Top tip: the chef’s menu at restaurant Daalder (with a Michelin star!)

Dennis Huwaë of Daalder never sits still. And luckily for us, because everything he does is delicious. Such as the brilliant collaboration ‘Rijksdaalder’ with restaurant RIJKS® and the menu box ‘At Home with Daalder & De Librije’ (which I – blood, sweat & tears – tried). Restaurant guide GaultMillau once named Dennis Talented Chef of the Year (in 2018), he featured in the Top 100 of The Best Chef Awards 2020 and last March he finally received the long-awaited Michelin star.

A major move

Less than six months after receiving his first Michelin star with Daalder, he packed up the former brown café in the Jordaan with his team and moved to Amsterdam-West; Dennis’s ambitions are clearly much bigger than the 54 m² his restaurant in the Jordaan occupied. Daalder now has a much more spacious (and beautiful!) location: Het Sieraad.

A major move

Whether it has a star or not, Dennis dislikes solemn fuss and stiff service. At Het Sieraad, Daalder is a lovely spacious and relaxed restaurant, without the stiffness that wouldn’t suit him. The polished brass and marble from the Jordaan have been replaced here by neon graphic shapes and street art. It had always been his dream to have a Michelin-starred restaurant that does things differently. A relaxed place where everyone feels welcome. And for all the fans: classics such as the ravioli with beetroot and saté ayam amuse-bouche are moving along happily.

On arrival

We enter via the spacious terrace by the water. There is a bar on the left and the restaurant on the right. The lamps made of differently coloured neon rings immediately stand out. On the right (the curtains are closed) there is room for round eight-person booths; the rest of the restaurant is filled with tables, many of them seating two, while the left side is adorned with a huge street-art mural. At the front, you can see the workbench where dishes from the kitchen are finished. At the back, you look straight towards the bar in the distance.

Caviar with blinis

In the evening, you can eat à la carte or choose a 6-, 8- or 10-course chef’s menu. We go for the 6-course chef’s menu (€95; the 8- and 10-course chef’s menus cost €125 and €145 respectively). There is also a small menu with chic bites and champagne; we order a glass of Perrier-Jouët champagne and caviar. The caviar comes with cauliflower blinis, crème fraîche and chives cut into thin rings. We finish the blinis at the table with a mother-of-pearl spoon. Delicious!

Saté ayam

The other amuse-bouches we order are also phenomenal, such as the deep-fried brioche with crab curry—a feast of flavours in one bite—and the saté ayam; brilliantly presented as a peanut, balanced on what looks like a deep-fried piece of chicken skin, but is actually crispy carrot, pickled in a particular way with herbs and onion. Genius!

Wine shower

For wine lovers, this place is a treat too. The wine list is a thick book full of wines from all over the world, from Italy to Armenia. Once our glass of champagne is empty, we order a Soave from Pieropan in Italy’s Veneto region. Soave is sometimes called ‘the Chablis of Italy’, and it is one of my favourite white wines in the world. Powerful, intense, layered, subtle and fresh thanks to its lemony acidity. In principle, this wine is served by the bottle, but the sommelier is kind and we can order it by the glass too. The wine is poured using a Coravin system. Coravin is a unique system that lets you pour a glass of wine without removing the cork from the bottle. There are astonished looks all around us—what kind of magic is this?

Meaty without meat

We finish with a dessert of blueberry, red wine, basil ice cream and cocoa balls. Sweet but not too sweet, and wonderfully fresh, it is the perfect ending to an unforgettable and delicious evening.