Le French Café - Javastraat — Restaurant in Amsterdam

Was expecting a lot and got a bit disappointed.

We came on a Saturday for a late lunch (around 14-15h), crowded but not much.

We didn’t wait to be seated on a empty but dirty table, waited a good moment to get the menus, waited another long moment to get our order taken, got our drinks pretty fast and at this moment the waitress noticed that the table was dirty an cleaned it.

We didn’t wait long to get our order (witch is a good point for a restaurant that wants to do like the French cafés).

I got really disappointed by the sizes of the main courses. Tartare was really small and thin, more the size of an entrance and same for the steack-frites (each more than 20€). The taste is definitely there, nothing to say here. The steack-frites had a really good (wine?) sauce and the tartare had a good seasoning but little bit dry that’s were tatare condiments on the side (mustard, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco) would have been appreciated to adjust it.

I was really hungry going there and was too disappointed by the price per quantity to order more dishes so we left to go to another place to eat.

The service was slow and chaotic but I saw only nice, smiling and friendly staff over there and I’m sure that they will improve.

I will go back because they just opened and they might be still adjusting their service and dishes, maybe I came a wrong day. I was expecting the food to be like the French cafés (good amount of tasty food for correct price) and I felt being in a gourmet restaurant with all the rest looking like a bistrot.

I really hope that the next time I’ll go it will be different and that they will prove me that I was wrong for me to change the 3 stars to a 5 stars review :)

Plus : nice staff warm and beautiful environment tasty food / good quality food fast service after taking the order good branding (even on the plates)

Minus : price per quantity slow service before...

The atmosphere is cozy, with candles and white tablecloths on most tables. Staff is friendly and knowledgeable, slightly on the slow side, but overall attentive. We had the charcuterie plateau, oysters, Caesar salad with chicken and the steak tartare with fries. Everything was presented nicely and looked fresh. The shallot vinaigrette complemented the oysters, the poached egg in the Caesar salad had was nice and creamy and the fried chicken was crispy outside and tender inside. The tartare had a nice kick to it, you could taste the pickles and raw egg yolk. The charcuterie plateau was packing some seriously salty cold cuts (the coppa and the salame especially), which made it very difficult to enjoy without having to rinse the mouth with water between every bite. I know cold cuts are salty, but I also know that there are good charcuterie products that don't leave you with the impression to have run 50k in the Sahara on a hot day. Cocktails were ok, not the best but also not the worst we drank in Amsterdam. The bill for one charcuterie, two oysters (total), one salad and one tartare (with one bottle of water, one cocktail and one mocktail) came at almost 100 euros. We visited on a Thursday at 20, so we were not rushed to get out after 1.5 hours like in most places in Ams, which in this day and age I have to acknowledge...

Quite expensive for poor service.

This is supposed to be an "upperclass" place in comparison to the all the other places owned by the same company (3WO). And where the concept of these other places really works (i.e. Bar Basquiat, Louis Louis, De Biertuin, Bukowski, etc). This one does not! The food is really good and so are the wines, but the staff is not. In an place like this, where you easily pay 6-7 euros for a glass of white wine, you would expect good service, but here the staff is cranky and you feel that you are imposing if you ask anything. In my case I got half a glass of white wine for € 8, because the bottle was finished and the girl "really didn't wanna go back for another bottle".... that's just weird right? The food is really good, but also expensive and portions are small. (i.e. portion of French Fries is almost € 6)

There's other places literally in the same street that offer much more...