Hidden gem: café restaurant De Tropen
An interior designed by Piet Boon, a courtyard garden that will knock your socks off, it’s so beautiful, and a kitchen inspired by the Tropenmuseum. How is it possible that we hadn’t been here before?
That’s exactly what we wondered when we had lunch at café restaurant De Tropen, in Amsterdam Oost, an area that keeps getting more appealing. De Tropen is located in the Royal Tropical Institute (better known locally as the Tropenmuseum or KIT) on the edge of Oosterpark.
Upon arrival
Whoa, not so fast. Finding the entrance takes a bit of searching. To get to De Tropen, walk around the back, past an office park. Look to your right and the enormous hidden courtyard immediately catches your eye. In fine weather, you can sit in an oasis of calm, just behind the city’s hustle and bustle. Unique!
On the menu
At De Tropen, chef Hans Ribbens cooks up different cultures, because ‘getting to know cultures starts with eating together’, using only fresh produce that he sources locally whenever possible. The result is a highly diverse menu, where Lousiana Shrimp Po-Boy, crispy fried prawns with remoulade sauce, sits side by side with Vietnamese ‘Banh Mi’ (house-smoked pork belly, pâté with sweet-and-sour vegetables and sriracha mayonnaise). And because the Sabi Suriname exhibition is running at the museum, Surinamese dishes are also on the menu.
Enormous pita
We start with a pita bread filled with a mountain of paprika hummus of mythical proportions. The pita is wonderfully warm and fluffy inside and crispy on the outside. The hummus is spot on.
Poké bowl
From the Middle East, we move effortlessly on to a Hawaiian poké bowl, once again an exceptionally generous dish, with house-smoked salmon, edamame beans and wakame seaweed salad.
Highlight
The portions are so large that a third dish isn’t necessary, but it’s not the first time our eyes have been bigger than our stomachs. Besides, we’re very curious about the Surinamese dishes being served here for the duration of the Sabi Suriname exhibition. There’s Saoto soup, the famous Surinamese soup made with aromatic broth, chicken, noodles, bean sprouts and egg, and Moksi Meti. We choose the latter, which literally means ‘mixed meat’. In this case, chicken and pork, prepared in different ways. The dish, with spiced, tenderly cooked, smoked pork belly, chicken thigh, fachong (Chinese sausages made from pork or chicken) and tjauw min (Surinamese noodles), is fantastic. The homemade Madame Jeanette sambal is scorching hot, so be careful. Order a beer with it, or a typically Surinamese and incredibly sweet Fernandes cherry.
Will we come back?
Absolutely! The beautiful, hidden terrace is a real discovery, and the relaxed atmosphere is lovely too. With the changing and highly diverse menu, there’s plenty of new things to discover, just like in the museum itself. You should definitely take a look around before or after lunch.
De Tropen, Mauritskade 64, Amsterdam
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