The Green House — Restaurant in Utrecht

This is a restaurant built around sustainable food, where everything is sourced as locally as possible. The restaurant is decorated in a unique way, with an actual green house upstairs. However, despite the novel decor, the food is very lacklustre. The portion sizes mean that a table of two requires three main course dishes. And while the dishes are intended to be shared, they aren't served in a way that facilitates this.

The dishes themselves taste rather flat. The fish was largely tasteless, lacked any salt. The potato with sour cream looked like something from a home cook. The saving grace was the pizza, which really was imaginative and wonderfully cooked. The base was very unique, and it's flavour profile was lovely.

Desserts were interesting. The creme brulee was very good. The chocolate dessert had elements that were very creative eg. A frozen yoghurt foam with a hint of amaretto.

The wine selection was a disappointing - largely French. While I do understand the focus on sustainability, the sourcing/selection of wines felt rather unimaginative and limited.

The staff were exceptionally helpful and friendly. Service was very efficient, professional, and sufficiently attentive.

This restaurant should focus on building a better menu that has better flavours, and proper portions which are served appropriately. Sustainable food is important, however, for a restaurant, delivering exceptional flavours is paramount. Until then, I would think this a great place for a late evening dessert, but not for a meal (dinner...

DANGEROUS for people with allergies. Went for dinner with my family in law. In the reservation description and in all the communication we have stated that I have a severe soy allergy. Before ordering, we stated it again as on the menu it says that if you have a food allergy you should mention it, then we asked again (for the fourth time) before eating our meals and were assured that all the meals we were about to consume are completely soy free. After two bites I could feel my lips swelling and my throat itching. I went to the server to ask her (5th time) if she’s sure its soy free. She went up to the chef who was already off work and asked, he said “yeah its covered in soy yoghurt”….. I don’t think this restaurant understand that allergy is NOT an intollerance, you can die. After that, no one looked me in the face, no one directly informed me “hey so actually you consumed pure soy”, they just all started running around annoyed with eachother. If I didn’t overhear the chef it would probably take until I was completely sick for them to tell me. I was left with no food and in the middle of an allergic reaction (luckily I had my medicine with me). The chef came to say sorry which felt akward as I was with a big group so the only thing I could say was “thank you”. What really tops it off is that not only did I not get a replacement meal that was actually soy free…. We still had to pay, even for my meal. If the staff was atleast nice it might’ve made it bearable but I definitely do NOT reccomend this...

Well. What a disappointing experience.

We booked a table for 2 for dinner. Not necessary. The restaurant was empty.

The dinner menu was very limited and more like a brunch menu. In fact the dinner options are a small subset of what’s on the menu for lunch. Other than a surprise menu, there were only 5 dishes to choose from. Two were pizzas (they have a proper pizza oven). One was a salad. One was Turkish Eggs (unusual option for dinner). The other, not memorable. I ordered the artichoke pizza but was told they no longer have it. The only other option I was remotely interested in was the fennel pizza, so I chose that and a side salad. My friend had the Turkish Eggs.

The pizza was very thin and crispy, and had a decent flavour. But it was just very light for dinner. The Turkish Eggs were a “green” take on the dish and not very enticing or filling.

We skipped dessert but ordered tea. They asked if we both wanted honey. Yes, we did. Minutes later they brought our tea but apologised saying they have no honey.

As if that weren’t enough, while we were drinking our tea (minus honey) I noticed something moving on the floor a few tables over. A mouse. Actually two of them.

That was clearly our signal to leave.

I don’t know the back story of this restaurant but it needs to wipe the slate clean and start over because this just...