Trattoria Boretti — Restaurant in Amsterdam

Disorganised and lacking decent service (or food) - AVOID. Made a reservation for six persons for 6.15pm on a Thursday evening, started ordering around 6.30pm, and no food came even until 8pm. The first time we asked about our food, the inexperienced waitress told us she forgot to put it into the system. Second time we asked another waitress and she said it was coming soon. After 1.5 hours, we got fed up and approached a guy who looked like the manager - but his first words to me were “what do you want me to do about it?”. No attempt at any basic customer service - any other place would try to keep customers with free drinks or snacks, or at least explain the situation. When I asked the manager to explain if 1.5 hours was a reasonable time to wait for food, he admitted that the kitchen ran out of ingredients and no cooking could be done until someone came back with the groceries! A kitchen without ingredients since early evening and being aware of our dinner reservation for six - why even open!?!

Finally, we had enough and asked for the bill - and even that took very long to settle. The fact that we had to even pay for our drinks after such a horrible night just shows the lack of customer service and care! The manager could only remove the charge on some snacks and one drink (that was terrible tasting and left untouched). As we left, two other tables asked us what was happening and I told them that there was not going to be any food for the night - this place couldn’t even have the decency to be honest with the hungry and waiting customers.

UPDATE: After reviewing some tikkies and splitting the bill, we noticed that this place charged us for FOUR BEERS when we only had TWO. Absolute scam of a...

The stars are solely for the service and the kindness of the staff, who were truly friendly, helpful, and quick. As for the food, unfortunately, there’s not much positive to say: the bruschetta trio was made with a kind of pizza bread that has nothing to do with real Italian bruschetta. On top of that, the toppings were so overpowering that you couldn’t taste the prosciutto or the burrata at all (not to mention the fact that real bruschetta is made with fresh tomato, garlic, olive oil, and fresh basil – and nothing else).

The pasta was overcooked, sticky, and egg-based (which wasn’t mentioned on the menu), and clearly not homemade given the pale, lifeless color – it looked more like the fettuccine you’d find at Albert Heijn, which are anything but real fettuccine. The “artichoke and lemon” sauce amounted to some jarred artichokes tossed in with a bit of lemon juice (and judging by the overall quality, I wouldn’t be surprised if the juice was industrial too), and oil that was definitely not extra virgin. There wasn’t even a hint of lemon zest to be found.

The only redeeming quality? A decent Belgian beer – which is quite ironic, considering this was supposed to be an Italian restaurant. The Italian beer option was Peroni – basically Heineken with an Italian label.

And then came the grand finale: a bill of about 72 euros for this parade of culinary crimes.

I wouldn’t recommend this restaurant even to an American tourist – let alone to an Italian.

The food was everything...

Honestly, nothing to write to home about.

First with the positive; they have a child menu, that has good amount of food. Kids are in general picky eaters, their child menu is good in the sense that there is nothing eccentric in them to make a kid reject it. I appreciate it.

Now the rest: meh. Lasagna is good but not special at all. I would give 7/10. Again, it is good actually.

Puttanesca on the other hand was not good. I don't want to be too harsh, they didn't go cheap on the material. Pasta is good, tomato sauce is tasty. The capers and olives on the other hand are supposed to complement the food. Not overwhelm it. Half of the dish was olives and capers. Finally the anchovies are mostly supposed to melt with the sauce and maybe add a few of them as extra. Not add as an additional ingredient and they are not supposed to be like this. I hate to add a photo of half eaten dish but this is the amount of olives after I eat so much of it and there is still more in the pasta

And please provide fresh bread, olive oil and balsamic vinegar at the beginning. Don't try to push people for other starters for which the selection is not that good to be honest. The olive oil and bread is a must at a good Italian restaurant

It is a little shame because the place...