Hotel Restaurant 't Goude Hooft — Restaurant in The Hague

If you like good food and service, or have a allergy or maybe both then this review is for you.

First things first, on the positive : The location. It's truly a beautiful old building with a very cozy interior and probably good views in the summet if sitting outside. What I personally enjoyed most were the comfortable chairs and diffetent 'heights' you could sit at inside. Unfortunately this was for me the only positive thing about this restaurant.

Orders take too long to be completed. This is something unfortunately that happens quite often and can be because of many reasons. But besides being very slow it was also very unprofessional and clumsy. I mean when you order a soup and get no spoon, order a gluten free schrimp cocktail (They didn't ask if I wanted gluten free bread either) but still get butter for bread that isn't there, and a bottle of water without glasses to poor it in.. Those are just too many mistakes in a row within 10 minutes. And we were only at the starter.

My mother who is extremely allergic to gluten ordered a burger without the bread not even the gluten free one. And you probably guessed it : she was served a burger with the bread around(yeah the one with gluten too..) the burger. I myself was told I wasn't allowed to eat the gratin that came with my steak yet it was there on the plate (cross contamination hello). And this all took over 45 minutes after the starter. Now this is all pretty bad, but when even the waiter admits to have "forgotten to write it down" even though we spokr about it in detail and he even went to the kitchen?! That's unforgivable. That's just to much of a mistake after all the other ones. To add on top of this, after the mistake was made the same waiter asked my mother if she wanted rice with the new burger instead of chips, she said no. Not a minute later another waiter brings her a new burger gluten free with a big bowl of white rice.. Communication nowhere to be find between staff members. My steak was good quality however. Shame they forgot the glass of red we ordered to go with it.

Final thing : we were sitting in ome of the higher seats in the restaurant amd had pretty good overlook over the bar and dish wash kitchen. Several times staff was just hanging out there doing nothing, orders like hot coffee waiti g on the bar for several minutes, staff putting ice in glasses with bare hands seconds after touching the touchscreen of the checkout.. Etc etc.

To sum it up : Great location. Terrible staff, hygiëne and very little...

OK. They tried. They tried so hard.

We had some service issues that were due to them being absolutely slammed from the Royal Christmas Market. We won't even talk about those. If you choose to dine out on such a busy night you should expect it.

I will say that the manager (?) Mikey did a lot to mitigate the issues. He seemed like a great guy.

Do try the smokey ribs. They are excellent and mapley. The sweet potato fries were also pretty spectacular.

The Sirloin was meh. Good taste which was mildly damaged by too much Chimchurri sauce. A bit rubbery though.

I find myself at odds with Dutch mashed potatoes in general. This place was one of the worst. I'm pretty good at identifying ingredients, but what lent these potatoes their distinctive flavor is a mystery to me. Chickory perhaps? Maybe Dutch people would like it.

The venue itself is top notch. I can see eating here a dozen times and it feeling like a different place each time. Someone should buy the decorator a palace!

Perhaps the poorest choice made was the entertainment. There was a Kareoke Machine. Someone was trying to sing a wide variety of songs... badly. They didn't even know the words. They didn't even read the words. They just kinda mumbled through the obvious parts, and gave up entirely once the hook/chorus passed. An allegdly professional singer was well below what I would expect to hear at a Kareoke bar.

Shout out to Mikey though. I can't emphasize enough how much he turned a bad experience...

Major disappointment. Facilities were not clean. I found hairs in the jacuzzi. Some slots in jacuzzi were not working. Walls and surfaces were dusty. Cleaning was very superficial. The fireplace in front of the bed was not working, which was very disappointing. We were not informed about it upon booking, nor were we offered any kind of compensation for this flaw. I would expect much higher standard from a 4 star hotel. In general private jacuzzi and fireplace in the room are great amenities, that is why we booked this hotel but it just doesn't live up to the 4 star standard because of negligance of the service and bad maintenance. Another thing is that it really isn't a hotel. It is a restaurant with some rooms for rent upstairs. It seems like you are an intruder rather than a guest. They are checking you in in a corner in the messy support area, there is no real reception. The lady serving us was dressed in a very casual and unelegant outfit. I would rate the customer service as 2 star hotel maybe. When you want to leave the hotel after reception is closed (which is early as the reception closes together with the restaurant) you need to go through a dark back door corridor with steepy stairs, without any illumination to get outside) Never saw something like this before. I think it is a pity, as the hotel is portrayed on booking as an elegant hotel which it just isn't and needs a major mindset change.

The restaurant service was nice and breakfast was also...