BREDA — Restaurant in Amsterdam

Mixed thoughts. Did a NYE 7 course menu last night.

Pros: The food was excellent. Honestly, huge shout out to the chefs and cooks. Portions could maybe be a touch bigger, but the creativity of the food (the smoked chard, and cod were absolutely incredible), presentation, and taste was just fantastic. Well done to the team.

Cons: The service on the other hand was TERRIBLE, and having worked years in the service industry I usually cut people a TON of slack.

The first guy who helped us unfortunately ended his shift shortly after, and it was all downhill from there. There appeared to be ONE fully capable server (sorry I didn't get your name, but the guy with the unconnected goatee) who was holding the entire place together, literally sprinting around, along with the poor kitchen staff who also eventually got recruited into running food on top of their duties in the back. There also appeared to be one other lady in black who seemed to know what she was doing, but most of her time was spent herding around the other workers trying to get them to do...well...anything useful? At least 3-4 of the staff appeared to just stumble around aimlessly the entire night - they couldn't do anything other than remove empty dishes without asking the single guy for help - "I'll ask my colleague to help you" became the quote of the night. Well...no...because the guy is sweating himself to death and now I feel guilty asking about the food I just ate, or asking for wine because you can't do it at all.

The place was busy but not extremely so. The food timing was ridiculously off-pace, and the whole experience was pretty muted by the terrible service. Don't get me wrong, everyone was friendly, but for this price?

Long story short, I sadly can't recommend this place unless they overhaul their service. Maybe it was an off-night, I don't know. But for the price, you expect a lovely evening alongside the amazing food. This was...something else (and more expensive than other restaurants in Amsterdam with comparable food AND excellent...

Our experience at Breda unfortunately was TERRIBLE! Me and my girlfriend are tourists in Amsterdam and we were very excited to get a reservation at this restaurant, upon arrival for lunch on Dec 29th, 2022 the lady attending the tables took our coats and pointed us to our table at the front of room. We were left waiting at the table for 25 mins without receiving a menu, water or a pre-order for drinks. There wasn’t even an acknowledgement of our presence. I really don’t want to make this review about race or racism, but my girlfriend and I were the only non- caucasians in the entire restaurant ( I am Afro- American my girlfriend is from the Philippines) there were 5 other couples in the restaurant at the same time, sitting right next to us and all of them got acknowledged and served ahead of us (plates were delivered to them, wine refilled, orders retaken several times, to all 5 tables) all this happening in front of us for 25 mins without any sort of attention or acknowledgement of our presence. Additionally, a party of 4 caucasian men that arrived 15 mins after us, were seated, handed menus and their drink orders were placed while we were still waiting - not even a glass of water. Finally, another server who happened to be black showed up (we think he might have been just starting his shift since we didn’t see him upon arrival) we were able to get his attention for some service and he was kind enough to bring us at least water. This was 30 mins after seating happened. No menu options or drink order was taken at the time. At this point, me and my girlfriend weren’t feeling good about the experience, we asked for a refund of our reservation deposit and left the restaurant. We really hope this restaurant is not discriminatory against people of color, we had the best intentions and were really looking forward to the food. Based on our experience we don’t recommend it and if you are a person of color, please stay away to avoid a possible...

Absolute top find from our visit to Amsterdam. Excellent, multi course meal with visual beauty and layer flavors, varying from clean and simple to more complexity.

The culture of the restaurant was described to us as approachable preparation - what this said to me was it may push the envelope in what you have had before, but it will open you up to a different experience.

Our servers were wonderful, informing us of the time it spends to enjoy the meal, which had us go with the 7 course meal. We also chose the wine pairings, and our server let us taste the pairing to make sure we liked it, and in my case, I had a few separate glasses - I didn't need 7 glasses of wine...

Each dish was presented elegantly and explained in detail by the staff. As it is a "surprise" menu - which we thought was great, all we had to do was let them know ahead of time of allergies, etc and they could alter.

This place is humble and unassuming, the decor is minimalistic, but the corner location lets in lots of light, and in the evening the views of the street and nearby canal bridge complete the setting.

If your expectation is to savor your time and engage your senses in a delicious, surprising and "approachable" meal, this is your place. It is not white linen tablecloth, stiff service. It is also not an all you can eat extravaganza - go get a pita or pasta if that's your thing - please don't come here and lower your rating when you didn't do your research.

As it is a small establishment, they do require a 25 euro deposit, which is put toward the meal, or refunded if you cancel in enough time. This has become the standard at better restaurants so wasn't surprising.

Now go make your reservation and enjoy...