Deplanu — Restaurant in Haarlem

Today we visited Deplanu, my friend said that it’s one of her best places in Haarlem- and that I would enjoy it. - and my oh my, how much we enjoyed it! We had asked the chef (my friend’s friend) to surprise us - and each dish was just divine.

Deplanu has a changing menu based on the local resources from the farms around Haarlem. The menu changes very frequently, the combinations are amazing- after each dish, you keep wanting more.

Each of the dishes today included all elements of food: fish, meat, poultry, dairy, vegetables and nuts.

In the menu we had (I believe only 2 were actually on the menu) - the chef’s brilliant mind and creativity got him to prepare dishes with inobvious ingredients that came all together along nicely- giving that umami taste.

The food is Michelin star worthy. The value for money at Deplanu is incredible, and I personally believe they should charge more for this amazing quality (at least 25% more!!)

The downside today was the wine- although we had a great wine, it was the only wine on the menu that seemed good. I would hope that Deplanu can work on getting better wines and more selection of wines that at least hit a 4+ rating on Vivino and start working on wine pairings for the menus to accompany the food.

Overall the service was absolutely excellent, despite not having a single table empty - fully fully booked- I think from the number of people in the restaurant, the chef served over 150 dishes an hour. Chapeaux!

If you haven’t been to Haarlem, it’s about time you discover this little hidden gem. You won’t regret it! ❤️ thank you Sandra for introducing...

We had a really disappointing experience here. It took quite a while before anyone brought us a menu – and when they did, it was only a drinks menu. After waiting another 10 minutes, our drinks finally came. By the time we finished those, we still hadn’t been able to order food, so we checked the menu online (big mistake).

When we finally placed our order, no one mentioned that the website menu was outdated. I ordered another drink with the food, but it never arrived – even after the server admitted she forgot and then forgot again. It only arrived, after I reminded the waitress another time.

When the mains came, they were completely different from what we had ordered. Another waiter explained that the menu we saw online was from a few days ago. Well, we would’ve known if someone had given us the correct menu on time. On top of that, the portion sizes were tiny – more like amuse-bouches than proper mains – especially considering the price.

To be fair, they did remove the drinks from the bill as an apology, which I appreciated and is the only reason I’d consider giving them another chance. Still, we paid €60 for two starters and two mains, and left hungry enough that we had to stop by Febo afterwards.

Overall, extremely disappointing given the price...

We heard about this place as a new restaurant that serves food of a higher standard but for an honest price and that was very much true! Some of the remarks in other reviews weren’t true for us last night - Our QR codes were scanned at the door, the waiter was attentive and we got our drinks and food on time without having to wait long at all! There was a minor hiccup with the amount of menus because they didn’t have enough food menus yet but that was more funny than problematic and once we ordered, we got delicious food with very special flavours and the portions were really generous for the price. We sat next to the kitchen and we could see what the chefs were doing which was great bc we got to see how they were preparing the food, and this made for some inspiring entertainment. Overall we had a very pleasant evening and it’s definitely a great add...