La Oliva in Jordaan

Bad food, unfriendly staff, overpriced, tourist trap

La Oliva is fantastic!!! The food was delicious and the service is very polite. We have been a few times already and we will definitely be back.

I found it disappointing. I missed the fresh Spanish taste. A lot of money for little quality.

The only restaurant where you can eat 'decently' in Amsterdam. Everything was very good.

The price is high, and I would even say exorbitant for the pintxos; it's not worth spending that money, especially if you're Spanish.

We definitely misjudged this place while walking around in Amsterdam, trying to find in a spot to sit down for a drink. We thought it looked nice so sat down, server came up to us and we asked for a menu and he offered to get us a glass of water. Came back with a very large, fancy bottle of water and poured it for us. Then gave us the menu, which did not seem very appealing. We decided this was not the place for us so we did not order any more drinks. We paid for our very expensive bottle of water and moved along - €7.25 later … I mean, at least the water was good?

Very good food yet slightly expensive for Amsterdam

Fun and delicious tapas, smalñ portions with very interesting flavors like the beef cheek brioche, very good and friendly service, exquisite wine

Bad service (unhappy, rigid, kitchen closing early) didn't feel any Spanish vibe whatsoever. Food was pretty expensive, tasteless and served in small portions. The place is a classic Dutch house in Jordaan, so pretty cute. You need to spend at least 40-50€ pp to be somehow full with low to avarage food and unhappy waiters.

Great service, cute place, also good food but the price you pay versus the serving size is wayyy off. Pulpo and wild boar stew were top.

The pinchos super tasty. Nice place for a quick lunch

The food is prepared well and has a nice flavor. Unfortunately, the portions are very small, especially in relation to the prices. We were quite disappointed with the service. There was little attention paid to the guests and hardly any explanation was given about the dishes. That is precisely what one would expect at this type of restaurant. All in all: tasty food, but as far as we are concerned, the price-quality ratio and the service could certainly be better.

I'm celiac and I warned them beforehand. They brought me a burrata with breadcrumbs, ruining the rest of my vacation. If you have any allergies or intolerances, I absolutely do not recommend it.

Great plce for dinner, lunch and a coffee inside and outside. Staff super nice and go the extra mile.

This small restaurant is very charming, with a lovely terrace overlooking a lively pedestrian street in the evening. The atmosphere is truly delightful. The tapas are very good and the food is high quality, even if the portions are rather small. However, the service somewhat spoils the experience. The waitress (who seems to be the owner) comes by very frequently to clear the plates and ask if we would like to order anything else. On several occasions, she tried to remove a plate even though there was still food left. You feel rushed, which prevents you from fully enjoying your meal. Another disappointing point: no bread is served with the saucy dishes. When we asked for some, we received a defrosted loaf of very poor quality. This is regrettable, especially with such flavorful and relatively expensive dishes, whose sauces deserve to be savored to the last drop. It's a shame, because the food is truly excellent. With more relaxed service and better quality bread, the experience would be significantly more enjoyable.

Walked in for an early lunch & was happily surprised. Delicious food, great staff & had Spanish diners which speaks for itself. The GF options are sadly limited & I continue to be surprised how few restaurants don't offer GF bread when it is easily accessible. I loved the salad & scallops I had though & would definitely return.

Lovely spot, wide selection of wine and fine, flavorful small dishes to share.

Being from Bilbao, I have to say I was surprised. You can tell the pintxos are a bit bigger, meant for sharing, which justifies the price (€6) each, but they're quite good.

In short, the service was disorganized, unprofessional, and an unpleasant experience. A short-haired waitress gave contradictory orders to a young man who seemed to be new: she told him to leave the bar, then come back, then prepare one thing and then another, without letting him finish or giving him a chance to learn. The worst part was overhearing them talking amongst themselves afterward, saying he was "no good."

Cosy restaurant, tasty food and the most friendly staff

Great food and speedy service. The fish soup was very flavourful

Till now I visited 3 Spanish restaurants in Ams. La Oliva is the best by far.

We stepped in on our way back home. Very good pinxos and a very pleasant service. And of course pimientos de Padron were also available.

Superb food and superb, warm service

We stumbled into this place searching for lunch in Amsterdam. Delicious sandwiches and pinchos. Great service.

Fantastic pintxos. Delicious wine and super friendly service. My favorite restaurant in Amsterdam. I have been coming here for years and hope to come for many more years to come. Amazing!

Food: Tasty! Service: Lovely Location: Charming One word to review this wonderful place: Enjoy! ❤️

Was a recommendation and we quite enjoyed the Tapas. Great they offer also off menu items which were quite tasty.

The food and service was perfect!

What a disappointment. We used to enjoy going there, but what a nasty experience this time. Lukewarm Vedejo, a "pimentos de padron" of 10 peppers... literally 10 little peppers. A salad with rock-hard avocado. When I asked if it tasted good and indicated 'not so much' and asked if he wanted to know why, the waiter replied, 'no no me importa.' (no, I don't care). How rude can you get! Never again... unfortunately. Probably a different owner.

One of the best draft beer in Amsterdam

Great food, terrible service. All the waiters/waitress treat you like they are doing you a favor when they assist you. Also, they pretend they don’t see when you need them to come to your table, this really ruined the experience.

The pintxos with truffles and goat cheese was amazing!

Yummy vegetarian pintxos! Super yummy

Yesterday I went to La Oliva to celebrate my birthday, but unfortunately it was a huge disappointment. The restaurant was almost empty, and after the meal I understood why. The croquetas were burned and tasteless. The patatas bravas were just regular potatoes covered with mayonnaise and ketchup — not authentic at all. The fried manchego was okay, but also burned, and there was far too little sauce served with it. The bread for the bruschetta was hard and clearly not fresh. The portobello tapa was completely cold inside. The only dish that was actually good was the chistorra. For a birthday dinner, I really expected much better. Very disappointing, I absolutely do not recommend this restaurant and I will never come back again.

We had a 6 p.m. reservation at this tapas restaurant, and the whole evening turned into an absolute mess from start to finish. We arrived early, sat outside, and told the staff we had a reservation under my friend’s name. They acknowledged it, but instead of preparing the table, they let staff members continue sitting there eating. We thought at least we could order drinks while waiting since they handed us the menu, but after that we were basically forgotten. Because it got too cold outside, we went back in around 6:10, only to find out our reserved table still wasn’t ready. Mind you, we had already been waiting for quite a while at that point. We finally got seated around 6:35, after the staff finished eating at our table. Even then, nobody came to properly serve us. We had to repeatedly flag staff down just to order drinks, which finally arrived close to 6:45. Later, two more friends joined us, something that had already been communicated beforehand — and they also had to chase staff around just to get a drinks menu and eventually place an order. Nobody seemed interested in actually serving our table. Every time someone said they would explain the tapas concept or come back to take orders, they disappeared to other tables and ignored us again. The food itself was actually good, which honestly makes the whole experience even more frustrating. But because the service was so painfully slow and inattentive, we barely managed to order one or two tapas dishes before giving up. We literally could not order more food because no one would come back to our table. After almost two hours of waiting, chasing staff, and sitting there hungry, we had enough and left to continue dinner somewhere else across the street. Also: this is absolutely not baby-friendly. Yes, they had one high chair, but the music was extremely loud for a baby, the bathroom was tiny, and there was basically nowhere to properly change a child. If you come with a baby, be prepared to struggle. If you’re young, very patient, and don’t care about etiquette, attentiveness, or customer service, you might still enjoy the food. But if you expect even basic hospitality, a welcoming atmosphere, or staff that actually notices your table, this place will disappoint you.

Beautiful, pleasant atmosphere, good service, good music. The food was very tasty. Since I arrived in Amsterdam today from Barcelona, ​​it's impossible not to compare: higher prices and much smaller portions here. But everything was delicious.

Delicious and freshly prepared. Enjoy it with a glass of wine – highly recommended.

The pinchos was so delicious, you can taste every flavor, service incredible and lucia the best

Restaurant with delicious Spanish food at a good price near the Anne Frank House

We used to love this place, but recently it has become overpriced, with noticeably smaller portions. While it’s understandable that inflation is affecting the catering industry, a price increase would be more acceptable if the quality of the flavor or service had improved. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. So it’s just getting easily smaller and more pricy.

Beautiful decor Bright atmosphere Very friendly welcome Excellent, unpretentious cuisine Very original sandwiches with fresh, made-to-order ingredients Delicious tortilla A truly great experience

Walked in on a Sunday Easter without reservation and was lucky to find a table. Bar was lined with fresh and a great variety of pintxos, another special call out was the burrata!

The waiters were very nice and friendly but the food was quite disappointing for the price you pay. 1€ for each pimiento??? Patatas bravas are not patatas bravas… Pintxos were okayish depends on which one you get and wine very expensive. Would not come back tbh

Early dinner for family. All the foods was good and delicious.

One of my favorites in Amsterdam. If you like pintxos and you don‘t happen to be planning a trip to Euskadi, this can help 😊. Desserts are meh, the rest of the food 10/10.

Great place, I'd often passed it by, but this time I had the time and was hungry and saw the pintxos display case. The pintxos were spot on, really good, just like I had them in San Sebastian. A good open wine suggestion: Garnatxa. Another espresso and a Cardenal Mendoza afterward. Delicious. Highly recommended!

We had incredibly delicious pintxos, small bites, great for sharing and trying lots of different dishes. Everything was super fresh and flavorful. Fantastic!

I used to love this place. Today I was disappointed with the portions comparing to the price you pay. 5 (!) pimientos de padron and a tiny portion of patatas Bravas. Other than that the service was excellent.

Delicious pinchos. Picking them out yourself is the best part.

We stumbled upon this place when exploring the neighbourhood. The service was slow and not very attentive, the mains we went for cod and sea bream were both delicious. It was around€30 - €35 mains. Nice place was overly blown away.

Come for the pintxos, stay for the pintxos - a great selection of pintxos and they are tasty! With a added plus of friendly staff and nice service, they were quite busy but didn't feel ignored if you needed something. Nice vegetarian options too - will come back.

Terribile experience, average overpriced food, rude and unprofessional staff. Classic tourist trap, not sure where all the positive reviews come from to be honest. We went there for lunch, ordered paella for 3 and couple more dishes. The food arrived after almost 1 hour, we were the only table left, completely ignored by the staff and their attitude was very unfriendly, making us feel unconfortable being there. When the food finally arrived, it was nothing special...the vegetables paella was very poor for the price (38€ per person i think); They even used canned artichokes....i mean.... When it was time to pay, my mother in law decided to pay. The manager (Juan), was very rude with her; He took the card from her hands very aggressively to tap on the pin machine and made jokes; Only after, we realised he typed the wrong amount and charged 40€ more than he should have!! There is no way to contact them to solve the issue, so I had to go there again to talk to him, he was again aggressive and really rude. In the end my mother in law received her money back, only because luckily she kept the receipt and I was able to deal with it for her. I'd never ever go back there!!

MAGNÍFICO What a delightful discovery on a frigid day - to warm up and feast on the wide variety of delicious pintxos and wine. Gracias

These Pintxos are fantastic! Unique combinations, and the flavor is smooth and sexy. I'll definitely be back... Thanks, Eva.

A super beautiful, delicious, and atmospheric restaurant! They have a fun concept of pintxos dishes that you can choose from the display case. They cost about 6 euros per skewer. You can choose how many skewers you want per round. They also have a slightly cheaper menu, which is chosen by the chef. Or you can just have two skewers and then perhaps a main course. We had three rounds of two skewers per person. The wines are also delicious, available by the glass and bottle. The staff is friendly, and last time I got a free drink because I had the owner's child in daycare. We will definitely be back 🥂❤️.

Authentic food, served with passion. We arrived unexpectedly on a Monday afternoon but were made very welcome. I'm familiar with Spanish cuisine, but my partner isn't, and he also left impressed after a delicious sandwich. The lady serving us commented on our appearance, easily recognizable by our musical tastes, and she told us she also enjoys going to the same bands. It was fun to chat with her about music. The atmosphere was a 4 instead of a 5 because we were the only guests, so it was otherwise very quiet.

The atmosphere was good, and the service was excellent. Very friendly staff, and we were allowed to stay for a long time. The food was delicious. After dinner, we did see mice in the restaurant, but hey, it's Amsterdam.

Very expensive for Spanish tapas. The service was impeccable. The prices...

You have to try these pintxos!!!! They're amazing ❤️‍🔥 We tried 3 different ones: mushroom, goat cheese, and Rocafort, the best!

They have a fly problem. Food ok

Did not expect to eat good in the Netherlands. I am here for 9 months and this restaurant is a hidden gem! If you are near by, it’s a must from dining.

Good food and drink selection. Quality products, good service, good atmosphere and good music. A place to enjoy every moment spent there. Totally recommended.

There are many tapas restaurants in Amsterdam, but none approach the authentic high quality culinary experience of Northern Spanish restaurants like La Oliva. Every time a delight.

We weren't allowed to sit inside at a table for drinks, as dinner preparations were only 4:30 p.m. We were allowed to sit at the bar.

Excellent paella, excellent tapas, excellent address

Great little restaurant in the trendy Jordaan area of Amsterdam. Serving Spanish cuisine - pintxos and paella. Food is delicious and ambiance is very cosy. Highly recommended!

We had a nice glass of wine and some delicious pintxos at the end of the afternoon. Friendly service, great atmosphere. The nice thing is that you can get several good wines by the glass. And the pintxos selection is generous!

We had a very enjoyable and delicious lunch with eight people on Saturday! Highly recommended!

Delicious pinxos and Spanish fare. Great atmosphere and fit out. Also was very good at catering for allergies.

Beautiful place with friendly staff! The paella was tasty but nothing special. Their dessert was amazing!

We enjoyed the chef’s selection of 6 pinxtos, and the octopus and anchovies/sweet pepper appetizers. Delicious, pleasant staff and full bellies!

I have eaten here every time I have visited Amsterdam since 2015. I ONLY go for the pintxos. It is a pintxos restaurant, so why visit and eat paella??? The pintxos are as good as any I have had anywhere. Elaborate, beautifully assembled and very tasty.

we've been here a few times - good food, good drinks and nice athmosphere. Service is good and fast even when very busy and is always a nice experience. authentic food and tasty! the pinxos we ate before taking any pics. chistorres and padron peppers made it to a pic.

the restaurant leans towards pintxos Spanish food with a few other selections. A lot of fun choosing a wide tapas like selection of dishes. The pace of serving each dish was correct and the staff where responsive to our requests

WAUW what a disgrace…It’s been a while that I ate something so terrible. Nothing was fresh, everything tasted like cardboard. As someone who is from Amsterdam: nooit meer. UPDATE: diarrhea to the max!

Don’t eat here. Tourist trap. Nothing’s fresh. Don’t do this to ur body and soul. I feel sick

Good Spanish food and a great atmosphere. Spanish-speaking waiters are very attentive and helpful. Prices are reasonable for Amsterdam.

Great food and very kind staff! Will recommend to friends! All the pinchos we tried were good, and although the octopus is a starter, the portion is actually pretty big, could have it as a main course.

Everything was very good. There are 7 of us and they treated us very well. The chef is Spanish from Cantabria and all the food tasted like it was in Spain. We recommend it.

Spanish bar in Amsterdam. We went in thinking it would be cheaper to get a drink. No, it was more expensive.

We enjoyed delicious Pintxos on the (sloping) terrace with a nice Aperol Spritz.

Very good Spanish food, and the staff is very friendly. Highly recommended place in Amsterdam!

Ate here August 2025. Superb food - and side of Spanish food I've never seen before - we had a variety of pinxtos (3 each) that the servers recommended for us, gorgeous glass of rose. Service was so friendly and helpful. Cannot recommend highly enough. Spent 60 euro including tip for 2 of us.

This place is rather hit or miss. Friendly guy greeted me and told me how everything works. I got four pinxtos with an emphasis on seafood. The best of the four was a large mushroom with blue cheese and walnut. It was outstanding. Another with octopus was fine. The final two were not bad but just ok, and I did not finish them. That would have been four stars. But it took half an hour to get the check, and after two different people said they would bring it. The place was not that full, but they did seem stressed. I suspect they did not have enough personnel.

Great service, delicious food, and the sangria too! It was very tasty. The paella was a little less seasoned this time.

Very good service with a nice warm atmosphere but the food is too expensive for what it is.

So delicious! Ate there every day I was in Amsterdam. We got the chefs selection of pintxos as well as some main dishes. Everything was so delicious! The wine was good, too. Service was awesome, will return!

This is my third time at this restaurant, and I always pray I don't get served by the waitress with the short hair. I assume she's the owner. She's aggressive in her treatment of customers and at the same time despotic. You can hear her talking badly to the rest of the staff, and it really makes you want to get up and leave. The food, yes, the pinchos are good, the pinchos are very good, really very good. Yesterday, for example, the bread was too toasted and you could barely eat the pincho, but oh well, the other times it's been great; the flavor makes you forget about the waitress with the short hair. The paella tastes like fried tomato, it's not worth it. The rest of the staff is very friendly, although you see them running around everywhere under the watchful eyes and comments of the boss. There's a waitress with red hair who's a delight. When she serves me, I always tip because the service is fantastic. In short, if you want a Spanish beer and some tapas, this is the place, but don't expect much more. I think it's a better option for lunch than dinner.

We ordered a Paella for 3 persons, of which we thought would be €32,50 (according to the menu). This ended up being 3x as much (€97,50). There is a high need to clarify the menu, because the menu states ‘minimum of 2 persons’ with the mentioning of €32,50. In the second column it says €32,50 p.p. The dish was far from any special quality, which is confirmed in the other Google reviews and therefore way overpriced. When asking for clarification the restaurant responded: ‘Wasn’t this amount clarified with you beforehand?’ It was definitely not. Not recommended.

Special place. Great chef. Creative culinary delights. Services prompt and cheerful Sidewalk seating available to watch the world go by

Service was slow. They only gave us the menu after we had already ordered drinks, and after the drinks arrived. We probably would have walked out otherwise. They do that to all their customers, probably for a reason. The food was mediocre at best. Some of the meat was dry and chewy. The salat dissappointing. The tuna brochetas were good though. Their specialty are pintxos but there was a limited varyity and they did not look fresh and appealing to us. Oh, and they do not offer you tab water, you have to buy a bottle of mineral water.

The food was perfect, everything we ate was extraordinary!

First i have to say this review is only about the food quality. The service at this restaurant was actually very good — the staff were all friendly, enthusiastic, and attentive. The dining environment was pleasant as well. My friend and I came here after seeing many positive recommendations on social media, and we even walked 20 minutes just to try it. We ordered their recommended dishes: Pintxos and Paella, which seem to be their specialties. Let me start with the Pintxos. They looked okay in the display, but the taste was extremely mediocre. Honestly, I wouldn't even eat them if they were €1 each. After trying them, both my friend and I were quite disappointed. I tried to comfort my friend, saying, “At least the paella should be decent,” because from my past experience, paella is usually hard to mess up as long as the seafood is fresh and plentiful. In fact, I’ve never had bad paella before… until now. This turned out to be the worst paella I’ve ever had in my life — so bad it made me question reality. The entire dish was overwhelmed by a sour, cheap tomato sauce flavor, with zero taste of seafood. Ironically, I read reviews claiming the ingredients were fresh. Fresh? Where? The beef was tough and dry, and none of the seafood had any flavor. The shrimp and shellfish were shriveled and tasteless. There was barely any seafood to begin with, just a few large prawns placed on top for show. I honestly don’t understand — is €32.5 per person not enough for a proper paella? I was deeply disappointed. After the meal, I learned it was actually my friend’s first time trying paella. I felt so bad that this was her first experience — I had to explain to her that this is definitely not what paella is supposed to taste like. Even worse, after our dish arrived, the guests at the table next to us saw it and asked me if it was paella, then decided to order the same. I feel genuinely sorry for them — it was truly awful. At first, I didn’t want to write this review. We came with high expectations. If the meal had cost us €20 per person, I wouldn’t have said a word. But for the €45 per person we spent, the food we got was not even close to being worth it. Out of curiosity, I checked more reviews today and found that others have had similar complaints about the paella. I can only say this: If you’re looking for an authentic Spanish meal, I’m afraid this place may seriously disappoint you.

Wow, we heard Jordaan was a great place to find good food. Well, La Oliva did not disappoint. We were in a hurry, so (as we often do), sat at their small bar area where we had front row view of the incredible selection of pintxos which are basically super tasty bruchetta with all kinds of yummy toppings. Service was awesome, the chef was hands on helping customers find the perfect pintxos option. We will definitely come back.

They used to have nice food. The last times were disappointing. The pinxos were not fresh at all both times and we had 10 different pieces.

Very nice Spanish restaurant with a variety of food and drinks. They have typical tapas from North Spain, good wine and tasty desserts. Great service and location.

Real Spanish atmosphere, delicious pinxtos, good wine, very cozy surroundings!

Good pintxos, fast and professional service

We came for dinner because the waiter told us they served Spanish food and had an omelet, but then they told us they didn't have any and couldn't make us any. They also sell a rice dish they call paella, but it couldn't be more mushy and only tasted of tomato and pepper. This restaurant has very little Spanish about it, and the waiters' service is not only unprofessional but also very unfriendly.