Balthazar's Keuken — Restaurant in Amsterdam

Having lived in Amsterdam for 4 years (a place not known for service culture) this was some of the worst service I have encountered and definitely the worst food. The staff were rude to one of my companions when she arrived. They remained surly throughout.

The food is in the main very, very average. The chef doesn’t seem to understand flavours or indeed how to cook. They also do not use good quality ingredients. The food is in very meagre, tasteless portions.

Unfortunately my pork main dish was raw and bloody in the centre. When I complained the ‘cook’ told me that food cooked sous vide is sometimes bloody. This is not correct for pork. It should not be bloody or chewy/slimy - as you can see from the photo it was not cooked. He offered to heat it up further. I was not comfortable eating it at all and stopped after one mouthful as soon as I saw the blood. I asked if I could have the fish main course instead. He declined stating I had already eaten most of the pork. This was a tiny slice of pork and as you can see from the photo one bite is gone. There was gristle and raw meat. Absolutely disgusting.

I did not eat any more and felt nauseous. The least they could have done is replace the meal - which they refused to do. €50 for this is diabolical.

The point is not necessarily the raw food - everyone makes mistakes. The problem was how they dealt with it. Terrible service - almost accusing us of trying to get something for free. Disgusting.

Do NOT eat here if you value your health, you have tastebuds or you like pleasant staff. Horrendous. There are many wonderful options in this city - this one should be avoided.

Photos do not lie. No one would put that monstrosity in their mouths. It was barely eaten despite your clear LIE that the pork was mostly eaten (you can see from the photos that is not true). And to the owner’s defensive response - you should feel happy - you robbed us of more than €200. We didn’t decline to pay even though the food was clearly inedible. And if you don’t understand that your solution was not acceptable because I was already nauseated and put off by the meat, then you have a clear lack of empathy for customers. Your arrogance is jarring. No apology nor any attempt to make amends. Shocking. Also why are you writing to me about plastic chairs - I didn’t say they were. Your copy/paste unprofessional response shows your lack of attention to detail, your inability to address the issue at hand (bloody and RAW pork) and pure laziness in blindly defending your mistakes. There is nothing for you to be proud of here.

Take the feedback and do...

I recently dined here with friends, and our experience left room for improvement, particularly in customer service and handling concerns. One of my friends ordered the pork dish, but after just one bite, she felt it was undercooked and raised the issue politely. The chef responded that all he could do was reheat it in the oven, claiming she had already eaten half of it—which wasn’t accurate at all, as she’d barely touched it. Even if the dish was prepared to standard (and I’ll give the benefit of the doubt here), it would have been gracious to offer an alternative or at least waive the charge for a plate that went uneaten. Instead, we were left feeling dismissed, which soured the experience.

Additionally, another friend arrived about 10 minutes before the 6 PM opening and found the staff enjoying their own meal on the terrace. When she approached to wait inside or on the terrace (which was otherwise empty), she was met with a curt “Where are you going? We only open at 18 sharp” and wasn’t allowed to sit. She ended up standing next to the empty chairs, which felt unnecessarily unwelcoming.

I don’t share this to harm the business—far from it, I know how tough the industry is, but as constructive feedback: A warmer attitude toward guests, especially in resolving issues or accommodating early arrivals, could go a long way in making diners feel valued. With some tweaks, this spot has...

I can't give this place a1 star because I'm not sure how the main course taste. The reason why I say this was they had us sitting around for almost an hour with no communication as to what was happening after we placed our order. It was busy but not crowded, so a lil wait was expected. Our waiter finally came our way about 40 minutes in with appetizers which were ok. To let you know there were other customers that had seated down about 20 minutes after us and had recieved their appetizers in about 15-20 minutes with the other waiters. In the wait time for the appetizer to show up our waiter made no eye contact and made no effort to even tell us anything, something would've made the wait a little bit bearable. After the appetizer was finished our waiter came back to collect the dishes and at this time I asked her what the wait time should be and she had no idea. She said she had asked the kitchen just then and that she understood why I wanted to leave. But as far as I can tell, the kitchen had no trouble at all churning out orders for all the other tables at a reasonable pace. I felt it was dishonest on her part to blame the kitchen. I decided not to wait around for another hour for the main course so I asked for the...