Category: dutchgrub

Dutchgrub in the New York Times

We love getting emails and comments from our readers with questions and suggestions and we do get quite a few. Nonetheless the one we received a while back immediately made our hearts beat faster. It came from a reporter at the New York Times.

He and his partner had found Dutchgrub while scoping out restaurants for an upcoming trip to Amsterdam. And liked our recommendations enough to get in touch and suggest lunch together. We had a great time at Gartine, one of our Best Amsterdam Brunch Places, talking about how Dutchgrub started, lunches of sliced bread and slices of cheese from Albert Heijn, our thoughts on the improving Amsterdam restaurant scene and much more. In the end we persuaded them to go to Wilde Zwijnen, a recent addition to our Best Amsterdam Restaurants list.

It was great fun, but best of all this all turned into a brilliant article well worth reading: Returning Zing to Dutch Cooking.

New York Times Article About Dutchgrub

Wilde Zwijnen Added to Best Amsterdam Restaurants

Our Best Amsterdam Restaurants list doesn’t change frequently. In fact, since its start four years ago, counting four restaurants, only two restaurants were added while one had to be dropped. Today it’s time for another addition, bringing the total of restaurants on the list to six.

The lucky newcomer is Wilde Zwijnen, a rising star in up and coming Amsterdam Oost (East), that has impressed us – and others – with its rugged chic, ambitious menu and perfect execution on multiple occasions.

See below for details or check out our updated Best Amsterdam Restaurant list.

www.wildezwijnen.com
Javaplein 23 hs
1095 CJ amsterdam
Tel: +31-20-4633043
Open Tuesday – Sunday
Public Transport: Trams 14 to Javaplein.
Cuisine: International
Neighborhood: Oost
Vibe: Rugged
Price: €70 per person

Best Amsterdam Restaurants Closed For Vacation

My list of Best Amsterdam Restaurants is quite popular and I regularly get questions and feedback. Over the last couple of weeks the feedback has been that all best restaurants are closed around late July / early August. And not surprisingly the questions are about where to go instead?

And indeed it looks like most of Amsterdam, including my favorite food destinations are headed to the beach.

  • Balthazar’s Keuken is closed until 17 August
  • De Witte Uyl will be on vacation from 25 July to 18 August
  • Marius is closed for renovations – not sure when it will reopen

The fourth restaurant on the list, De Kas, has been slacking as of late. It’s still a brilliant setting, but food has been less than great, and to be on the list, you have to have it all.

So time for some alternatives. And luckily there are three restaurants that are similar in style and that I have enjoyed very much on several occasions. In general, they are more intimate in style and more innovative in cuisine than the Michelin star restaurants in Amsterdam. And they have great food and friendly, knowledgeable service.

  • Blauw aan de Wal: fixed price menu, fusion cuisine, in the middle of the red light district, great service with character.
  • Hotel de Goudfazant: not a hotel at all, but a very hip industrial restaurant, French menu, in Amsterdam Noord reachable only by ferry.
  • Fyra: slightly more formal but very friendly, with a Dutch / French / International menu.

Sorry about being brief. I am considering to add these restaurants to the list of Best Amsterdam Restaurants and will then have a longer writeup. In the meantime, please ask or provide feedback in the comments if you have been there or intend to go.

Aside from closed restaurants and bike repair shops, the summer has been great. Hope the sun stays around for a bit more!

balthazar's keuken closed for vacation

Grab a Piece of dutchgrub

Recently I’ve discussed the idea of guest posts with a number of fellow foodies and bloggers.

The idea started when I was thinking about posts about food and restaurants in places other than Amsterdam and the Netherlands. I travel frequently and food is an important part of each trip. And I like to share my food experiences from those trip. The dutchgrub blog, however, does not seem like the perfect place to post about restaurants in Lisbon, Cape Town or NYC.

At the same time it would be nice to add other foodies’ opinions about the food and restaurant scene in Amsterdam. And also encourage contributions from guest writers about food in other parts of the Netherlands that I am less familiar with and that I get frequent questions about.

So in December I made a start by publishing a guest post about Restaurant Clio in Boston on the fantastic blog of The Boston Foodie. And later this week I will share the first guest post on dutchgrub by Andy who is from NYC and will share his favorite restaurant in The Hague.

Please drop me a note if you’re a foodie and would like to share your Dutch food experiences on dutchgrub or have a food blog about Berlin, Cape Town, Hamburg, Lisbon or NYC and are interested in hosting a guest post by a fellow blogger.

Praise for Amsterdam Restaurants

The end of the year is award time, also in food circles. The “Lekker Top 500 Restaurants” of the Netherlands magazine hit the shelves earlier this week and the “Bib Gourmand Benelux (Dutch)” will be available as of tomorrow.

Lekker ranks Dutch restaurants from 1 to 500, declaring a winner and a top 10. Amsterdam is home to eleven of the top 100, including Michelin stars Aan de Poel, Ciel Bleu, La Rive, Ron Blaauw and Yamazato. Up and coming Le Restaurant in Latin Quarter De Pijp is at number 99.

The Bib Gourmand Benelux, Michelin’s price for value list and breeding ground for future Michelin stars, lists 93 restaurants in the Netherlands of which 10 in Amsterdam.

No Amsterdam restaurant made both lists, with obviously the Michelin stars not eligible for the Bib Gourmand list. Also none of dutchgrub’s Best Amsterdam Restaurants made either list. They tend to be smaller and more personal with a less traditionally French menu that mixes different cuisines.

On November 23rd the Michelin stars for the Netherlands will be announced to round off the award period.

Share some dutchgrub

As of today you will find five small social bookmarking icons at the bottom of each post. You can click the corresponding icon to share an article on Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Delicious and Google Bookmarking.

Would be great if you could spread the word if you like a post!

And please leave a comment or send me an email if you miss any bookmarking service or find any other problems with the site!