Aan de Poel — Restaurant in Amstelveen

We had a mixed experience at Aan de Poel. Some of the food was great, and some was flavorless. The service was the weakest part of the experience, especially for a restaurant with 2 Michelin stars. Overall: Skip this place, there are plenty of better restaurants in Amsterdam. Note: Due to Google review character limits, I had to cut the nice things I wrote about this place.

When we arrived, I found a hair on the tablecloth. Not a catastrophe, but not good - they place utensils directly on the tablecloth, so it's kind of gross.

A server came to ask us if we wanted any cocktails, and we asked twice for a drinks menu, but she just said they can make any drink we want and never brought us a menu.

The Head Chef came out to describe the available dinner menus to us, and he was delightful. He must do this 10-15 times every night, and he was still enthusiastic and obviously passionate about the food.

The pre-amuse bites were great, if a little too salty. The amuse was pureed peas, and it was beautiful, but the texture was mealy and unappealing. The first course was a delicious crab and octopus in a citrus sauce. My husband found a piece of crab shell in his. Then langoustine with mushrooms in a brothy sauce poured warm at the table. The langoustine was served on a cold plate. As the sauce cooled, it congealed into an unfortunate lumpy jello-looking texture, like the color and texture of snot. Next was a spear of white asparagus with fish and caviar on top served in a smoked butter sauce. The fish and caviar contributed little flavor, but the asparagus itself was divine.

The main course was lamb in a red wine jus with grilled leek, tomato salsa, and a mini tomato stuffed with a bundle of raw veggies. Nothing on this plate belonged in this restaurant. Most dishes served up to now had a bit too much salt, but I had to sprinkle salt on this meat to make it edible. It was also hard to cut and not served with a steak knife. The sauce tasted like nothing.

The pre-dessert sorbet was very good, as was the raspberry and yuzu dessert. There were no additional sweet bites or goodie bags to take home, which was strange.

Now for the worst part of our meal, payment. A server approached with the bill and told us service was not included in the total and would we like to tip. We were surprised, as Europe generally has service included at all restaurants. We expressed our surprise and asked how much is typically expected. She said 10%. So we just paid it. But were we swindled? According to Dutch people, the Netherlands has a very anti-tip culture, and tipping is not expected at any restaurant, including fine dining establishments. Never in my entire life have I experienced a server ASKING me to tip, not at high end places or holes in the wall, nowhere. We assume the server noted that we're American and went in for the kill, knowing we tip automatically back home and would feel compelled to do so here. She was right.

To top it off, the service was the worst part of the evening. First the drinks menu thing. Then for the first half of the meal, no one scraped breadcrumbs from the table. This usually happens between every course at such restaurants, at least the ones that serve crusty bread. Halfway through the meal, they scraped crumbs from my husband's side but not from mine, which was equally messy. When they finally scraped crumbs from my side near the end of the meal, the server left the hair. She saw it but ignored it. Our water wasn't kept topped off, often getting to empty before someone would come by to refill. I debated sliding the bottle closer so I could just do it myself. When we left the table to use the restroom, no one came to fold our napkins and straighten our chairs.

These wouldn't be issues at a normal restaurant (except the hair - eww), but here? With this service, how did they even get 2 stars? This level of service wasn't worth tipping at all. And no one working at a 2 Michelin star restaurant in any country should be asking...

Lack of attention?

We visited on Friday 16/8, booking made for 2 at 7pm. After enjoying the beautiful view (see picture) we struggled, although by foot, to make our way through the stairs to the reception as it was blocked by parked cars. Talk about a a missed entrance. From there on I spend the evening being struck by the lack of attention to service and details, bad signs for a 2 Michelin Stars... We were seated facing the entrance of the restaurant, our backs to the view, not having been left with a choice between the multiple tables for 2 that were then empty. I find this strange in a way.

From the 2 menus we picked up the seasonal one, a great value for money 5 courses including fishes and meat (€170pp), and did not go for the "all time favourite" menu of 7 courses, way too loaded in meat and slightly prohibitive in price in my view. Food was very good. Not great. Very good. I missed the genuine creativity of combined tastes and textures, the continuity in the menu and attention to the last detail (e.g. orientation of the plate).

We absconded from the slightly forced-upon-us wine pairing - diving in the wine list I went into shock really: the wine card suffers some issues... firstly it is overpriced, with wines we would normally expect around the €90-100 mark being at €125 and plus - someone here knows where to make the extra buck but this is slightly indecent. Secondly, upon requesting the Vaqueyras 2018, the sommelier gave us some confusing explanations that the last bottle was served the day before. When I commented that in that case the wine should have been stricken from the list, the sommelier then offered another year of the same producer "but it is my last bottle"... We settled for the 2022 (not that we had a choice) which is a mostly average year vs. 2018. I guess at €69 (the only bottle in the 2 digit range) this is not a great multiplicator for them. Casing point! Thirdly, whilst the wine card has a good selection of Californians, SF and NZ wines, absolutely no representation from South-America.

Let me go back to the car that was parked blocking the drive way and reception entrance. The new sport car buy from a guest, invited to the dinner by his car dealer... early dinner the full restaurant went silent when they started revving the engine of the gift outside. Why oh why...?

Service was about ok although we could never identify our host, nor the maitre d'hotel... end of dinner some confusion around coffee tea and pre-deserts with two identical request in 2 minutes by different members of the staff... l guess that could happen? But no, it shouldn't.

Talk about perception but I found the service to be stressed and not working in harmony... not a lot of smiles on the faces. Maybe it was one of "these" evenings?

All courses were introduced to us by the kitchen staff. Some taking a lot of pride in their creation, some less. Speaking English or Dutch, depending on them, vaguely inconsistent though: either you identified us speaking English or Dutch, but please ensure this is passed on within the staff?

All in all an okay experience, but it could have been so much better -...

I just finished dining at Aan De Poel and wanted to share my experience. For my significant other and I, we had an unpleasant experience overall. To start, the food was VERY salty for OUR palate. I struggled to finish most dishes and was debating to speak up. When the final course came out, it was not as salty as other dishes, but we were done by that point and were willing to pay without finishing. The waitress noticed I didn’t finish and asked “how was the dish” which I responded saying “uhhhhh….. it was fine.” She took it for face value regardless of my long pause before answering. To be honest, it is on me for not speaking up. However, I couldn’t bring myself to say something at a restaurant of this pedigree. Besides, I understand every restaurant is different as service and cuisine is catered to their own customs and local palate. As a result, I wanted to share in case someone who shares the same palate as me to do a bit more research before committing as it’s not cheap. Next is the customer service. It was rather inconsistent. The gentlemen who greeted us as we entered and left and the chefs who came to our table were great. However, there were many instances that led us to wishing the meal would conclude ASAP. There were many times during our meal where we felt we waited unnecessarily long. I’ve been to a handful of fine dining establishments where I sense that there should be a pace in which a high end restaurant operates at. There was a table who came probably 15 minutes after us then ended up finishing before us which didn’t make sense as we ordered the standard 5 courses. We weren’t even offered the dessert cart, but perhaps it was because we said no to tea/coffee? We also felt that we were not given the same level of service. Example, anytime guests went to use the wash room, if any of the staff were near they would open the door for the guest(s). That never happened for me as one time the staff just looked at me and nodded. It’s not a big deal, but seeing as some staff would run to hold the door really make me wonder why I’m being treated differently. I’m not trying to bad mouth this restaurant as it receives a 2 Michelin star for a reason. I just hope to share a review from a different perspective which may help someone decide before committing...