Porchetteria — Restaurant in Amsterdam

I have a lot of things to say about this place. My partner and I are just utterly confused at how it has so many high reviews.

We went here late February and I am only posting my review now because I was honestly worried about the owner clapping back at me and insulting me as they do this with most negative reviews. This unprofessional behaviour already tells you everything about this place.

For context, my partner is 100% Italian and only recently moved here, and I have lived in Italy. So we know a thing or two about Italian food.

The food in this place is ok. In our opinion, it is not good enough for us to be able to ignore everything else that is going on in this place. We had the homemade Porchetta and the Salame one. My partner LOVES Porchetta so he was super excited - only to be super disappointed by their Porchetta. It was simply not great in flavour to what we are used to from Italy. And yes we did consider that Dutch ingredients are different from Italian and we still remain our opinion. I also personally did not enjoy the tomato sauce, I thought it was bland and acidic. The Salame one tasted almost only like fennel, so the flavours did not feel balanced. Well, flavour is super subjective though so it could just not be for us. They have a short drinks menu, and we went early in the evening, and they didn’t have most of it. Apart from food and drinks, the atmosphere and service were also not optimal.

We had a young server with glasses and he was just super inattentive, served me a glass bottle of water without a cup to drink out of, talked to us as if we were a bother, and he hand wrote our receipt. This led to us paying too much as well which we unfortunately only noticed when we were already in the metro (our bad too, I guess). The restaurant was not full, so I don’t see stress excusing that.

The kitchen is open so you can see everything that is going on there. Honestly, I wish I had not been able to see it. The cook had flour all over his body, his pants were basically beneath his butt, and he kept pulling up his pants to cover his underwear. He did not wash his hands at any point. I have worked in the restaurant industry for many years, so I know health and safety standards and I have no clue how they pass any of it. There was a rat (not a mouse, which is common in Amsterdamer restaurants, but a RAT). The rat was walking on top of the oven and going on top of the utensils that were actively being used to insert and take out the food from the oven. At one point, the rat was so far down the front of the oven, that it was at head level with the worker taking care of the oven. No one noticed the rat.

Please get a cat, like most Amsterdamer restaurants, or put up humane traps. I have seen reviews that lead me to believe that this is not the first time people have seen one.

There was also a huge green bottle fly, which confused us as it was February and extremely cold outside. They hibernate in the winter, so anyone can make their own conclusion from that.

The whole restaurant also just looks worn down. In general, I would not recommend this place at all. There are Italian restaurants in Amsterdam that are equally as good or better and have better service, hygiene, and atmosphere. The cheap prices are also not worth it for me. This is my partner’s and my experience and if the owner of Porchetteria decides to react to this negatively, then I am just going to already say that I will not be engaging with ridiculous accusations. We both have worked in the horeca and therefore know how hard the job is and how to be good guests. We caused no trouble in the restaurant and were respectful. Our experience was ours and there is nothing you can do to change what...

Food was great but the service was terrible. The main server was awful at his job. Here’s a short summary of the various mistakes he made…

Forgot we reserved a table for 6. Thankfully there was space for us to sit although he had to move an entire table elsewhere. Brings water for the table, only 3 glasses (there’s 6 of us). Brings a bottle of wine, doesn’t bring any wine glasses. Forgets one pizza order. No apology. 1 hour later the pizza finally arrives after everyone else finished eating and after others in the restaurant were served first even though they arrived later. Needs to be reminded 4 times to bring a Coke Zero, responds rudely when we got frustrated. Finally brings it - it’s a regular Coke.

The main chef was apologetic and removed the coke and pizza from our bill, but only after I insisted we won’t pay for those items. He also gave us a free tiramisu. He seemed to understand this server was just bad at this job so I felt a bit...

We came to the entrance the waitress came to us chewing food while talking to us so we playfully made it known, after that they sited us down and then they kicked us out because maybe they didn’t like us :)

The answer I was given by the owner is totally unacceptable as no one was yelling or mocking the waitress we just been mistreated and then kicked out by the team and while there was still half of the floor empty we got kicked out talking about reservations that I’m sure we’re not in the bookings :) , furthermore after the answer received by the owner of porchetteria I can only say you should be ashamed of yourself for treating your customer like this , not only after kinking them out and mistreating them you also lie on the web in order not to look bad . Shameful is the only word I can use to describe your...