Rum CLUB — Restaurant in Utrecht

To be quite honest there wasn’t much positive I could start my review with but I’ll try:

Outside seating has a great atmosphere when it’s sunny. We could experience passing boats through the small canal & enjoy one of the last summerdays this year accordingly.

Nevertheless i was looking forward to visiting RumClub Utrecht for about 3-4 years now. Since we’re moving abroad this was our last chance to actually go & visit.

Service: I had to ask to be seated somewhere. Since it was packed I just didn’t want to grab any seat that was available & politely ask for it. No one seemed to care. So we sat down outside by the water. On a table that hasn’t been cleaned yet. One of three available yet not clean table options. We’ve waited quite a while for someone to take care of us. After our first order of drinks we had to wait for a while. No one came to check on us nor ask how the drinks were or if we wanted some food. Only later on, when a Greek waitress started her shift we’ve been accommodated as we expected it. If you don’t have enough staff, someone called in sick or whatever - just let your guests know. It’s not that hard. Everyone would understand.

Drinks: Why is it called RUMclub? The signature drink menu consists of 8-10 cocktails with only 2-3 rum ones. ‘Or so’. Seemed way too little choices for a RUMclub to only offer a few signature rum based cocktails. When I asked for a rum menu, I was told there is none. I mean? What? How is there no rum menu in a RUM concepted establishment like yours???

Food: I ordered the jerk chicken wings. Since my travels to the Caribbean I missed the taste of jerk so bad. Unfortunately I was really disappointed.. the wings weren’t bad, don’t get me wrong. It just wasn’t jerk. Furthermore we ordered some different options like the Chicken CFC or whatever it was called - in the end it was badly fried chicken topped with mayonnaise and ketchup.. great.. also we ordered some gyoza & a veggie curry. Weren’t bad. Weren’t great either..

One positive thing I have to add at the end though: Now that we’re moving abroad I know for sure I won’t miss...

Having read loads of reviews on this we were really looking forward to our visit. We arrived for our reserved table at 7:30pm and were taken straight to the table, ordered drinks straight away and the menu was explained to us by an Irish Lady. Drinks came quickly but we were not ready to order food straight away. Once we had almost finished the drinks we were ready to order the Irish lady came back and took our food an another drinks order. This was around 7:45pm. We then waiting almost an hour before any food arrived at our table, we were then asked by the Irish lady if we wanted more drinks, we advised we hadn't received the last ones yet, she went off and came back to say they would be with us shortly, we then asked about the food as only one if the 6 dishes we had ordered had arrived. By this time it was nearly 9pm which was when she had previously advised us the kitchen would be closing. The rest of the food then arrived around 5 minutes later. By this time we were starving and ate quite quickly. The food was very bland, corn was very dry and just had a sprinkling of seasoning on it, chicken wings tasted like they were plainly cooked but sprinkled with spice and spring onions, nothing tasted like it had been cooked with any care. The restaurant itself looks very nice and cosy and the atmosphere was good, shame about the food and service, we will not...

Really good drinks but very pricey. The food is meh, we didn't finish the fries( The corn snacks were pretty good though, fries were floppy and meat was stringy.) and i heard from a friend that the kitchen is disgusting so i won't be ordering food here again. The price for the drinks is worth it though, i was pretty drunk after 3 drinks where usually it takes me 5 and of course you also pay partly for presentation and location which i don't mind doing at all.

I recommend the fresh prince of shell air for something really sweet, the walking dead for a sour strong punch and the jungle juice if you enjoy the taste of tequila. My partner had the donkey kong and dark and stormy. I don't like banana so i didn't order the Donkey Kong but surprisingly the banana wasn't overpowering like you'd expect it to be, it was sweet and really good, not too thick or thin. I'm not much of a fan of ginger either but the dark and stormy was really good as long as the ice didn't dilute it, i tasted it when it just got to the table vs when my partner had been drinking it for a while, after the ice had diluted it a bit, the ginger was much stronger which i am personally not a fan of.

For now I'm giving it a 4/5. Fix the food and...