En Japanese kitchen & Sake bar — Restaurant in Amsterdam

My experience at En Japanese Kitchen & Sake Bar was extremely disappointing and frustrating. The food quality—both in terms of ingredients and seasoning—was far below acceptable standards. Most dishes lacked harmony in flavor and texture, and some combinations were outright bizarre. The seasonal menu felt hastily thrown together with no real thought or culinary finesse behind it. Instead of showcasing seasonality or creativity, it ended up being a parade of mismatched, poorly executed dishes.

Plating was equally disheartening: outdated presentation styles, questionable aesthetic choices (such as the use of cheap-looking fake cherry blossoms), and arrangements that seemed more confusing than refined.

Service was also lacking. When I voiced my dissatisfaction, the only response was a generic apology, which felt empty and performative. An apology means little when there’s no genuine accountability for what was served and how it was served. If anything, the restaurant owes an apology to both the guests and the ingredients wasted in this meal.

Overall, it was a regrettable dining experience. I expected an elevated, thoughtful Japanese meal, but what I received was closer to an overpriced, uncoordinated, and frankly insulting...

This is a 3* because the value and price are misaligned. Let me start with the good things: the atmosphere and the service- there’s really nothing to fault there, we had a really nice waitress all evening. However the tasting menu was underwhelming, especially when it is packaged as fine dining with a corresponding price. The starters were mixed. The tomato wasn’t anything special, herring tasty, jelly and duck ok and the tartare felt moist and as if it was prepared the day before and taken out of the fridge. The main was shabu shabu and while it was nice, nothing special to match that price. The way it is served means you have no heat control And end up with nearly boiling stock. Similarly underwhelming was the dessert, with different elements added for I don’t know what but not in meaningful harmony. We also had the accompanying sakes, and I have to say most of these felt like wine perhaps also caused by serving them in a wine glass- why not serve sake the way they do in Japan..? We ordered a side of sushi, which was quite tasty. After all perhaps we went with too high expectations but I think I can eat much tastier food elsewhere especially at that...

We had two 6-course menus, a standard one and a seasonal one, 1 drink and 1 water each. And the total bill came around 135e per person.

The food was nice, especially the fish soup in the second course.

But for this price, we expected much better service. We waited for more than 40 mins to get our food. After seeing the two other tables who arrived after us got their food, we asked about ours and received the question, "did you make your order?". It appeared that they completely missed our order. They also brought us the wrong dessert at the end and had to come back to swap it out. During the meal, we didn't feel like we were waited on. We didn't know who was responsible for our table either. We got served by a few people at different points in time.

The atmosphere was okay-ish. But again, for this price range, I will only give it 3 stars. The tables were so close to each other we felt like we had no privacy at all. And the ambiance could feel a...