Restaurant chain De Beren gets roasted, regulars disagree
One star. That’s what culinary critic Joël Broekaert gives De Beren’s restaurants. The lowest score possible, and his review was anything but gentle: too expensive, dirty meat and terrible service, he wrote in NRC. Regulars at the popular chain disagree: ‘Insane comments. Those De Beren restaurants are fine.’
Restaurant reviews can be a joy to read, especially when the scores plummet. Johannes van Dam really hit his stride when he handed out a failing grade, for example to the Bijenkorf’s lunchroom, while Hiske Versprille wrote a delicious review of Brut172, Hans van Wolde’s Michelin-starred restaurant, with her meagre five. And when you read that Joël Broekaert is going to write about what he thinks of De Beren, you already know it’s going to be a feast. Not of the food, but of the text.
Obscure preferences
Joël Broekaert is quite a fan of authentic, pure dishes, preferably as rugged as possible. That was evident, for example, in his television programme in which he set out to discover the taste of the Netherlands: long-aged meat, unusual beers, exciting mould cheeses— the more obscure, the happier Joël seems to be.
Before the show
Recently, Joël has been touring the Netherlands with a theatre lecture. A nice fringe benefit: everywhere in the Netherlands, he has to find somewhere to eat before the show. And that’s how he ended up at De Beren. The restaurant chain now has fifty restaurants throughout the country. It all started as an eetcafé in Rotterdam, but thanks to entrepreneur Ad Schaap, De Beren grew into one of the largest restaurant franchise chains in the Netherlands.
‘I’d rather eat sand’
Joël sat down to eat in Apeldoorn, Den Bosch and Dordrecht. And then it was enough, he writes in the review. ‘As my otherwise equally eloquent and well-mannered assistant put it: I’d rather eat sand.’ What was so terrible? Cheap meat, everything tastes sweet, he writes. Shrimp croquettes containing just one shrimp. The crispy batter around the deep-fried fish isn’t crispy and isn’t deep-fried either, because it’s barely cooked. The calamari are ‘dried-out post-rubber bands, deep-fried far too darkly in old oil.’ Ouch, that’s not good.
One star
Even worse: he thinks De Beren is too expensive. ‘The classic burger, at €15.50, is more expensive than the one at Amsterdam’s trendiest burger joint (The Butcher), and for €55 you can also get a tastier côte de boeuf at a real restaurant,’ he writes. His final assessment comes as no surprise: just one star for De Beren, which is also the lowest rating he has ever given a restaurant.
Quite a feat
But then De Beren’s guests let loose. Naturally, they don’t want to hear that their favourite restaurant doesn’t hit the mark. ‘Wow, this is quite a feat: how do you help all of De Beren’s restaurant owners go down the drain?’ writes Daphne. Annelies really doesn’t agree either: ‘Insane comments. The De Beren restaurants are fine.’ Angelique thinks there’s something wrong with Joël’s taste buds. ‘Some people simply have no taste. I eat at De Beren regularly and enjoy every bite.’
‘Bitterly written’
De Beren’s owner, Ad Schaap, isn’t too concerned about the negative review. ‘It’s written so bitterly that there’s little I can do with it,’ he tells trade magazine Misset Horeca. ‘This isn’t science. I feel sorry for all our people who work so hard, at a time when the hospitality industry is struggling.’ Besides: ‘I don’t need Mr Joël to take a critical look at my businesses. We do that ourselves every day. This year we were able to welcome four million guests, who must appreciate it in one way or another.’
