Festina Lente — Restaurant in Amsterdam

The pub was highly recommended to me as an authentic and warm place in Amsterdam, and I had been looking forward to the opportunity to experience it. Unfortunately, my visit fell far short of expectations, leaving me with a thoroughly unpleasant experience. I had booked a table for four people for lunch at 14:15, on Sunday 8th Dec 2024 but upon arrival, I was allocated a table in the middle of the bar, directly next to the front door. This placement was far from ideal, as we had to endure constant people traffic, people around us, and the front door opening and closing repeatedly created an uncomfortable cold draft. To make matters worse, the table had only three chairs despite the booking being for four people. When I informed the staff, a young lady brought a small stool instead of a proper chair. When I inquired if a proper chair was available, she did not respond and instead gave me a hostile look, which was incredibly unprofessional and unwelcoming. I have never encountered such poor customer service, and such bad education and her attitude alone left a sour impression of this business.

Despite my strong inclination to leave due to this treatment, I chose to stay to avoid making my visitors feel uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, the rest of the experience did not improve. While I understand that Festina Lente is not a formal restaurant and offers a limited menu, the food was mediocre and did not justify the restaurant-level prices. I had anticipated a cozy and enjoyable experience but was instead left dissatisfied and regretful of my choice.

In summary, my visit to Festina Lente was marked by poor seating arrangements, very simple food, and unprofessional service. This was my first visit, and unfortunately, it will...

Great place, super cozy location and everything

the problem are the managers

they don't have a menu for drinks, when asked the waiter says the menu is in his head. Ok that's fine, he says he has cappuccino, latte macchiato, and americano coffee.

ok I want a Caffe macchiato, which in the whole world means coffe espresso with a splash of milk

this guy argues that is actually "Americano" which doesn't make any sense, but anyhow I order that

ordered 2 coffees, 1 orange juice, 1 Moscow mule after 20 minutes the waiters stil didn't even start preparing anything!

when they brought everything, the coffee "Americano" was awful. It was actually what in Italy would be called a "ristretto" (that is half the volume of an espresso, we are talking about less than 10 ml of coffee) Super bitter to say the least, clearly burned and over extracted

that was something like 3€

20 something € in total of which 11€ for a Moscow mule!! and this was at like 2 pm!!

ripoff to say the least

glad didn't order any food cos I didn't want to wait another 2 hours for them to go catch a chicken and butcher it to prepare...

This is one of my favorite places that we went to because it was so random! We stumbled upon this place because it was one of the only sit down places we could find in the area that served food. And boy was it good! Definitely a “locals” place because menu was all in Dutch but our server was so helpful it was no issue. Both of the people that worked there were always smiling so that was nice to see! So friendly! What he recommended to me was toast with some sort of lettuce or arugula and Burrata on top. It was so good! I also got the cappuccino. So good. They just make ‘em better in Europe. My friend had their croissant, cheese, and hard boiled egg. She said it was good too. Had a cute vibe as well! Like a bar/coffee place/cafe. They had games in the corner you could get out to play as well. Super cute! I would definitely...