Hippy Market Cafe - Sète

This restaurant was a recommendation from our hosts. The place was crowded, and the service was quite friendly, speedy, but the waiters (there were mostly only 2 of them) looked somehow overstrained - the contact time was limited to a minimum. We had to ask specifically for an apéro for example, and for a glass of wine to go with my bass - it was not asked or proposed by the service. The food quality is fine, and the quality/price ratio is rather fair. Still this restaurant left an overall rather good impression.

The trouble with this restaurant is that the waiting staff appear to be under the impression that the customers are a bit of a nuisance interrupting their conversations and general banter between each other.We went for Sunday lunch the week before last. The menu board was brought over as was the menu pointing at the a la carte dishes. No lunch menu, I thought, until I looked closer and found it hidden in the pages. As there are about twenty restaurants along the canals all advertising their daily menues, all reasonably priced, all good and incidentally all full, I am not sure the Hippy Market have got their marketing strategy quite right as they were quite empty for Sunday lunch.The menu was, in fact, very good but trying to get any sort of service from our waiter was a bit of a struggle. Would I go again - no.

This place is at the end of the main stretch of numerous canal-side restaurants. It is slightly different from the others in that its name is very English, the set-up is a bit more trendy and the prices a bit higher. It was unusual in that the prices a la carte were so much higher than the €18 menu. €15-€20 for starters and €20-€25 for mains and €8-€9 for deserts. So that’s over €40 at its cheapest compared with the €18 menu. Also, unlike all the other restaurants along the front, the set menu was not advertised but tucked into the menu on page 4 (or something). Anyway, we both had the hot chevre salad, which was really good (best salad dressing so far) and for main my wife had the Macaronade Sete speciality and I had a spaghetti de la mere, which was quite good but much larger than it first appeared, so I didn’t finish. For desert, my wife had some ice cream and I had the lemon tart, which was fine. We had the only bottle of 50cl rosé for €12, also fine.It is interesting reading the last review because we saw part of the service problem. The staff were perfectly pleasant, but a bit casual, particularly when some their mates turned up towards the end. We were going to have a coffee but not after waiting for over half an hour, so after the bill finally arrived (and we had to get up for them to make an effort to take the money), we went down the road for a coffee.So nice food, but they need a bit of hurry-up if they want to really shine in a very competitive market (i.e. the Sete canal front).

We had a very strange experience in this restaurant. The food was great but service was clearly not on the same level!!We had the beef 'à la Thaïlande' and the hamburger. Both dishes were very good! The beef was delicious and I would order it again. The service however was not matching the excellent food. We had to wait 15 minutes before anyone provided us the menu, even after having made eye contact at least 4 times. It felt as of the waitresses were neglecting us completely.After we had finished our meal, again the same story! Our empty plates stayed on the table for 15 minutes even though the waitress passed our table 5 times.In the end we were tired waiting. We didn't take dessert, we got up, went to the waitress and asked if we could pay immediately. Ps: the couple next too us waited for a waitress for 10 minutes. In the end they left without ordering anything at all.

Loved the place! Lunchtime menu at €18 was excellent value for money as the food was delicious. The service was very good and if needed, very good English was spoken. We went 3 times during our time in Séte and will certainly return next year. Merci Hippy Market! Tiptop!

Gorgeous food....had the lunch Time menu....18€ each but well worth it!! Good choice, large portions and good service....nice and relaxed.... Best we've had in sete

Great food, especially the Tuna was fantastic and also the Tigre qui pleure. Definitely the best meal we had in Sete. Very friendly service and reasonable prices.

Weekend lunch in early October. The service was fast, polite staff. Extremely big portions, especially starters were huge. The food was average.