Gilles van der Loo stops reviewing restaurants for Het Parool, and this is why
I always enjoyed reading them: Gilles van der Loo’s restaurant reviews. But unfortunately, after three years Gilles has decided to stop writing restaurant reviews for the newspaper. The column will return to Het Parool in September, but without him as the reviewer. Why?
Gilles had been reading the column since his first dishwashing job, and took over the Proefwerk baton from Hiske Versprille three years ago. What a dream job: putting Amsterdam’s hospitality industry to the test, describing it and passing judgment every week. Gilles did not follow the beaten path, instead always seeking out the city’s hidden gems. But for Gilles it was not always a dream job—and now it is no longer one at all.
Lying awake
Before he started as a reviewer himself, he knew from the inside what effect such a review can have. Gilles: ‘That is why I was never really able to enjoy that dream job. I empathized too much with the entrepreneurs. When I went out to eat for Proefwerk, I always hoped for an eight. I chose my establishments based on that, but if it was bad, I naturally wrote that down too. Every failing grade kept me awake; sometimes sevens did too, because I knew that such a chef was naturally aiming higher. The profession is far too demanding to aim for a seven.’
Tons of debt
The blows suffered by the hospitality industry as a result of the pandemic, and those it continues to suffer, left Gilles with no other option: ‘I cannot see myself giving a five to a restaurant with hundreds of thousands in debt, unable to find staff and forced to work with cheaper products. I am too much on the side of the hospitality industry for that, and that means I am no longer the right person for this role. The reader deserves an impartial judgment.’
Gilles will continue reviewing, incidentally, but on behalf of hospitality entrepreneurs. A kind of Proefwerk on demand, as an assessment for restaurants that want to improve themselves.
Image: Oof Verschuren
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