Grand Café Wester Paviljoen — Restaurant in Rotterdam

I'm not a huge fan of leaving 1-star reviews but I didn't want to ruin my friend's birthday dinner by sending every dish back to the kitchen. Since I have some health issues that limit my ability to eat a lot of different foods I called the restaurant earlier in the day asking if there were different options for me when it came to the main course I was assured this wouldn't be a problem. My starter was the salmon tartare if you can even call it that. It arrived at the table a mix of lukewarm and cold, I could've looked past that if it had any type of seasoning, but sadly there was none. The salmon looked like those cheap store-bought salmon scraps people toss in their homemade salads. It was supposed to have dille but I guess that was lost in the kitchen. A tartare should have a rich flavor and it's fairly simple to make, you can leave out the more classical ingredients ( capers, mustard, Worcestershire sauce) but you can't leave out 90% of the ingredients and still call it tartare. After sending it back to the kitchen one of the waiters came to our table exclaiming he was very passionate about his food and demanding to know what was wrong with it to which I replied you could start with the basics such as seasoning, he proceeded to tell me I could season it myself as there is salt&pepper on the table. He also explained to me that he added fresh lime to it but I didn't taste any. Finally, it was time for our main dishes I specifically asked for plane white rice and the chicken they have on their menu, remember I did call ahead and ask for it, they have poké bowls on their menu so one can assume there is rice in the building. This turned out to be a problem, first, there was no rice at all but one of the waitresses did convince someone in the kitchen to cook me some rice. The chicken was all right albeit a bit dry. The chimichurri sauce was oily and missed all the rich flavors it usually has. It also had a small side of baby corn with honey, the corn was uncooked and again lacked in the seasoning department. The rice tasted like it was cooked in really dirty water it smelled of fish and had a really weird distinctive flavor to it, simply inedible. The dessert I chose was the homemade cheesecake with salty caramel ice cream. The cheesecake was so dense yet so flaky it just fell apart when I put my fork in it, the ice cream was melted and I wasn't given a spoon so that made it difficult to eat. Other than being dense the cheesecake lacked any flavor it was just a lump of whatever cheese they decided to use for it. I'm sure they sell better-prepackaged cheesecakes at Hanos, assuming this wasn't one of those. I also tasted one of the main and starter courses from my fellow diners. Her main course was a bistro filet which probably never saw a grill up close it was almost like it was steamed again 0 seasoning. The one thing we did have that had seasoning was the sweet potato fries which were so salty my insides were instantly mummified. The first batch of calamari fritti that came to our table smelled it had me thinking it probably wasn't as fresh as it should've been and it was fried beyond recognition. We sent this back as well and received a new batch fairly quickly luckily this one was good, the aioli tasted more like a sour mayonnaise. I didn't see the bill but I did hear the entire dinner for 4 people was 260 euros so I'm going to assume that nobody had the decency to take off the dishes we sent back. Overall the service was fine bar the one waiter with a chef's attitude. One last word of advice please don't let your staff smoke in front of the restaurant or have them massage (what seemed to be) a customer in planesight of...

Went here on a summer night and they accidentally forgot to prepare our food. By the time we realised the cook who was able to prepare the meals had sadly already gone home. By then it was already quite late and most of our hunger had vanished anyways.

Because they were so sorry the offered to make us a 'little' tasting platter, which was just huge (and good), and all free of charge.

Everybody makes mistakes, but the way you handle them is what decides your quality. Thank you, we've had a great evening.

I'll be back to taste the menu ;)

Location is great, real lovely part of Rotterdam if you're visiting (or living, doesn't...

We’ve eaten very good at this restaurant. The service was good and even though this place is a bit expensive, i don’t think you can get much cheaper with the same quality anywhere nearby. I had the 12 o’clock myself and the carpaccio was really good, the soup was alright and the kroket was good aswel, nothing special. If you are close to this place and need a good environment and nice food, I’d definitely recommend this place, but not anything special you should go out of your way...