located on one end of the city center, just next to a tram stop, very onvenient.We chose a very hot day, they had some fans on, but it was still very warm inside, unfortunately, there is no terace, I guess if we had arrived later when it was less hot that should have been fine.The design is like a class room on the walls, with lots of maps, the kind we had as kids in French schools. The tables and chairs remind us of those at the canteen, as well as the glasses with our "age" inside, there's a number on the bottom of the glass and as kids we would say it was our actual age... Yeah, kids are stupid! ;-) I really loved it.We started with some cocktails, Mojito and Desert de Rose (vdka, orange, cranberry) are great, the "Planche Apéritive" with different pieces of charcuterie (kind of salami, sausages, ham, paté - roughly translated) is really nice. I had the Tartare Auvergnat, beef tartare with blue cheese and nuts, (tasty) homemade fries on the side. It was really really good. The Tartare Parisien, the Carpaccio, the beef piece and the wraps my friends took were also very good.For dessert, I had a simple mirabelle ice cream (delicious) as I was full, but other desserts except for the fruit salad seemed to be nice as well. The service was good, quite quick, even after a big table arrived, the prices are ok, very friendly staff. I might go back on my next visit to Nancy.