Café De Klepel — Restaurant in Amsterdam

The overall impression: Excuse my crudeness, but to us, members of a French family, this 'bistro' is a bit of a joke and an insult to actual French culinary culture. The staff urgently needs restaurant etiquette and customer training, if the 'bistro' wants to keep up its image. Perhaps it is the idea that this hint of Parisianesque arrogance adds to the semblance of authenticity. Or maybe the staff was stressed because it was a busy night. If so, never take it out on your customers! Keep your bad mood and manners to yourself and make the customers feel welcome, which you clearly did not manage to do on this particular evening. I can't judge how it's like on other, maybe less busy days, so perhaps we were 'unlucky'. Or perhaps people in Amsterdam are used to this type of attitude when they go out for dinner? The many positive reviews give this impression or, as said, the staff had better days. We suspect it may also be because this place is popular for the 'see and be seen' phenomenon. We admit, if you'd sit at a table outside on the narrow pavement, you'd do get a good look at passers-by. We're not interested in this, we expected nice food and a nice atmosphere, when we booked a table.

The food. Well, unfortunately our expectation was not met. It was just ok, despite the pretentious French names on the menu and the fairly high for cost for little achievement and enjoyment. Very modest portions, not attractively presented but just chucked onto a wooden board, it seemed. No dishes are provided by the staff, so customers are apparently supposed to put the bread, butter, jambon and rillettes on the table. The wine glasses and table cloth weren't clean, by the way. It's a detail but still important. It's a tiny place, crowded and stuffy, which isn't the fault of the staff, of course. But it drags the whole disappointing experience even further down, as it gets very loud. You can't even understand your table companions. For us, this was the most disappointing 'dinner' experience during our travels through Europe. I do admit that we have very high expectations, so we blame ourself for thinking that these would be fulfilled here....

I don’t generally leave detailed bad reviews but I felt this was necessary.

Every dish we ordered was delicious, BUT the attitude we received from the waitstaff ruined our night.

We casually strolled past this restaurant half an hour before it opened, and were told that they would have a spot for us at dinner time if we were happy to have a drink and snacks, as they did not have the capacity to accommodate us for dinner. We didn’t mind it at all because the snack menu was quite appealing, so we returned 45 min later at our booking time.

When we arrived, we were told that dinner has now become available. It was a delightful opportunity but we were still more interested in the snack menu than the set 3 or 4 course menu, so we politely declined and said we are happy to stick with the original plan.

To our surprise, the waitress’ attitude immediately became quite rude and disrespectful. She practically just dropped the menus and walked away. Moments later, another waitress came over to ask if there was anything wrong with the set menu. We told her that there is nothing wrong with it, but we would rather try multiple snacks instead so we can taste more foods. She then told us that their guests generally don’t make a booking for snacks, especially not for a table outside (which we did not requested for) as it’s prime seating, according to her. She went on to tell us how difficult it is to make a booking because they are a popular restaurant, and we felt unwelcome because of the fact that we didn’t take the dinner option which was not available anyway in the first place.

For the rest of the evening, service from the waitresses was cold and unpleasant. We understand that if we only had a snack or two and spent minimal, they might be upset as we were taking up a money-making spot. However, we ended up spent more than what a couple would spend if they picked the 4-course menu, so that shouldn’t be an issue.

Food was absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately, we will not return and will not recommend this...

Cozy bistro with an interesting wine list in Amsterdam´s beautiful Grachten district. Here is what I can add:

For dinner it seems imperative to have a reservation, although walk ins seem to be accepted for wine and nibbles and at later hours of the evening. The restaurant is rather tiny but this is also one of the charming aspects here. As we came around sunset we first were seated at the outside tables to enjoy the last rays of sun and a glass of champagne.

The dinner menu is prix fixe, with a choice of dessert and/or cheese. Before the menu we ordered some nibbles to match with our champagne. Pate was really nice, fresh oysters ok but the escargots were rather unpleasant. For the menu we changed seats to the inside of the restuarant. First up was a dish of tomatoes, goat cheese and mussles - Decent but unremarkable. The main of roasted pork in a rich jus however was a dish I truly enjoyed. We ended dinner with a nice selection of cheeses.

As mentioned the wine list is pretty decent here, so much even that I made the reservation solely with the purpose to open a nice bottle or two. First try was a rather rare white 1er cru from Nuits Saint Georges, 1999 vintage. Unfortunately the bottle was flawed, so the sommelier came up with a good alternative with an also well aged Auxey Duresses. Second wine of the night was a Chambolle Musigny village from a extremely hard to find producer. So wine wise the evening was a full sucess and I enjoyed the well informed conversations with the sommelier.

Overall, I would really recommend this restuarant to all wine lovers and those looking for a cozy...