Cannibale Royale Amstelveenseweg — Restaurant in Amsterdam

On our recent trip to Amsterdam, my friends and I treated ourselves to a steakhouse dinner here for our final night in town. The beginning of our experience was great, our first server was friendly and offered menu advice/suggestions.

But for some reason, after we placed our drink order, we were switched to a new waitress who immediately came off as rude, condescending, and unhelpful. We asked if the Mac and cheese side was baked in an oven and acted like we were the biggest inconvenience to her. This attitude continued and she visited our table very infrequently - “forgetting” my friend’s wine order (we had to ask twice), never bringing us water for the table after multiple requests (even when we watched her pass our table to deliver water to the booth behind us).

Then, after a long wait for our main entrees, one of my friend’s steaks was cooked incorrectly and both their orders of fries were cold. We could not get our waitress’ attention, so we finally asked another server if they could just take the fries back because they were cold. Our waitress came back and snapped at us asking if we wanted new fries but we said at this point we’d been waiting long enough and just wanted them removed from our order. She left and a few minutes later two more orders of fries arrived at our table even though we’d explicitly said we did not want them anymore. She did not return to our table again and we had to request our bill from another server. By the way, she did not remove the uneaten fries from our bill.

I do not think we would have had such a negative experience if our first server had...

A Regal Feast, with Bonnie and Bebel in Command. Had a brilliant evening at CR and it started well before the first bite. The booking system was smoother than a Dutch cyclist on a tailwind, thanks to their AI assistant, Bonnie. (No sign of Prince Charlie, so I assume no royal relation… though one never knows in these circles.) A few changes to the reservation? No problem, apparently the missus had yet another birthday. Bonnie handled it with more grace than most humans. Now, to the food. When it comes to steak, this team aren’t messing around. Perfectly cooked, confidently served, clearly people who take their meat seriously. Around these parts, there’s no shortage of decent restaurants serving quality fare, but CR moves into a different league thanks to what truly counts, Service. And that brings me to Bebel. Bebel didn’t just serve us. She looked after us — like royalty, true to the restaurant’s name. Warm, intuitive and just the right dash of Dutch cheek and English style, she turned a great night into an extraordinary one. Dank je wel, Bebel — we’ll be back for another...

Food and atmosphere were both great (even though there was cold air coming from a loose door by our table) but there were a few issues. 1) it was sometimes hard to locate a waiter to order additional stuff 2) the appetizer came with no plates or utensils and even though we didn't bother using our hands, it was quite annoying (unavoidably) messing up the table and our hands, 3) when we asked for the check the waiter brought 2 small things which we can only guess where treats on the house but we paid instantly and the waiter took the plate with the treats right back when they left to get us our change. I really tried to justify that as somehow cultural or mistake in my head but no matter what, it was not nice because we saw all the other tables trying those treats and we felt as if we...