Ekmekci Utrecht Hoog Catharijne — Restaurant in Utrecht

We had the Mediterranean Gozmele, first time we try such a dish. It was excellent in flavour, texture and the cheese was quite generous. Gozmele is now part of my favourite dishes, thanks to Ekmekci for introducing this to me.

The interiors were very nicely decorated. In fact, it was the interiors that attracted me to try the restaurant even if I wasn’t hungry. It was very well done and well located, right inside the Catherine Hoog with access to the outside, across the train station.

The service was painfully slow, though. To get service to get us a menu…to get the order was longer…then to get the food took even longer than the first 2 steps. We spent about 40-45 minutes from sitting at the table to receiving the food. We followed up twice to get the menu, 3x for someone to take our order and twice again for the food to arrive. We were wondering what was taking so long when the restaurant was quite empty.

Pricing was quite reasonable. Portion size was big.

The place was also quite hot, this was the at the beginning of September about noon time. Stifling heat. It didn’t help the slow service experience.

Food is good, place is good when it’s not hot but the slow service, will make me want to think twice...

It was not a good experience. First off all this is not an authentic gozleme at all. It’s way to expensive compared to it’s size and ingredients. For 13-14 euros you can order a full meal in such a place but we ended up with a “snack” size food. But this is not the reason I gave low stars. I ordered a very regular minced meat gozleme and I found something else in my food which is not minced meat. I took it to counter to show and one lady over there pick the piece in my food and said no worries it’s a piece of chicken and tried to send me back. Mistakes can always often but the right way to deal with is to immediately offer to make a new one. And never dig into customer foods with hands and expect them to keep eating it. I tried another Ekmekci in Amsterdam before, it was very good. My experience with this branch went horrible and I don’t think I will...

This was my second—and most likely last—visit to this place. I ordered the Gözleme Kapsalon, which felt like it had just come straight off an overly oily “pan”. The food was underwhelming, and the service was even worse.

About five minutes after receiving my meal, I asked for a takeaway package. To my surprise, it needed the manager’s approval just to get a simple takeaway package. Then I had to wait another 5 to 10 minutes just to pay 20 cents for the bag.

It’s disappointing when customer satisfaction is treated as an afterthought. Between the greasy food and the inefficient, unfriendly service, I can’t recommend this place. If you value decent treatment and basic courtesy, you’re better off...