Landgoed Duin & Kruidberg

The dining room at Landgoed Duin & Kruidberg is stunning, and the setting is beautiful, but the service was a serious disappointment for a place of this caliber. We stayed one night, 3 Jan, and had dinner there. The staff seemed unprepared and not trained in basic fine-dining manners. They hurried around heavily, handled plates and cutlery clumsily, and didn’t crumb or reset the table. When my husband ordered wine, the server poured straight into my glass without showing us the bottle, checking its temperature, or asking who would taste it. He had to stop her to say he wanted to try it first. When I handed the glass to him, she seemed confused and assumed I wasn’t drinking. A waiter asked about a dish that seemed to have foie gras, as we wanted to make sure, and described it only as “a dish with duck liver,” seeming unfamiliar with the product. While my husband was still reading the menu, another waiter tried to clear his plate without excusing herself or waiting for him to move the menu, simply lifting it off the plate. After the appetizer, a waiter spilled wine while refilling our glasses, hesitated, and covered the stain with a napkin instead of cleaning or refreshing the table. No one acknowledged the delay when we waited around 40 minutes for the main course, or suggested resetting the table. Simple courtesies like “please,” “certainly,” or “may I” were missing throughout. The room also had a clogged shower drain, leaving a deep pool of water that drained very slowly. The property and restaurant look promising, but the lack of service training, product knowledge, attention to detail, and basic hospitality, along with the maintenance issue, undermined the stay.

We used to stay at this hotel whenever we visited NL, but I think it’s time to find somewhere cleaner. For five days, there was a mouse in our room. On the third day, we told the staff we’d seen something run from under the bed to under the heater, and they said they’d “look into it”. On the morning we left, we saw the mouse run from the bed to the heater again. When we reported it, staff said “it is an old house and sometimes it’s difficult to catch up, but they are working on it”. That’s unacceptable, especially for a property that presents itself as high end. The toilet also needs refurbishing. The shower tray was stained, and there was mold around the shower door and exhaust outlet.

A lovely place for an offsite meeting, with a huge garden to walk around. We also had a fantastic fine-dining experience.

The location is beautiful, but next time we’ll just stop for a drink. At lunch, it took about 15 minutes after we sat down for anyone to bring the menu and take our order, and that only happened after we approached the staff ourselves. They gave a brief apology, and the food did arrive quickly once we’d ordered. But clearing the plates and bringing the dessert menu dragged on too, and by the time we were ready to order dessert the wait had become so frustrating that we gave up, paid, and left. We paid €44 for a bagel, a rather bland salmon salad, and a bottle of still water, which felt poor value.