Spring Cafe Brasserie Amsterdam — Restaurant in Amsterdam

Dangerously low disregard for people with food allergies. We had previously visited the Brasserie before and not had a problem but the introduction of a new menu without sufficient labelling in the Dutch menu meant we spent most of the night wondering if we would be sick. I am allergic to shellfish and therefore order food that does not contain it. I ordered the caesar salad (everyone knows the ingredients, right?) as starter only to find out I would be charged extra for chicken and that the only "protein" that came as standard was shrimps (Ive never heard of shrimps in a caesar) so by the time I had turned down all the extra cost items (which should have been in the salad by default at no extra cost) and turned down the shrimps as I am allergic to them, I was served a bowl of iceberg lettuce with an egg (for 18 euros). However, worst was to come when my friend ordered the cod with spinach (which I was tempted to order but then decided on the chicken). My friend is allergic to inktvis but this was not included in the description of the dish and neither was the fact that the sauce contained shellfish. My friend began eating the cod and discovered the inktvis only after swallowing a mouthful. When we complained, we were told its our responsibility to sat if we have allergies (which I had done) but it is also the legal responsibility of the restaurant to label their...

I’ve been coming here for years, today was the worst service I’ve had here. The waitress was rude and got everything she could have gotten wrong, wrong. Wrong menu, looked blankly when I said a ‘glass of Chablis’ (I had to explain it’s a french wine, one of 3 by the glass on the menu), main brought as a starter, then finally the main arrived cold, it was clearly sitting there while I ate the starter. She told me, in a hostile manner, that the kitchen had to heat up my main because it’s ’normally served cold’. Not true, I’ve had it here many times before. I asked for bread with my starter, they didn’t bring it. It came with my main. The other unpleasant thing was that the kitchen and the waitress were chatting and laughing in spanish throughout the lunch - if it’s an open plan kitchen, you expect the kitchen to show a bit of decorum in a hotel like this. The food was worse than before. An enormous amount of rocket piled onto white asparagus and poached egg. Why? I used to love coming here. Today my feelings about this place...

We did not stay at Pillows Hotel, which this cafe is part of, but came on 3 separate occasions last week to visit because we loved it so much. Highly recommended it - extremely cool & well run. Next time we visit Amsterdam we will definitely stay at the hotel, which we believe only opened late November. We had a drink at Fitz Bar once (wow the drinks were so impressive, especially for me, a non-alcohol drinker), and ate at Spring Brasserie twice. The food was excellent to outstanding: calamari & artichokes for a light meal one day, and grilled leeks & 2 kinds of beef another - these were both incredible. Again the range of soft drinks were exciting for me 🥳 and the staff were extremely impressive. I loved the design & architecture of the place, so many lovely features. Wanted to dine at the restaurant upstairs - can’t recall the name - but it seemed more fine dining, which was not what we wanted at the time. Next time tho! (NB last photo is of my mocktail from Fitz Bar, not...