Weird Service /Duchess

Y (May '23)

SCORE: Suck it and see

ORDER: Wellington, Pistachio Pasta, brandy alexander

VALUE: So so - 150€ for appetizer, 1.5 mains (3 shared between 2) and 2 cocktails.

If you're looking for a restaurant that has a decent set of cocktails, reasonable food and is a good place to bring clients that you want to entertain, this is probably a good go to. The restaurant is housed in the W, albeit in a separate building than the main W hotel in Amsterdam. When you enter up the separate stairwell that as far as I can tell only serves the restaurant, you are greeted by a restaurant with ginormously high ceillings, old school statues, clocks and marble cladding. So yes, if you want to impress clients, good place to bring them to.

As you would expect a place to be that is 'for show', your best dishes are going to be the clichest of the cliches... Wellington, oysters, caviar etc. Same logic goes for their best drinks. The flashier the drink, odds are the 'better' it will be.

My first visit to this spot was exactly for the purpose of taking some clients out on the town, and I had asked for the heavy hitters - the beef wellington, the caviar pasta, the baked king crab. While these were not dishes that I usually fancy, they were decently well done, and overall the experience seemed pleasant enough, so I thought I would give this place another go and try some of the... non fancy dishes.

On this occasion I tried the dover sole, the asparagus and the pistachio pasta. The sole was light and the meuniere, as expected didn't overpower the flavor of the fish. It could have done with some punch though, either some shallots or some capers, but still a decent dish. The pistachio pasta with burrata was definitely the star for this meal, it was rich, decadent and velvety and certainly felt like a warm blanket on a cold day, like the evening that I was at the restaurant.

The part of the experience that was really bizarre was the service. The first occasion that I'd gone to this place, the service was very sharp. They served courses at a decent pace, kept to themselves and were able to keep the flow of the meal going. On this occassion, and perhaps a mother's day dinner rush might have caused a confusion to the team here, the service was just strange for a place that is supposedly high profile. After giving us our bread, the service team member thought it was prudent to serve the entirety of the meal at once - Our fennel salad, the pasta, the fish, the side, 4 rather large plates on a small 2-top. At once! I was so confused, and at that point it made no sense to send any of the warmer dishes back because the orders would probably sit under the plate warmer and the textures would change. It was certainly unpleasant, and it gave me the distinct impression that they were telling me to 'GTFO'. What made this whole ordeal even more perplexing, was that the staff member had previously been extremely friendly and jovial, making recommendations to us and so forth.

My two vastly varying experiences at this restaurant clearly highlight why I would rate it a "suck it and see" because even I don't know if I'll necessarily enjoy my next visit here.