The Duke of Antwerp — Restaurant in Antwerp

UPDATE: As per the Duke's request, I've contacted them. The owner (or was it GM?) apologized again and was very adamant on making this right. I've been invited back to give the Duke another go, and quite frankly, its A+ for effort. I am bumping the review up to 4 stars for this.

TL;DR: Received a botched main course (salmon), mentioned it to the wait staff and then was promptly charged full price for said inedible dish. Go somewhere else, plenty of restaurants in the neighbourhood that don't do this kind of thing.

Long version: Extremely disappointing visit on a Sunday evening

We've been sporadically visiting the Duke for about 5 years now, and we typically stick to the classics. Unfortunately, it seems that the chef was either new or had a very, very bad day.

Long story short, the salmon was both dry and over salted to the point where it was inedible. The spinach side on the other hand was mushy and bland. It really seemed like that the chef forgot which side was salted...

We are typically not ones to waste food, but between the two of us, we could get no further than 1/3 of the salmon filet, even with generous gulps of beer in between each bite.

In any case, we mentioned this to the waitress who took our orders, and she went to talk to the chef. She came back with "we're sorry, I can offer you a coffee on the house"... A coffee, for a ruined main course, really?

But it gets worse, when the bill came, we tried to tell the waiter that the main course was botched and he simply said "sorry to hear about that..." and proceeded to charge us full price for the botched dish. We are not the arguing type, so we paid the bill and left.

Personally, I'm not a fan of having to pay for some else's mistakes. I for one will not be visiting...

Reading most reviews it seems like many people enjoy the food of this place. Based on my experience i can only assume they actually did their best with the food on the times you people went there or you have not even the slightest idea of what good food actually tastes like. Having said that i am not that hard to please just have my food in a acceptable time ready and let it be fresh and good. My visit was the opposite of that, waited like 40 mins for a very simple dish and when it did arrive it was terrible to eat. No taste and the bread it came with was so crunchy it’s as if you’re chewing rocks or reminds me of those cheap biscuit cookies you can get down from the store. Meat also tasted like poor quality and to consider the prices they ask of their food i would say it’s actually unacceptable. I always say pay for what you get but that was not the case with this place. Not coming back anytime soon, only good thing is have to say is that you have a friendly staff....

Disappointing service – not recommended for business or leisure Visited on March 20, 2025, with a friend from abroad who had limited time before catching a train. We waited quite a while for service, and when we finally ordered a round of drinks and a cheese platter, the waiter scolded us for sitting in the "wrong area" and for ordering "only" a cheese platter. His tone was condescending and unwelcoming, despite the restaurant being nearly empty around 14:30.

We explained we had limited time due to travel plans, but he continued to make us feel unwelcome. I had actually suggested the restaurant to my friend as a potential venue for a professional dinner in the pharmaceutical industry—needless to say, this unpleasant experience made a very poor impression.

Nice location, but unfortunately, the service fell far short of...