Azzurro — Restaurant in Amsterdam

We stumbled across this restaurant in the evening to grab a quick bite to eat. The server was very friendly and welcoming, sat us down and took our order and within about 10 minutes our food arrived. All was well until it came to payment. We asked if we could pay by card, to which our server got increasingly stressed and claimed they only took cash. Mortified that we didn’t have any cash on us, we calmly suggested one of us find a cash point but he told us there were none in the area. He explained that the restaurant was actually closed when we arrived but “didn’t want to see us hungry.” While we greatly appreciate him staying late to accommodate us, he didn’t mention any of this when we arrived and we would’ve been more than happy to find somewhere else to go to avoid the hassle. He eventually took out a card machine and let us pay by card. We ended up spending over £90 (including a fairly forced tip from the waiter) on 3 pizzas, 4 drinks and a few chips.

Very strange and uncomfortable atmosphere; we probably wouldn’t go back...

Horrible service. When we started the order with a couple of beers and a few appetizers, the owner insisted that we place the order for main course right away as he did not "trust" that we were going to spend enough money at the restaurant. This was at 10:00 PM when the restaurant was completely empty. We found that rude so we politely asked to cancel our order so that we could leave. Then the owner started shouting at us for having wasted his time. Again, this was when the restaurant was completely empty and we were the only group there. His own staff was apologizing to us for his rude behavior. We handsomely tipped the waitress for having seated us, and left the restaurant. In hindsight, I feel like maybe they are running a scam where the owner throws out polite tourists while the waitresses apologize in hopes of earning a tip! Hope this serves as a cautionary tale to others. Please don't go here. There are lots of other pizza places on the same street that are open until late and have nice /...

Prison spaghetti tastes better!! We ordered calamari starter, minestrone soup, and spaghetti aglio i olio al pollo. The calamari seemed to be reconstituted from paste and deep-fried in very old oil. Served on a Square of kitchen roll with tartar sauce (when we asked for traditional marinara sauce, they had no idea what we were asking for --- they NEVER heard of marinara sauce) after explaining what spaghetti/pizza sauce was to the waiter, we got unseasoned tomato sauce for an extra €2. The soup was good but probably came from a tin (salty and indifferent). Aglio&olio pasta should not use any red tomato sauce AND YET THE WAITER SAID IT'S WHAT WE ORDERED. Didn't even taste of any garlic at all. FINALLY, wrong cutlery for pasta. Clunky handles are not conducive of pasta twirling (yet they give a spoon, where real Italians wouldn't be caught dead). Did I mention they are understaffed and nobody speaks...