Down Town Gourmet Market — Restaurant in Eindhoven

The Downtown Gourmet Market is one of our favoriete places to eat after a day of shopping in Eindhoven

It's a great concept for food lovers! With a wide variety of food stands, there is something for everyone, from street food to sophisticated dishes.

Ordering via QR code is super convenient. You choose what you want to eat and drink on your phone, and it is then brought to your table. No hassle with different cash registers, just relaxed enjoyment. There are alsof waiter who take your drink orders at the table.

The downside is that the concept is very popular and it can get very crowded by dinner time. In that case.it is also very noisy in the foodhall, something you have to be able to stand and can sometimes be disturbing.

Something else that is sometimes annoying but is a consequence of the concept is that the dishes ordered do not come at the same time. Because you order from different restaurants, the moment you get the food cannot be timed. So sometimes you are waiting for 5 to 10 minutes longer than the person you are with on your food. That's what you have to take into account of you choose to have dinner here.

The quality of restaurants here is usually very good. Some dishes are on the expensive side. But there is enough on offer to make choices there.

So definitely...

It’s a great place if you have mobile phone (with or without internet access) and contactless payment. If you prefer old style menu on paper and cash payment, you’d might be not very pleased.

At the entrance, you are required to have an online check-in to confirm that you are Covid-free. A staff will greet you and explain it to you, should you ask them.

Then, at the table you can see the menus of all food stands in venue and with prices by accessing the QR-code provided on top of the table. You can order online with extra charge of 0,40e per order (not per items in your order) or go to the stand and order it directly. I only did online and direct with contactless payment. Maybe, some restaurants are okay with it.

The only downside, it takes slightly longer time to order for first timers. So many choices to choose from!

If you’re not sure what to eat or have different preferences of what to eat when eating out with your family/friends, this surely caters to all.

We went just after opening time on a Thursday afternoon and it was...

Super busy place with a nice atmosphere and lots of stands/cuisines to choose from.

Pros: The choices of cuisines, fun concept, good location and the dishes were oke.

Cons: Very crowded, Saturday evening was literally fighting for a place to sit, pricey for what you get and the dishes were just oke.

Maybe we picked a wrong time to visit this place, since Saturday evening is just a disaster here. Super crowded and people were also hording the tables.

But aside from the crowd, we tried the Vietnames, the chicken place and the pokebowl stand. The Vietnamese was nothing special. The Pho bowl was pretty small sized and the Bahn mi (sandwich) wasn't as good as the other Vietnamese places in NL. The chicken dish we had was with aioli, and the pokebowl with salmon. These two dishes were luckily better than the Vietnamese ones. Still pricey for that you get, but...