Yuzu Dining — Restaurant in The Hague

I tend not to leave reviews for mediocre establishments. I don’t see anything wrong with being a subpar restaurant. It’s necessary. With Yuzu, however, I feel a strong urge to speak on my experience.

For context, more often than not, my visits are a date with my partner.

First and foremost, there are a few two person tables that shouldn’t be tables. There is a choice when booking (and leaving a deposit) of sitting at the bar or dining at a table. Ours was a tiny tall table with bar stools that looked less comfortable than a bar seat (for context, an extra stool was brought over to hold starters as the table wasn’t large enough to do so). It was also right at the intersection of the busiest part of the restaurant. It was very obviously the worst table. I asked, politely, about a better table twice and was told it wasn’t possible as the other tables were for four. I pointed out a table across from us where two were sat at a four person table. She ignored that and said she would let us know if a table cleared up so that we could move. Not ten minutes later did she seat two new guests at a four person table…

We then got brought two cocktails and first dishes after a bit of a wait.

I want to clarify that my qualm isn’t with the food or drink here. The drinks were phenomenal. A fantastic take on classic cocktails with fitting Asian ingredient replacements. Truly amazing. The food was not on par. I know of few places that have ruined oysters. This is one of them.

After receiving this round, we sat for twenty minutes as enormous groups came in and waiters rushed to and fro without noticing us, clearing the table or asking if we’d like anything else. At this point we decided to leave. It seemed that getting up and walking to the counter was the only thing that garnered any attention from the front of house.

The same staff member that welcomed us, fibbed about their table availability and served us was the one to finally take our payment. She did not verbalise or emote any surprise to the fact that we were leaving after only a few starters. This was followed up by a tone deaf and soulless “How was the food?”. Polite as I was, you can probably piece together my response. The worst thing about this experience was the complete lack of remorse on her end. A client leaving their dinner early (for which they paid a deposit and booked three weeks in advance) should raise eyebrows. The fact that it doesn’t and was met with a “we’re very busy” should tell you all you need to know.

Any establishment that can’t handle service on a Saturday should host less covers. It’s simple. My advice would be to walk around the corner into Chinatown and go to any of the actually authentic Asian cuisine establishments that aren’t owned by white people cheaply...

Where to begin? Went to a tasting menu evening with what was a collaboration between Yuzu chef and Cru chef (300 euros for 2) for 10 courses and left after 5… why? Well the food was “meh”- the most exciting one was the dish of tuna was over salted. We waited exactly 45 minutes between each course so had we stayed the night we would have to put up with uncomfortable seating, forgettable food and cold service from the staff for another 2 1/2 hours. Don’t believe me? When we asked to pay and leave; the blond hostess could only say “but you haven’t finished your courses”. We tried to share our experience, her response was “well you can’t pay up here, you have to wait at the table until I send someone over”. Absolutely could not care less what was happening to her guests but rather annoyed that we wanted to leave. You may say, but you paid for a tasting evening, why not stay? It was that much of an unpleasant atmosphere, boring food and uncomfortable seating that I would rather cut my losses than stay.

Funny, we have been here before and hesitantly went back because we knew we had to put up with the horrible, ice cold hostess both times only because the food was tasty but all of this was too much. Guess we will say goodbye to Yuzu but I’m guessing the restaurant really doesn’t care because they would have solved the issue of the bad service from a...

There are a few things in life that take 5 hours: the drive from the Hague to Cologne, heart surgeries, Bernardo Bertoluccis movie, Novecento (the original!) ... but usually not restaurant dinners. The staff at Yuzu decided to prove me wrong last Saturday during a special edition dinner with restaurant Cru. Even though the whole restaurant had a set menu they managed to take the slow service idea to the next level. Our first course, a salad took 1.5 hours to bring out and things did not improve from then on. 3 hours into our dinner we started asking the waiters to bring out two courses at the same time as it was getting close to our bedtime but this request was ignored. Not once during that 5 hours were told Sorry its taking this long or Apologies for the mixup when dishes randomly skipped/ mixed up. Interestingly some folks who arrived 2 hours after us managed to catch up with us during our extended stay (I guess it has nothing to do with the fact that they knew one of the chefs). While the food was good (though 100 eur pp is a bit cheeky), the service absolutely ruined the dinner experience and while we used to come to Yuzu many times before and even ordered from them during the Corona I think well skip this place in the future as I dont think I`ll be able to find 5 free hours in my daily schedule (unless I...