Ristorante Contigo — Restaurant in Zandvoort

My wife an I went to this restaurant on the last day of our short 3 day stay in Zandvoort. We had enjoyed it greatly and decided to try out a restaurant that was not on the beach (all in which we had great experiences). In Ristorante Contigo however, we would not have the same luck. Communicating with some of the waitresses was difficult in some cases if you didn't speak dutch (a couple sitting in table next to ours was from Germany and really struggled with this also). On to the meal itself... Starting with the drinks: My wife had a sparkling water, so you couldn't go wrong. I ordered a beer and when it came it wasn't cold and it wasn't warm. Kinda in-between. Ordered some fried "calamari", those were tasteless. They are usually not the most flavour rich starter you can order, but usually they come with some sauce and/or lemon to wake up your taste buds. This was not the case, it came with a couple of very thin slices of lemon which you couldn't even squeeze to get some juice out of them and no sauce whatsoever. I asked if they had any sauce for them and they brought some ketchup, mayonnaise and a garlic kind of paste (which I can only imagine is what they use to put on their garlic brear). Come on! Ketchup? Those are NOT fries! We the ordered the stake (for my wife) and a "frutti di mare" pizza for me. Meat was tasteless. As a matter of fact it tasted a bit "acid". Pizza was insipid. I can eat anything and usually I'm not that strict as to the quality and taste of my food, but this pizza I can say, is the first one I have not completely eaten in my life because It tasted WRONG.

Sorry for the long review, but as our last meal in what was an otherwise perfect holiday, we were really disappointed.

It was not cheap either, over 70 Euro...

Steak was served directly in the hot iron pan without any resting. The first time it came it was raw, although medium was ordered, then on my demand it was placed on the stove for a few more minutes till it reached medium. Steak came again in the hot pan, so tough I could not eat it. At least the service was good and they accepted that I would not pay for it. The meat from all the dishes my friends ordered came in hot pans and were not cooked accurately, eg. a thick piece of chicken breast which I thought was still a bit pink around the middle. "Schnitzel" came most likely out of the freezer and was deep fried. The lamb was okay, but a little tough, dry and not well seasoned. The portions of the fries were not really big and their taste was ok. Did not really touch the salad, looked dry. All in all the prices for what you get are in my eyes way too high, the Entrecote with some fries and a bit salad for 33€ should be at least cooked to the correct point and the correct way. I don't know why you would serve any meat directly from the grill/ pan without any resting time. But it seemed like there was only one cook for the whole restaurant, so I don't want to...

terrible service, the attendant was super rude, I expected more. Let’s be honest here — yes, you were rude. I’ve seen several comments below where you’re responding to customers. If you own a business, you need to learn how to treat your customers and how to accept criticism — especially constructive criticism. No one goes somewhere and complains for no reason. And from what I’ve seen, there are multiple complaints about your services — not just one, two, or three.

Since you clearly don’t know how to deal with customers, maybe you should just close the restaurant and do something else. It’s extremely unprofessional on your part to treat customers this way.

If we’re giving criticism, it’s because something isn’t right. And if something isn’t right, then it needs to be improved. If you can’t handle criticism, that’s your problem. And by the way, this space is made for people to complain — that’s exactly why there are comments here.

But seriously, this is something you need to fix internally. Learn how to treat your customers better — they’re the ones keeping your business running. Without customers, you wouldn’t...