LE:EN — Restaurant in Utrecht

Stay away from LE:EN! Horrible and extremely arrogant place!

I’m part of a team that organizes dinners for a small group every month for the past 3 years. We’ve been to nearly all the restaurants in Utrecht centre, and I have never experienced anything like what happened at LE:EN last night (Wednesday evening).

We were a group of 8 and were forced into a "Special Chef Surprise Set Menu" with no choices whatsoever. There was 1 vegetarian and 1 person allergic to fish, and instead of being accommodating, the staff actually blamed me for not telling them in advance. I mean, how can a restaurant be that rigid? If we didn’t like or couldn’t eat what they brought out (which we didn’t even know because it was all a "surprise"), we were told we could order extra from the main menu—but at an extra cost! So we’re paying €35 each for a set menu we didn’t ask for, and if we don’t eat it, we have to pay more to get something we actually want. Ridiculous!

And the food? Weird, to say the least. For some reason, they put rice on the table, but there was nothing to eat it with! Someone ordered potatoes, and what we got was a plate of extremely dry, overly spiced, boiled potatoes that nobody could eat, yet we still had to pay extra for it.

The only decent part of the night was our waitress. If it weren’t for her, I’m pretty sure some of our group would’ve walked out halfway through. But even she brought us the wrong bill at the end, which included items from the table next to us! I’m almost certain we ended up paying for several things twice. Two people in our group refused to pay because they barely ate anything, and as the organizer, I was left to cover the rest of the bill. This is the first time in 3 years of organizing these dinners that I’ve had to send out multiple apology emails afterward.

From beginning to end, a complete disaster!...

Update October 2018: unfortunately I have to correct the review from 5 to 3 stars after a recent visit. Let me start of by saying the the food is still of incredibly high quality, so hands up for the kitchen. However, the staff is just too below average to match the good food. Although friendly, staff is flow, does not take away used items, let's you sit for ages with empty glasses and forgets things. The waitress even spilled beer from a bottle we ordered and did not give us a new bottle (although 10% of the beer was spilled). Would not come here again anytime soon unfortunately, potty because the venue is so cool.

Very nice spot in Utrecht. Food is excellent and portions are quite decent. They also have a nice outside area to enjoy the sun. Definitely a nice place to visit with a larger group but also as couple.

Special tip: order the fried bread as...

Just had lunch here with four people. Apart from a large group (40 people) there were few others.

The bao chicken was nice but nothing too fancy. Me and a friend got served after 30 minutes and the two others on our table after 45 minutes or so. For just 4 small dishes and 7 people in the kitchen this was way too slow.

The waiter mentioned something about the large group (which is not my problem), but all he actually needed to say was: "yeah we should have mentioned this and messed up a bit, can we offer you some coffee?"

Previous visit was much better, this all left us a bit hungry and dissapointed. Small chocolates with the warm drinks are nice btw ^^ but for now I don't think there will be another visit...