Le Royal Castres

An excellent find! Buffet style restaurants can be a gamble, but rest assured they do things right here! The place is clean and welcoming. The food is a good price and offers value for money. Being a buffet, sometimes they pile it high and leave it for the full service, but here, they put fresh small amounts in each hot plate, then keep it topped up being regularly checked by a chef. The salad buffet was excellent, and the choice of hot dishes was varied and ample. We did not opt for the cook at your table, but others obviously did enjoy this.The deserts again at a buffets can be dreary, but here they are fresh, good selection and good quality.We read reviews about the Royal buffet and were a bit concerned about comments in regard to noise, and we can appreciate that is there were many children, then noise would bounce around, but we went on a Monday evening and despite being busy, the atmosphere was very comfortable and relaxed.My only negative is the plates. When having hot food, why not offer warm plates, it's not difficult to have a plate warmer!! The final thing is the service, all the team were friendly and attentive, keeping on top of clearing and making sure that we were happy. We were very impressed and will be back.

Had been put off dining here on a previous visit to Castres by other reviews so gave it a few months to bed in before trying it for ourselves.The concept of these Asian buffets have exploded across France and, even in Castres there are two or three to choose from, The Royal Buffet offers something new and the variety and quality off the food and service was much better than the others we have tried in the area.We can imagine that at peak times, weekends and school holidays, it would be noisy, we choose a midweek night right on opening time and it was very comfortable.The staff were friendly, service was good and for the price paid the food represented good value for money.Will return and happy to recommend.