Bo Cinq

Excellent Saturday night with 4 friends. A bit expensive (12 – 16 EUR for a cocktail), but you excessive for that kind of a place.

I have been BoCingtified!!!
This is a BEST place to eat in Amsterdam. I started with the magnificent truffle couscous and for main course I had the succulent lobster dish. My husband had the juicy Waguy Burger and the lamb shank that just melts in your mouth. Each entrée were beautifully prepared and served. They have so many delicious and so refreshing cocktail and I highly recommend Muy Hot and the Bo mopolitan. The service was great and staffs are so nice. If you are visiting Amsterdam you must include this in your itinerary.

From America. Loved the food and drinks. Fravorful. Purchased the duck confit and the burger with forie gras. Truffle fries. Delicious. So friendly and direct.

Read about this place in a food and wine mag! We stopped by for tea and desserts. I ordered what the waiter recommended, the rum cake, which was not too bad. Didn’t get to try much of the food here but the décor and ambience was lovely! Dim and warm filled with brick iron. Impressive décor.

Such a great place — lovely food and endless bubbles for our table of ten meant we spent 4 hours over supper.
A brilliant spot for a girls /​big group supper — the bar next door is pretty smart — and it’s super close to (and affiliated with Jimmy Woo)

Although this place can look rather dull when it’s empty, if you are after a nice low lite evening with food or just drinks, and a great smoking room (the best in Amsterdam in my mind) then this is the spot for you. If you are after anything more then look elsewhere.

Let me clarify first, the overall experience was 4 starts. After reading so many reviews (since last year) and comments about their service and catering time I am also rating Bo Cinq with 3 starts. Sorry guys, you really need to do something and change your service and reservation process in order to meet the 4 or 5 stars standards.
So, I made my reservation a week in advance, we arrived with my partner 30 minutes earlier in order to enjoy a drink at the bar before our meal. Our reservation was for 9pm and we got our table at 9:30. This is 30 minutes waiting. We didn’t really mind waiting but I am sure other people with a reservation would find this very irritating.
Great food and good wine selection. We had starters, side dishes and main courses.

Left after not being catered to after 10 minutes. And I had a reservation too.
I’m sure the food and drinks are amazing too.
Note: Service is just as important as the food and drinks. I won’t and don’t wait longer on a server than I would wait on a PhD prepared college or grad school professor when they are late.
Went across the street to Chicanos.
Much better service.
No f**** given.
No apologies.

Creative, delectable menu was matched by friendly, attentive service. Wine list is limited but satisfactory. The real stars are the flavors, richly blended in fish, meat, and vegetarian dishes that can be ordered as a tasting menu or a la carte, for sharing (encouraged) or individual selections. Unpretentious fine dining (if you like, side-​by-​side on the cushioned seating that lines one wall) in central Amsterdam. Highly recommended, even for a drink at the well-​appointed bar.

Second star is just for the harisa fries, otherwise I would give them only one star.
Too much hype to a mediocre joint at best, but hey — in this strange city where there is no kitchen open after 21:00, probably one of the only places to eat ok at night.
Quality ingredients used in the worst way possible. Cold pizza (WTF?!), strange salads with the saltiest dressing you could imagine. The chef is trying without success to be creative. Sorry. the best thing we had was the harisa fries (very good).

Remains a great location to get great food and enjoy in a relaxed hippish atmosphere.

Loved the food!!! a fusion of French and Arabic. Grab a bite at the restaurant or have cocktails At the bar. Cute interior and great vibe to meet up with friends… only the waiters were a bit disappointing. One girl had a huge problem w speaking politely and trying to open a bottle of wine. And saw another pour left over wine in one bottle and then forgot the coffee we ordered at the end of the night. All with all they tried their best and I would return!

Love this place, the cocktails, the wine, the music, the ambiance, the interior. Great place to meet with your friends for drinks.
I do agree with some of the reviews below about some of the staff, but this is a common problem in Amsterdam.

Food = amazing
Service = terrible
My husband and I went to this restaurant for our 3^rd anniversary and were really excited based on the website and reviews. It is a shared dining concept with small plates and very inventive dishes. Also, being from Baltimore, we were really excited to see soft-​shell crab on the menu (it was super lekker).
When we walked in, it was about 19:45 on a Wednesday and the restaurant probably had four or five tables occupied, but it still took about five minutes for someone to come over to us and seat us. When we finally sat, it was another ten minutes before someone brought us menus and took our drink order. We didn’t have our cocktails for at least another ten minutes. We watched hungrily as all of the other tables around us, many of which were seated around us, were served bread (which we never got), drinks, and food. When we did eventually get to eat and drink, it was quite fantastic. Gingerbread manhattan… yum! Every dish was more delicious than the last. Our dirty dishes stayed on the table for around fifteen minutes during which time there was no staff in sight. We wanted to hear about dessert, but we were just getting uncomfortable sitting in those chairs for such a long time (glorified iron-​wrought garden furniture — looks cute, not designed to be sat in for several hours).
If you have a long time and don’t mind bad service, it is worth it to try the food here. But we arrived at 19:45 and left just before 22:00, so plan for a long meal.

We made the mistake of traveling to Amsterdam this past weekend without making any dinner reservations. Literally every place we called the day of we found to be completely booked solid. Therefore when a 9:45 reservation was available for Bo Cinq — we thought, why not.
I’ll start off by saying my expectations in coming here were pretty low — we had looked at some reviews prior to coming and there were a lot of complaints about the service and perceived snootiness. To be honest, our experience was quite different. We came a bit early and had some drinks in back lounge — there is nothing super special about this back lounge, but it was a lot quieter than the bar in the front and a nice way to ease into our dinner. Though people seemed grouchy about the service in the main dining area (calling over our hostess as she was seating us multiple times), we found the servers really attentive, visiting us frequently throughout our meal, and with honest recommendations about the food.
Wine: We shared a reasonably priced Montepulciano following our pre-​dinner cocktails — it was a great choice alongside both our meat and fish tapa dishes.
Food: Served tapa style — my recommendations here would be for the duck breast and lamb tagine. They recommend 2 – 4 plates per person (all averaging between 9 – 14 Euros) — between two of us we shared 5 between us, leaving us satisfied but looking for a bite later on in the evening.
I wouldn’t call any of the dishes here outstanding, nothing stood out — but as a decent spot, with a great table and good service on a Saturday night — no complaints here. This wouldn’t be a top choice of mine to go whilst in Amsterdam, but if you find yourselves in a similar position without reservations on a Sat night, you might get lucky here.

Loved this place! Great vibe, fantastic waiters and lots of beautiful people milling about. Fantastic place to engage with locals.
Also, they had great lobster croquettes! I loved it and will definitely be going back on my next visit!

Spend your money some where else.
First off, the hostess and bartender were fantastic. The vibe of the place is great. They have a huge bar and lounge area to chill or to wait for your table. Good music also.
HORRIBLE server… worst I’ve ever had: attitude for days. So you know it was the super skinny tan skinned guy. He was combative, inattentive and seemed to not give a shit.
The sides were very late [read: most of the 8 people at our table were ½ way finished with their entrees]. The venison was great and the wine was good.
Don’t half step. Come here to get service as bad as it gets.

Very very nice and loungy… the perfect place to start your evening … especially if you are in a nice big group.
The décor is a bit rustic but definitely executed with good taste. Lot of different seating and a VERY long bar… which almost goes from one side to the other of the club.
They offer also food, but apart from the small pizzas and other bar food we tried, we did not go for food. Ample selection of whine and of course any type of cocktail /​drinks.
Crows is a bit on the young side but the more the evening goes, the older it gets… good. or bad. you decide :)
BIG smoking room, which is actually very smelly!
Nice and pleasant background music. not too loud… lets you still have a conversation.
All staff were very very nice.

Gorgeous interior with exposed brick walls, candles, sexy furniture and super friendly staff.
If you want to impress your lover, your guest, your boss or your imaginary friend — this is the place to do it, whether for just a drink or dinner.
The food: delicious. Really flavorful, well prepared, beautiful to look at before scarfing down.
All in all — top spot.

When I arrived at 18:15, drenched from a sudden downpour, the place was empty. As I dried off and waited for my friend to arrive the bar staff were kind and welcoming (even though I looked like a bit of a wet dog.)
We snagged a couch, a couple of glasses of white wine and some appetizers. The food, purported to be French-​Arabic, was certainly better than your average pub grub. I especially enjoyed the pizette.
I must point out that any place that can manage in the space of two hours to play Pearl Jam (Vs. era songs) Whitney Houston’s I Get So Emotional (you do too, right?) and a nice mix of Basic Space by The xx wins points with me.
On my way out of Bo Cinq I looked back on the dimly lit lounge and saw a completely different place than the one I’d arrived in: couples canoodling on couches by candlelight, friends starting their weekends, people on the pull. To this central Amsterdam spot I’d certainly return, especially given it seems to escape the crush of tourists despite its near Leidseplein location.