Vanouds in Doetinchem is a wonderful place with a varied menu and a lovely, relaxed atmosphere
Last year, restaurant Vanouds opened on the Grutstraat, Doetinchem’s premier restaurant street. It is located in a beautiful building with a striking, monumental entrance, where you can have breakfast, lunch, drinks, dinner, parties and work.
The Grutstraat used to be a shopping street with a butcher, drugstore, hotel, garage, bakery and the renowned Doetinchem home furnishings store Revelman Woonkunst. The entire building, which was once four separate buildings (Grutstraat 41 to 47), is now one restaurant: restaurant Vanouds. And it has become quite impressive.
Warm colours
Inside, it is spacious and everything looks beautiful and well cared for, with warm colours and velvet chairs. A striking feature is the Achterhoek Night Watch, depicting prominent people from the Achterhoek—we recognise Guus Hiddink, Bennie Jolink and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar—painted by Rosalie de Graaf.
Different menus
If you want to eat at Vanouds, you can choose between an informal evening of shared dining in the bar area (where the bar stools are removed at weekends and the music is turned up a little louder) and a restaurant area where you can enjoy fine dining. Whatever you choose, the Achterhoek is central; as much as possible, the cooking is local.
In the bar area, you can also enjoy lunch with various sandwiches, an Achterhoek-style meatball or chips with stewed meat from Achterhoek beef. The restaurant area features high-end dishes such as free-range chicken with yellow beetroot, mushrooms, miso and hazelnut.
Steak tartare and avocado
Several dishes on the bar menu also appear on the restaurant menu. The difference, we are told at the table, lies in the number of steps involved in plating the dish, which is considerably higher for the dishes served in the restaurant. To start, we order two dishes from the restaurant menu: avocado with pointed cabbage, cucumber, puffed quinoa and fermented lime, and beef steak tartare with egg yolk, cornichons, VOC spices, mustard seeds and biltong.
The steak tartare is very creamy and tastes excellent, especially combined with the crunchiness of the pickles and the freshness of the mustard seeds. It is also beautifully presented with flowers. The avocado with rolls of pointed cabbage is another delicious dish; the creamy avocado is lightly charred, while the pointed cabbage adds freshness. The crunch of the puffed quinoa is also delicious.
Too many steps
The main courses are also prepared with great care. The thick-cut fries with mayonnaise are delicious. The cod is beautifully cooked and surrounded by broad beans, oysters and various dollops. The monkfish also tastes excellent; with fewer steps (a dollop, a foam, a sauce, a leaf, a twig) on the plate, it would probably have been even better—this dish really does not need quite so much embellishment.
Hidden Bar
If you do not want to dine, you can also hold a meeting in peace and quiet in Meek’s Heerenkamer (the living room of the family who once had their shop here) or party in the Hidden bar. There is also a large playground behind the restaurant where children can be entertained for hours, so you can finally finish a conversation in peace. I-de-al.
In short, Vanouds is a wonderful place with a varied menu and a lovely, relaxed atmosphere, where you can go all day long.
Vanouds, Grutstraat 43, Doetinchem
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