Interview with ice cream maker Kees Raat
Ice cream maker Kees Raat owns Metropolitan on Warmoesstraat in Amsterdam. We asked him five ice cream questions.
Getting ice cream at Metropolitan is a real treat. According to many, it is the best ice cream in Amsterdam. His signature? Ice cream with an incredibly intense flavor. He achieves this by using lots of fresh fruit and working with raw milk. Besides the ice cream sold in his shop, Kees also develops special flavors for restaurants. And he writes award-winning cookbooks about ice cream. The perfect man to ask all our questions, then.
Where is the very best ice cream in the world made? Do you have a favorite place?
Without a doubt, in Sicily. My favorite gelateria is in the city of Cantania, on Via Etnea. Opposite the park there are two very good gelaterias. One of them has six types of pistachio ice cream. Incredible. The mandarin and lemon ice creams are also absolutely delicious. The fruit is pressed and oil is extracted from the peel to add to the ice cream, resulting in a very bright, intense flavor. I work in the same special way, with the same mandarin and lemon juices.
They all work organically in Sicily, but nobody mentions it. I love how the high quality is simply taken for granted. Delicious food is accessible here and affordable for everyone.
Adding hibiscus flower extract to the ice cream gives the strawberry flavor a boost
Are there any special things you make at Metropolitan?
At the moment, we make sushi-inspired ice creams such as ginger, Kikkoman, cucumber and sake sorbet. We also make licorice ice cream from melted trekdrop. We often work with alcohol too: we have gin and tonic sorbet, and you can order a beer float in the shop. We pour a ‘Dirty Katarina’ from Two Chefs Brewing over fresh dulce de leche ice cream. Or we pour cocoa beer over your vanilla ice cream. We have that beer made specially for us at De Prael brewery, using cocoa beans that I import myself.
How do you come up with new flavors? Where do you get your inspiration?
It starts with the product. I personally like clear flavors: chocolate ice cream should really taste like chocolate; it should have a very intense chocolate flavor. The ingredients determine the flavor of the final product, so they have to be perfect. Then you almost always get good ice cream.
I also get a lot of inspiration from collaborations with chefs. For example, we are currently making elderflower ice cream for Vuurtoreneiland restaurant. The elderflowers are picked wild on the island itself. Absolutely delicious. We are also making strawberry-hibiscus ice cream for The Lobby restaurant. It is truly phenomenal. Adding hibiscus flower extract to the ice cream gives the strawberry flavor a boost: it makes the strawberry flavor incredibly intense. And the color of that ice cream is beautiful. For Tolhuistuin, a place just across the IJ in Noord, we make licorice ice cream, among other things. They pour an espresso over the licorice ice cream at the table. It may sound strange, but the combination of flavors is fantastic.
There is an unbelievable amount of food coloring in this; I really don’t think that’s normal
What is the best ice cream maker for home use?
There are roughly two different ways to make good ice cream at home. You can use an ice cream maker with a freezer bowl, which you have to put in the freezer yourself. That works fine. The ones from Magimix and Philips are good. Or you can use a self-freezing ice cream maker. I think the Nemox self-freezing ice cream maker is the best.
The best tip that applies to both methods: put much less in the machine. Ice cream needs plenty of space to freeze properly.
What are the flavors for the coming season? What do you think will be trendy? And what really needs to go?
I am not that concerned with what is trendy, but what really is unacceptable is chemical junk. Smurf ice cream and bubblegum ice cream, for example. There is an unbelievable amount of food coloring in these; I really don’t think that’s normal. You don’t even find these flavors in Italy. And rightly so, because why would you poison your children? Unless you want hyperactive children bouncing around you all day, don’t do it.
Metropolitan
Warmoesstraat 135A, Amsterdam
7 days a week: 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.
