Amsterdam

• 

Amsterdam restaurants

The term ‘Dutch cuisine’ once tended to inspire peals of laughter. But well-travelled chefs have returned home to apply their lessons to fresh local, and often organic, ingredients. Transcending its setting on a land best suited to spuds, cabbages, carrots and cows, the nation is now employing its greenhouses to grow an array of ingredients.

But visitors should still take advantage of the traditional grub (the carrots taste all the better when you know that 17th-century Dutch royalists grew them for their orange colour). And watch for it: 2005 will see the debut of the Dutch-designed low-carb potato.

 

Fish, gruel and beer formed the trinity of the medieval diet. But during the Golden Age, the rich indulged in hogs and pheasants, although apparently only after having these table-groaning meals painted for posterity – as the Rijksmuseum attests. But it was with Napoleonic rule at the dawn of the 19th century that the middle classes were seduced by innovations like herbs, spices and the radical concept that overcooking is bad. Sadly, a century later a well-meaning section of the bourgeoisie developed simplified recipes for the working classes that instead proved popular with the next generation of the bourgeoisie; the subtleties of southern cuisine were thereby eradicated from the home and passed down via a few of the town’s top-end restaurants. But still, there’s nothing quite like a hotchpotch of potato, crispy bacon and still-crunchy greens, all diligently dammed to hold a pool of gravy.

 

The spicy food of Indonesia re-eroticised the Dutch palate after World War II, when the colony was granted independence and the Netherlands took in Indonesian immigrants. Take your pick from the various cheap Surinamese-Indonesian-Chinese snack bars or visit the purveyors of the rijsttafel (‘rice table’), where every known fish, meat and vegetable is worked into a filling extravaganza. Along with fondue – a ‘national’ dish shamelessly stolen from the Swiss because its shared pot appealed to the Dutch sense of the democratic – Indo is the food of choice for any celebratory meals. Other waves of immigrants helped create today’s vortex of culinary diversity.

 

If you prefer to stroll, here are a few tips. Rocket salad grows like weed in IJburg. Go to the Pijp if you crave econo-ethnic. Cruise Haarlemmerstraat, Utrechtsestraat, Nieuwmarkt, the ‘Nine Streets’ area and Reguliersdwarsstraat if you want something posher; and only surrender to Leidseplein – though we note some worthy exceptions – if you don’t mind being overcharged for a cardboard steak and day-old sushi.

 

Sure, check out the posh places, but quality and economic snack opportunities can be found in the form of fish, rolled ‘pizzas’ from Turkish bakeries, Dutch broodjes (sandwiches) from bakers and butchers, and spicy Surinamese broodjes from ‘Suri-Indo-Chin’ snack bars. And you really should visit an Albert Heijn supermarket to get an insight into Dutch eating habits.

• Did you find this useful? Yes No
• 

      

---