In Den Rustwat

Had lunch here; absolutely nothing to complain about

Rotterdam's finest restaurant. What could one say about Marcel and IDRW, after 30 years as his customer, other than wishing Maaske was still around to watch with pride all this. (photo: members of MEL's Advisory Board - 2007)

Excellent food, with great wine paring. The staff is very friendly and professional. I would have appreciated it if they would have offerd my grandfather a seat while he was waiting, (besides the fact that he was an hour early). I don't think making an 84 year old wait standing in the hot sun on the parkinglot is very decent.

Amazing experience and truly exceeding my expectation! Nice ambiance, and service. Food is classic and delicious! We’ve been to a lot of Michelin star restaurant and i think this restaurant has even better quality!

A Bib-Gourmand lunch on a weekday. Very friendly welcome, seated inside. The food was really nice, though the staff appeared a bit perplexed by a vegetarian. The service clearly paid attention to other tables than to us. A three course lunch took 2hrs 40 min - quite a bit even by Michelin standards. We would sit for 20-30 min at an empty table with plates cleaned. We were served one slice of bread per person - and not replenished. Again, the food is very good - the smoked potato mousse demonstrated that the chef can clearly do miracles with ordinary staples. But the service is still to match.

We visited In Den Rust Wat again this weekend. The last time we were here it was Friday the 13th of March 2020. Corona was just starting and we could hear other guests whispering about it. My wife asked me if we should even go, of course I said 😅 and luckily we went because two days later our “intelligent” Lockdown started. This time we still were in partial lockdown (QR code and closing time 22h). IDRW has a classical and conservative image, but we were seated in the ‘new’ more modern looking new part of the restaurant. At first I wanted the traditional side of the restaurant but at the end I was very glad to see their ‘other’ more modern side. Ambiance 7/10 but because of the cosy fireplace and the art on the table 8/10. We were greeted by the Chef and I had several talks with the Chef, during and at the end of the dinner. To summarize the evening: IDRW has improved drastically!! It was very good before in 2020, but if you would have told me this restaurant had ⭐️ or ⭐️⭐️ Michelin stars: I would have totally believed it!! Its their goal now to get a star the Chef told me. And I told him we experienced that they really went, not one, but two steps up the ladder!! Service was great, not stiff at all. They even accompanied the four of us with two people with umbrellas all the way to the car park 😳 And it was raining and storming so the guys umbrella gave up and flapped the other way 😂 Poor guy but 10/10 for service. The dishes and wine were amazing, I was really surprised. The pictures and menu speak for itself.. Some dishes at the beginning, the wine was on the safe side (nice to drink without the dish). But as the evening proceeded the wines became less winebar and more cuisine (really jumped out when paired with the dish)!! Cuisine 9/10 We had a fantastic evening with good company (critical foodies!)… I will not be surprised at all if this restaurant earns their Michelin star this year. They totally deserve it!!! ❤️

Overall good food, but the staff might have some prejudice against non-western Europeans. I went to this place with a group of Dutch friends couple of times. We made the selection of dishes when we made the reservations. On the dinner table, when the main course arrived, one of our plates were not served right, say, we ordered chicken but one of the plates were prepared with beef by mistake. So the waitress had to quickly decide in her mind which member of our group had to receive the wrong plate. And such mistake happened on two nights when we dined in this place and quite "coincidentally", I was the lucky one to get the wrong dish in both occasions. The only thing I can think of is that in those two occasions I am the only visibly non-European on the table. It's impossible to say for sure this is the cause but I'd say that the odds are pretty darn strange. To add up to the unpleasantry, when I requested to correct the dish, the waitress didn't even respond to my questions and simply walked away and acted like it didn't happen. Though I don't speak Dutch, I don't think I was being rude so their way of handling this were pretty shocking. So my recommendations: 1. In general, large groups please be cautious in going there. They made mistakes with our group orders in two of the four time we were there, and refuse to do anything about it. 2. For non-Europeans, I won't make conclusions as to whether they are prejudiced, but you can form your own judgement.

Well, really nice and cosy restaurant. Service a bit slower but helpful. Having side table where you put half empty bottles just next to table with customers is really unfortunate, even though maybe practical for service. Now the food. Maybe my expectations were too high, but the experience was quite inconsistent. For example the duck from bib gourmand menu was just brilliantly prepared, i really enjoyed gazpacho, but then the sweet stuff ... those little things we got as welcome before ordering were let's say a bit weird and the final icecream from 4 course menu just tasted terrible. Like some experiment that just got out of hand. I think i will give it some time, but for sure will try again.