The City Curaçao — Restaurant in Curaçao

Maybe a good place during the day, but this was one of the worst experiences I have ever had during New Years Eve. I cannot describe our experience in a short review, so please, if you feel like going through an adventure, read my essay below.

First, when we arrived, we had to wait 15-20 minutes for a table. Not because it was full, but because the waiter had an informal conversation with another guest. When we asked another waiter to help us, she refused, and pointed at the waiter to who was still in a fun conversation with someone.

When we finally sat down, chaos erupted. It took another 15 minutes to order drinks, and about 30-45 minutes to order food. While we were waiting, some brilliant genius employed at this fine establishment thought it was a good idea to place speakers right next to our table, and blast music on perhaps the loudest volume.

We sat there for 2 to 3 hours, while the music blasted in our ears. Asked about 5 times for the music to be tuned lower, which happened sometimes, only to be turned up up again 5 minutes later.

This music was a placeholder for a band that was playing about an hour after we sat down. The band was great, prods to them, but it was still too loud. My brother (who has sensitive ears) at one point turned the speakers away from us so they wouldn’t be aimed at us, employees quickly aimed them back.

Then there’s the food, between each course it took about 1 hour for the food to get to us. This would maybe be acceptable, if the food did not come individually. We got each plate separately, with 20 minutes between each plate. Our family had to eat alone individually instead of all together. The food itself was also very mid for $80 course. Also, waiters never came back for another round of drinks.

The mood around us was terrible. I saw a family next to us buy drinks at the bar, because no waiter came to them for drinks aswell. Another family up and left. We, because of the loud music, all hurdled together on the far side of the table, resulting in one table being unused, which the employees wanted to fill with new guests. These unfortunate guests, a young adult couple, now sat right next to the speakers. Got their starters about 1.5/2 hours after they sat down. Tried to get up and leave multiple times, but were somehow convinced to sit down again. Unsure what happened to them in the end, as we finished before they did, but I hope they ended up alright, and not with tinnitus.

Absolutely...

This is our first trip to Curaçao and we decided to come into Willemstad for the evening. We decided to try The City Curaçao for dinner and as it wasn’t busy, had a great seat at waters edge with a lovely view of Queen Emma! However, upon sitting for a few minutes, I noted that the 4 staff members were all standing at their station talking to each other and tried to make eye contact for service. There were initially 4 other tables seated before we sat. Finally a server came to our table, which needed cleaned, and asked for our drink orders. I also asked the server if they could kindly clean the table. After the server left, we went through the menu to determine what to eat and had our order ready for when the server came back. The restaurant then filled up, and 20 minutes of sitting, we still had no drinks and hadn’t ordered food, but the tables that came in after us received their drinks and made orders for food. We still hadn’t ordered our meal and noted our server standing talking at the server station and decided that without drinks and having watched other tables get theirs, it wasn’t worth staying as we no longer felt like eating there based on the time it was taking to get served. We got up and left. The server then had the nerve to chase us down the street and tell us we had to go back because we ordered drinks and it would come out of their pocket to which I replied that was not my problem since our drinks hadn’t shown up. He continued to aggressively tell us we were to return and pay for our drinks because he was not willing for them to come out of his pay - my friend, who had only ordered a club soda, felt bad enough to return so we returned, had lost our seat, and still had to wait a few more minutes to get our drinks then immediately requested the bill. By the time we got the bill, I was mostly done my drink - our original server had someone else run our drinks and bill to the table. When I paid, someone else brought our change which was incorrect -I was shorted- but we left as we no longer wished to be there. We will not return based on the service or the aggressive nature of the waiter chasing us down and demanding our return when we had no drinks...

When I first came to this restaurant I figured it was for the view, and not necessarily for the quality of food. To my surprise both the food and the service were very good. Unfortunately, this review doesn’t focus on the quality of food and service, but on the anti-tourist business practices. When it was time to pay for my bill, I asked to pay with a credit card. Most restaurants on the island allow you to pay in Florins (the local currency) or in Dollars. I asked them to charge me in Florins and they told me since I had a foreign card that they could only charge me in Dollars. Now I am not an expert on the charge machine that these people use, but I am a frequent traveler, and I have never been told that if you have a foreign credit card they have to bill you in dollars instead of their local currency. In fact, most places around the world bill you in the local currency rather than dollars. So it is very obvious to me that this establishment uses that tactic to overcharge you for your meal since the exchange rate they use is higher than the banks. In fact, after being in Curacao for a couple of days, this is the first place that has use this deceitful tactic. So if you are a tourist, pay in cash using local currency, so that they don’t rip you off, or better yet, go to the place next door...