| Product: |
Bilderberg Garden Hotel Mangerie de Kersentain Amsterdam |
| Date: |
10/04/08 (49 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Pampered and chilled, got a bargain
Disadvantages: Felt a bit out of place
This review was first posted by me on Ciao, though I have updated it for this site, as having read the rules here, it's allowed......and if we didn't have rules!!!!
As the category lists the hotel and restaurant together I have reviewed both here.
I went on a 6 day, 5 night stay in Amsterdam with my wife, we decided to spend xmas there as my youngest son was spending xmas with his mum, and we thought we would treat ourselves to a nice trip.
Location:
Hotel Bilderberg Garden is about 2 and a half miles (if you know your way) from the heart of Amsterdam, in the district called the Old South. This is quite a 'well heeled' area and has some fantastic, if expensive shopping areas and resturaunts, as well as some nice archtiecture. Trams (number 5) go straight into town, though we walk everywhere; twenty minutes walking gets one to the Rjiks museum, 35-40 minutes, into KalvertStraat (centre). I found the hotel easily enough with satnav.
Booking:
We booked the hotel via Ferrysavers.com and got a fantastic deal, with buffet breakfast and ferry tickets via Hull (we live in Yorkshire) for around £700, bearing in mind that the cheapest rooms are normally around £70 per person, per night, and breakfast is 19 Euro per person.
There was only 29 people in the hotel on xmas day, fab. The hotel is very much a business orientated hotel, meeting rooms etc., and as we left we noticed a plethora of Saabs, Volvo's and BMW's parked outside as it was a normal working day.
The room:
The double room we booked was spacious, well decorated and had the biggest bed you could imagine, very comy too. Crisp, white linen, plenty of nice towels, huge bath and even bathrobes and slippers, as well as the obigatory shampoo, and bath gel (and free body lotion). There was a TV which showed many channels free including BBC, and a few pay per view (mostly porn). A mini bar, tea and cofee making facilities, with cappucino etc. fresh biscuits and fruit every day. A really nice touch was a personal welcome message displayed on the TV when we arrived.
Furniture was good quality and they seemed to have thought of everything, sewing kit, internet access etc.
The staff were efficient and friendly, even parking the car and getting a daily parking ticket (all parking is metered) for us. If anything the staff were too efficient, if we popped out for an hour, we came back to new towels and flannels, fresh fruit and the room tidied, bit embarrassing.
Facilities:
The hotel is categorised on different review sites as 4 or 5 star, I would say 4. The hotel is clean and welcoming and in a lovely area, though the exterior looks a bit dated now and has a 70's business centre feel about it.
The buffet breakfast is worth having as it set us up for the day, the usual continental selection of cheeses and meats, as well as hot fare, fruit, cereal, every bread you could imagine, along with every juice, and even cherry crumble and waffles (yuk).
Attached to the hotel is the World famous restaurant 'De Kersentuin', and this is where we had our (8 course) xmas meal.
The hotel bar is somewhat expensive and I would not recommend making a night of it there. Especially when one is within walking distance of Leiderplain, and Boom Chicago, Jazz Cafe Alto, and all the great resturaunts.
I did notice a distinct lack of children in the hotel and did not feel that they were geared toward families.
In summary, if you want a taste of affordable luxury, especially for a short break, go for it, some great deals are available. We would go again.
The restaurant:
One of the reasons we stayed at this hotel was that it had a very well regarded restaurant attached, De Kersentuin, or 'Cherry Orchard'. This place has been reviewed by The Guardian, New York Times and many other publications, and is listed in the Michelin guide. We wanted to have our christmas dinner there so booked in advance using diningcity.com. We figured that as we were splashing out on our xmas break, we should make our xmas meal one to remember.
When we arrived at the hotel it was noticable that the resturaunt was full to brimming at every sitting, which is basically a long lunch stint, then from 7.30 pm, so we were ceratinly glad we booked. On the evening that we were due to eat, we had a drink in the bar first which was packed, just one drink, as, at over a tenner per drink we were saving ourselves for our meal.
The orange (Hollands national colour) uniformed staff from the restaurant let us know when it was time to go in, and a very formal chap in a dinner suit took our names and we were shown to our seats, we were pretty glad that we had packed some formal wear.
The restaurant is tastefully decorated in red and black, though, being xmas there were plenty of xmas decorations.
The menu was on the table and we were slightly shocked that instead of the normal 3 course price fixed meal at 40 or 50 Euro, or the a la carte menu, there was a fixed 8 course (yes, 8) course xmas meal, no prices so we could only imagine, and be glad that we both had plastic with us.
Each course had a suggestion of which drinks, wine or otherwise to drink with it, though we opted for a bottle of house white, which was a very enjoyable Italian at only 25 Euro. The staff helpfully gave us an english version of the menu as the original was in Dutch, as we soon realised that the vast majority of clientele were local Dutch folk.
The food is quite French/continental in design and delicious, I will go through the courses we ate:
Course 1: A long dish containing three small starters called 'amuse', a small (about an inch) flan of portobello mushroom with preserved carrot, a horn of filo pastry filled witha rillette of mackerel and a sherbert of sweet and sour cucumber, and a lolly (really) of duck leg in red port jelly....all, very nice, if only two bites each.
Course 2: Cannelloni of tuna (raw) filled with Alaskan King crab, a flattened fig and a deep fried langustine, my favourite dish of the night, I could have eat a full portion of this and left happy, I was surprised too, as raw fish is not my usual thing, but it was to die for, melt in the mouth, my wife agreed.
Course 3: Domino of grilled halibut under a spicy jelly of tomato and szechuan tea. This, we were informed was the 'soup' course, ver refreshing, not too much and it was really quite unusual with a 'dropper' full of a spicy green sauce to flavour the soup, quite novel.
Course 4: This presented both my wife and I with a real challenge; warm pannacotta of goose liver, with goose liver 'a la plancha' and a foam of granny smith apple with winter trffle dressing.....well, the granny smith foam and the truffle were fabulous, as for the goose liver (warm), sorry, bit rich, though i did try it, my wife gagged and could not eat it at all.
Course 5: Rose fried roebuck fillet with a creme of lighltly smoked almonds.....I guessed that this was venision, though i was unsure so I asked the waiter who said "you know the film Bambi?, this is it", my wife and I nearly fell of our chairs with laughter, it was raw in the middle and I thought I'd give it a go though i do like my meat well cooked.....It was fantastic, melt in the mouth, strong but not overpowering, really quite spectacular, the best meat I have tasted in my 45 years on this planet, poor old (young) Bami.
Course 6: Getting full now, a cheese course, to be precise, Roasted mousse of Comte cheese, an ointment of Roquesfort by Cave Baragnaude and a compote of quince and mustard. The mousse was strong and flavoursome, had a the taste of Gouda, though wasn't the Roquefort was quite simply the strongest I have ever tasted, my eyes watered, and the quince and mustard was genius, my 2nd favourite course.
Course 7: Gateau Fatal of Valrona Guanaja 70% chocolate with ice cream of dates and a chestnut sabayon. As a diabetic i should not have ate this, but it was xmas, and it was a really small portion i did, really did like it, the ice cream especially. My wifes favourite course.
Course 8: We did not have course 8 which was cofffee and little chocolate cakes, we were far too full.
Overall the meal was more an experience than a meal, I have never had an 8 course meal before, and probably never will again, what a night, the meal took over 4 and a half hours, the service was fantastic, the waiters took time out to chat, the background music was quiet enough to not drown our conversation and was pleasant piano; Mozart mostly.
We felt like we had stepped into another World, and East End boy and a Barnsley girl, hob nobbing with the great and good.
Price: We were expecting, in fact we had a guessing game, around £300, and were pleasantly surprised when the bill came, including wine, totalled 175 Euro, or about £140, we gave a generous tip and retired, somewhat full to our room.
We would certainly go to this resturaunt again, though not at xmas. The 'normal' menu contained things like sea bass, sate dishes, and more contemporary fare.
I would ceratinly reccomend this place if you are in Amsterdam, but would advise booking in advance, through a site like diningcity.com, or by contacting them directly, as they are attached to the Hotel, the hotel will gladly take the booking.
There is absolutely nothing that I can say negative about the experience, maybe that there were no children there, though I am not sure that is neccessarily negative, and it was nice that the place was mainly used by local (well Dutch anyway) folk, and not full of Brits.
Summary: Hotel and restaurant in Amsterdam
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