5 new restaurants where it’s about more than just the food: these are the places you’ll want to visit
Every year, a professional hospitality jury assesses the sixty most distinctive restaurants, hotels, cocktail bars and hospitality concepts in the Netherlands for the Entree Awards. These are the five nominees in the ‘Best New Dining Experience’ category.
Best New Dining Experience—what exactly does that mean? Well, these are fine-dining restaurants offering a new, contemporary dining experience. According to the jury, the nominees stand out from regular restaurants and respond to today’s guest.
Wils in Amsterdam (with a star)
At Restaurant Wils, chefs Joris Bijdendijk, Erwin Oudijk and Friso van Amerongen prepare everything over an open fire, from vegetables to fish and from cheese to dessert. And it’s not just spectacular to watch: the heart of the restaurant is the fireplace, which also gives every dish an incredible flavour (read our review of Restaurant Wils here). The menu is based on seasonal produce and therefore changes regularly. A menu consists of four or six courses, and you can largely put it together yourself. The chef chooses two courses; you get to decide on the rest.
Bellezza in Amsterdam
Hidden behind the houses along the Oudezijds Achterburgwal and Kloveniersgracht is the old warehouse that houses Bellezza, accessible only through the alley between a sex shop and a strip club. In the middle of the Red Light District, on a quiet, secluded courtyard, top chef Arturo Dalhuisen serves a special range of dishes at the communal table in the mirrored room, where the space changes along with the courses. Sounds vague? We thought it was fantastic (read our review of Bellezza here). An evening at Bellezza takes place in three different spaces. After four courses, and around 1.5 hours, the evening moves upstairs, where you enjoy the fifth course in a heavenly dessert room…
Tres in Rotterdam
After careers in Zeeland, Melbourne and Copenhagen, Emy Koster and Michael van der Kroft have returned to the port city of Rotterdam. Restaurant Tres can be found in the monumental Entrepotgebouw on the Kop van Zuid—in a former jazz cellar. At the idiosyncratic, experimental, labour-intensive and intimate Tres (and you can safely call it tiny), you’ll enjoy Dutch products from small-scale farmers and artisans, often prepared using fermentation and other maturation techniques, in an 18-course tasting menu. Crazy, brilliant, or both? You decide!
Stadsjochies in Utrecht
For several years, Stadsjochies was a growing business, but the owners transformed part of the greenhouse into a restaurant. It is therefore also known as a ‘greenhouse restaurant’. When you enter the Stadsjochies grounds, the first thing you see is a huge greenhouse and gardens where plants, cresses, herbs and colourful flowers grow. The restaurant’s dishes are made with products from these greenhouse and garden as much as possible. And they are so delicious that many of the products are also sold to restaurants such as Hemel en Aarde and Karel V (both in Utrecht).
Flore in Amsterdam
De L’Europe calls the hotel’s new cuisine ‘conscious fine dining’. At restaurant Flore, top chef Bas van Kranen expresses his love for light dishes and local ingredients produced with respect for people, animals and the natural environment. Research and experimentation play an important role in composing the menu. Every week, the kitchen team travels around the country in search of the finest ingredients from the Netherlands. They then use these in the weekly changing menu. Flore’s kitchen uses no dairy products, and vegetables play an important role on the menu. In the basement of his restaurant, the chef has started a fermentation lab where he makes juices and preserves vegetables, among other things.
Winner
Which restaurant will take the top prize will be announced on Monday, 29 November 2021, during the Entree Awards. But whoever wins, you can’t go wrong with any of these five!
Image: Bellezza
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