Hotspot Amber Garden: Chinese fine dining
It’s no secret that we love Asian cuisine. You can wake us up for a good dim sum. So when we heard that a new Chinese fine-dining restaurant was opening, we were there like a shot (without the feet).
Where are we?
In a newly built neighborhood in Amstelveen, where the new Chinese restaurant Amber Garden has opened among the high-rise residential buildings. The logo is somewhat nondescript, so you could easily walk right past it. But inside, it turns out to be a huge, modern and bright restaurant. Don’t expect a Chinese-Indonesian-Surinamese specialty restaurant with dragons and goldfish, but luxurious Chinese-style fine dining, like you find in modern China. That means shared-dining dishes in a luxuriously decorated setting with private dining rooms, so you can conduct a business conversation in peace and quiet. Or have a drink.
What makes it special?
With the demise of Michelin-starred restaurant HanTing, there was briefly a vacuum when it came to Chinese fine dining at the highest level. Here, the cooking is done by Chinese chefs who have been specially flown in and trained in various parts of China for this restaurant. It is Stark Li’s first restaurant in Europe; he is the third-generation scion of a family of restaurateurs from Beijing.
What does the menu look like?
Like a magazine, with photos of the dishes alongside the descriptions. A bit like the sticky menus at restaurants where Chinese was the language spoken, but in a glossy edition.
And what’s on the menu?
A lot! This is a culinary trip through the five most important regions of China, each with a completely different cuisine, with Beijing best represented. Authentic Chinese dishes, with a mix of Western and Chinese flavors. Taking the local audience into account, though, so no ‘fish eyes’ or ‘chickens with the feet still attached.’
So what is on offer?
Dim sum, hot-and-sour soup, lobster with Sichuan peppers, hotpots or braised eggplant. The menu is so bizarrely extensive that you feel a little lost in the former empire, but fortunately there is a manageable number of set menus, so you don’t have to choose. The highlight is the Peking duck, which is dried for no less than 36 hours in special refrigerators. The dishes are beautifully presented on stunning tableware.
Will we be back?
Yes, there aren’t that many top Chinese restaurants in the Netherlands, and this is certainly a great place for a business dinner. Especially because it is in an easily accessible location, rather than in the center of Amsterdam, where you can now only get there on foot.
Amber Garden
Van Heuven Goedhartlaan 15, Amstelveen
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