Launch Primedinners “Business, Friends, Romance… it’s all on the table”
17-11-2015
Horecatrends was present at the NH Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky in Amsterdam to attend Primedinners’ official launch. The evening, which was entirely devoted to the global top of gastronomy, started with a walking-dinner. You can watch a video about the event here.
Eleven international Michelin star chefs, ranging from one to three Michelin stars, with a total sum of 18, each prepared their own signature dish. The sous-chefs of famous Dutch restaurants, appraised with a Michelin star, were also present to support the international chefs. The eleven chefs and their dishes:
- Peter Armellino * – Smoked salmon mousse-cannelloni with caviar
- Fabio Bragagnolo ** – Slowly cooked John Dory, quinoa, clip fish and horseradish
- Cornelius Speinle * – Langoustine tartare, cream of fruit and sour vegetables and caviar
- Peter Rudolph * – Poached rabbit loin, celeriac, truffle, chanterelle and burnt bread
- Yusuke Takada ** – Smoked eel with Japanese spices
- Viki Geunes ** – Foie gras, North sea crab, miso, celeriac and buckthorn
- Matteo Ferrantino ** – Black Cod “Caldeirada” -style
- Jarad Gallagher * – Foie gras, roses, apricot, brioche and chocolate bottom.
- Mitsuru Konishi ** – Beef & carrot
- Phillip Foss * – French fries and a Frosty
- Jacob Jan Boerma *** – Happy Berry, citrus, mango, yuzu, blueberries and goji berries
About Primedinners
Primedinners will be the new connection between Michelin star restaurants, suppliers and guests. The international network founded by Chanine Steffers and John Rietdijk offers the Michelin star chefs the platform that is so desperately needed, says Jacob Jan Boerma. On the website, that launched yesterday, you can book at the affiliated (Michelin star) restaurants and buy products from renowned suppliers.
The evening came to an end with the official Dutch premiere of the movie Burnt. The movie is about chef Adam Jones and his struggle to achieve three Michelin stars. It contains a lot of action, humour and love. Whether it actually reflects the truth is debatable. Despite that it’s a fun movie for people that love the culinary world, as well as people who don’t!
We really enjoyed it and wish Primedinners all the best! ^Bram Kosterink
#tousaubistrot Parisian hospitality industry reacts to the attacks
17-11-2015
#tousaubistrot by ‘Le Fooding’ is an initiative calling all people in Paris to return to the bistros, brasseries and restaurants tonight (November 17). In order to join in a minute’s silence in memory of the victims. The occasion will be held in their establishments and on their terraces at nine o’clock.
Le Fooding initiates #tousaubistrot
The gourmet magazine ‘le Fooding‘ invites, through social media, all his friends, partners, followers, visitors of Paris and all the french who can afford it to go out for dinner tonight. Besides the minute of silence in memory of the victims of the attacks of last Friday #tousaubistrot also aims to provide help to those working in the hospitality industry. In addition, the founders of ‘Le Fooding’ also want to show that Paris is Paris and it won’t be changed by fear. As one of the cartoonists from Charlie Hebdo so clearly implied in his view of the events of November 13: “Friends from the whole world, thank you for #prayforParis but we do not need more religion. Our faith goes to music! Kisses! Life! Champagne and joy! #Parisisaboutlife. ”
What should a restaurant owner do if there is shooting in the neighbourhood?
Since my daughter lives and works in Paris, I hardly slept the night of 13 November. Luckily she was at home and we soon had contact. However it took a while to locate friends and colleagues. This process was accelerated through WhatsApp and social media. The safety check of Facebook was a great initiative and provided incredible support. Yet the whereabouts of one female colleague remained unclear until three o’clock in the morning. She was visiting a bar that night and the bar owner closed the doors and barricaded them, as soon as they heard that shootings took place in other bistro’s. He tried to protect his guests this way and because her mobile phone was not charged, it was impossible to have contact. I am certain that there are many more stories in which owners of French restaurants have undertaken action or were just unable to do so. What would you do?
The French have a saying that will certainly describe the atmosphere tonight at nine o’clock, ‘Chantons sous les armes’ roughly translated as ‘Lets sing, despite the tears’. We wish all the restaurants, many guests and we will be with them in our thoughts at nine o’clock tonight. ^Marjolein
The iSommelier by iFavine
13-11-2015
The iSommelier filters oxygen from the air and herewith the decanting process is being accelerated, reducing the time from a few hours to minutes. The iSommelier is a product of iFavine.
Glass carafes fit in the neatly designed device in which purified oxygen is added to the wine. In the corresponding mobile app the knowledge concerning thousands of wines from around the world is collected. The device is programmed in a way that the winemaker tells the user how the wine should be drunk.
The iSommelier by iFavine, a perfect balance between oxygen and wine.
That is the effect of the iSommelier, which excludes all the limitations of traditional decanting. Several natural elements in the air can affect the quality of a wine when it is traditionally decanted; pollution, odours, moist, differences in air pressure or temperature. This first ‘smart decanter’ uses new technology to provide solutions to these problems. Three filters purify the air and increase the oxygen content from the average of 21% to a maximum of 90%. Moreover, it removes pollutants and moist. The device isolates oxygen from nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. The iSommelier includes a patented glass carafe. This carafe is specially designed to distribute oxygen evenly throughout the wine. This results in a constant level of oxygen in the wine which makes tannins rounder and the wine tastes more elegant. As a result of this method all flavours will be enhanced and the full potential of the wine will be revealed.
According to the Dutch ambassador of the iSommelier by iFavine, Edwin Raben (famous Dutch sommelier) each restaurant should have a iSommelier. “Restaurants will be able to decant their (arrangement) wines by the glass. Moreover, also young wines can be consumed much earlier because of the softening effect at the tannins. The effect on white wines is also huge, think for example of young Riesling.”
There are already a couple of Dutch restaurants working with the iSommelier: for example FG restaurant and FG Food Lab by Francois Geurds (Rotterdam), restaurant Beluga (Maastricht), Restaurant Fred (Rotterdam), Wolf Atelier (Amsterdam) and the Sotto Wine Lounge (Ermelo).
Alain Rosier (sommelier restaurant FG & FG Food Labs) over the iSommelier
“We started working with the iSommelier last week and we are experimenting as we speak. This week we opened a great Château Mouton Rothschild 1985 (see photo) and we were able to serve the wine after 30 minutes with a great bouquet. With the iSommelier you can act quickly if a wine needs a little more oxygen to make the wine more tasteful. Heavy tannins as in wines with 100% Tannat grapes, break down easily with the iSommelier. Additionally, you can serve wine more quickly and you do not have to decant the wines for hours if they are ordered beforehand.”
The iSommelier by iFavine is sold from 24 November at the Makro and for consumers in the Netherlands at Oldenhof Kookwinkel.
Dorset’s culinary food plaza along the highway
13-11-2015
A collaboration between AVIA and Willem Dankers’ restaurant Dorset creates a gastronomic experience in their food plaza along the highway, A1 (Lonnekermeer).
The term full service gas station takes on a whole new dimension. Thanks to a unique partnership between AVIA and restaurant Dorset in Borne, a visit to the renewed gas station along the A1 will become a gastronomic experience. Homemade pasta, stewed veal cheeks or fresh baked sourdough bread instead of a simple meatball. Gastronomy along the highway!
Dorset’s culinary food plaza – service, convenience and quality
The renewed AVIA gas station will be reopened by the end of this year. Willem Dankers of restaurant Dorset in Borne was asked to create a new concept regarding the food-related activities. AVIA’s Niek Weghorst: ‘A full service gas station is all about service, convenience and quality. Our customers, no matter how diverse, should experience a moment of rest like at home. In our vision this includes tasty and healthy food.’
Truckers eating stewed veal cheeks?
The concept, a food plaza with a spacious kitchen and a counter with a variety of fresh products, meals, fruits, delicacies and snacks. Both to take with you or eat in, says Willem Dankers: “The concept is based on fresh, healthy products and meals with a lot of variation, taste and of course quality. For example customers can order a fresh, homemade pasta, lasagne, hot chicken, stewed veal cheeks or an organic cappuccino with a warm muffin. Fresh fruit and delicacies. In other words, a complete assortment of food with with plenty of choice with an international look and feel. Of course, everything is top quality, delicious and tasteful.”
All products get a Dorset quality label, the restaurant has recently been awarded a Bib Gourmand, and is listed in the top hundred best restaurants of The Netherlands and a member of the Alliance Gastronomique.
Culinary take-a-way or the classic meatball
Dorset’s food plaza is not only for visitors. Next to the standard assortment, there are also ‘take-a-way’ dishes on the menu. The menu will be updated regularly. “We want to offer as many variation and surprises as possible, in fact the same way we work in our restaurant.” Says Willem Dankers.
Inspiration
An unique collaboration between a gas station and a local restaurant. In 2011 we spotted collaborations between supermarkets and local restaurants in England. Look around in your surroundings with whom you can collaborate and both profit from it!
Our/Amsterdam Vodka, made locally and sold locally
12-11-2015
Since early October Amsterdam has its own Our/Amsterdam Vodka. Our/Amsterdam is one of the nine small production facilities owned by France’s Pernod Ricard.
Our/Amsterdam Vodka
Our/Amsterdam has started producing their Vodka in the distillery at the Helikoperstraat 32, in Amsterdam. The distillery has a production facility and a tasting room which is ideal for small events and tours. The tasting room is very trendy, with industrial lamps combined with green plants and copper accents. The vodka in Amsterdam has a soft taste with a subtle aroma. Although the recipe for all the Our/Vodka’s has been developed by Vincent Hoarau of The Pernod Ricard Research Centre, most ingredients are sourced locally and every location has its own brew master. In addition they say that in every city the taste is infused with the personality and expression of the city.
Although part of a global parent company with locations all over the world, every Our/Vodka produces a local vodka, sold for local markets. Like Our Vodka Berlin, Stockholm, Detroit, Seattle and Our London will open this month and next year New York, Los Angeles and Miami will follow.
About the team behind Our/Amsterdam
Amsterdam entrepreneurs Marcel Wortel and Ivo Hulscher teamed up with Pernod Ricard to be the Our/Amsterdam partners of the Our/Vodka family. The team is completed with Joris Doesburg, sales manager, Martijn Schavemaker, distillery manager and Anton Bal, social media guy. Their message: Our/Amsterdam is smooth, fresh and composed to blend well with any mixer. But keep it simple, it’s vodka.
Traditional French table service at Restaurant Hemingway
11-11-2015
‘Back to the Classics’, restaurant Hemingway from Grand Hotel ‘De Draak’ (the Dragon) is going to implement traditional tableside food preparation for two days this month.
Restaurant Hemingway is part of the oldest hotel and company in the Netherlands, Grand Hotel De Draak in Bergen op Zoom. The team of the restaurant is going to implement traditional French tableside food preparations. Examples of this are flambéing, filleting etcetera at every course of their menu on Thursday the 26th and Friday, the 27th of November.
‘Back to the Classics’ with the traditional French table service style
A French serving style is not very common, but is seen at some exclusive upscale clubs and restaurants. The waiter typically has a fancy cart that carries different types of food for the guests to look over before they decide what they would like. Sometimes this is only done for appetizers or deserts, and sometimes it is done throughout the entire meal.
At restaurant Hemingway one can chose a four course meal with a classic dish at each course. During the evening they will cut smoked salmon, fillet sole at the table, serve chopped sirloin steak with flambéed lardons and they finish with ‘cerises flambées’. There’s a lot of craftsmanship to witness on these evenings in restaurant Hemingway.
The craftsmanship of preparing classic dishes at the table is disappearing
In recent years, more and more restaurants stopped preparing the classic dishes at the table. This is mainly due to the labour intensity but it also isn’t taught anymore at the institutions. The classic tableside preparations are no longer regularly practiced and they seem to disappear due to these causes. Fortunately they are still used with some regularity at high-end restaurants. Often in a fancy way, such as preparing ice cream at the table through nitrogen, or preparing a cocktail at the table or the bar this way.
One will find variations of the classic dishes such as Crêpe Suzette regularly in the top restaurants. Like at Maison Lameloise (***) of chef Éric Pras where they still prepare a delicious Crêpe Suzette at your table.
In the end the traditional French table serving styles guarantee a show and your guest will experience a night out instead of just having dinner! We love to experience it in restaurants and we do wish the guests of restaurant Hemingway lot of fun and the team the best of luck on 26 and 27 November!
Dim Sum Now
11-11-2015
On 4 November Dim Sum Now opened an eatery in Amsterdam, ‘De Pijp’, for eat–in and take-out. Dim sum is part of an international revival, will dim sum also become more popular again in The Netherlands?
Healthy and tasty
After selling dumplings and gyoza at various festivals became a success, the owners of Dim Sum Now felt it was time to take the next step. These entrepreneurs, Guido van der Meijen and Ting Yiu Cheung have found a natural flavour enhancer to use in their dishes. Because of the fact that the food is being steamed, no flavour and nutrients are lost. That’s what makes dim sum so healthy and delicious, and that’s also the reason why it has become increasingly popular. The founders Guido and Tin Yiu see the eatery as an opportunity to make dim sum accessible to everyone. Dim Sum Now is dim sum from now – it’s all in the name.
Dim Sum Now
The counter is filled with steaming steam baskets full of dumplings and gyoza. Each of them served in five different variations with pork-, chicken-, duck-, fish- or a vegetarian filling. Next to that there are specials such as the BBQ Bun, the Lotus Leaf Wrap and sides like edamame and seaweed salad. On the façade of the eatery is displayed in mint green neon letters that they are selling ‘baskets of steamy goodness’. The eatery can be found at the Ferdinand Bolstraat 36 in Amsterdam. In addition, it’s also possible to pick up the dim sum or have it delivered to your home.
Inspiration
Dim sum is currently very popular in cities like London and New York. Top chefs who are inspired by the Asian cuisine are also using the small steamed Chinese snacks in their kitchen regularly. For example, I recently ate delightful dim sum ‘Peking Duck’ at Tim Raue (**) in Berlin. And since you can make almost unlimited variants by using different ingredients and flavours, we expect that dim sum will also become more popular in The Netherlands. ^Marjolein
Nestlé’s CHEF On Tour
10-11-2015
Nestlé uses a food truck to let chefs get acquainted with their new CHEF sauces: Chef on Tour…
Nestlé makes use of the street food revolution that has led to an outburst of street food and food trucks. According to Nestlé, street food brings people together, the food truck vendor is often the producer and educates the consumer where the product (or dish) originates from, about the ingredients and how it is prepared.
With this in mind Nestlé shows their costumers how to make use of their new product with CHEF On Tour. Nestlé’s culinary advisor (chef Edwin Detering) exclusively promotes the ‘CHEF’ sauces in his own food truck. He explains the preparation of the sauces, the ingredients and its variations.
The sauces of ‘CHEF On Tour’
From 27 October until 12 November Nestlé visited a dozen of hospitality organisations. Nestlé Professional involved chefs of the Van der Valk hotel chain in the development of the ‘CHEF’ sauces. As part of that collaboration, Nestlé wanted the entire kitchen brigade at the Van der Valk hotels to become excited about the sauces that they developed with their colleagues.
The food truck was located at the (supplier)entrance of the kitchen of the hotels. Nestlé took the whole crew out to the food truck at an appropriate time (during the ‘mise en place’ before lunch or dinner). The demonstration only lasted 15 to 20 minutes, so the brigade could immediately get back to work. These are the sauces they got to know during their short break: CHEF Peppersauce, CHEF Red Winesauce, CHEF Stroganoff sauce and CHEF Grillsauce. At first the crew tasted just the sauce (heated), then combined with a piece of grilled sirloin steak and finally with a piece of baked chicken thigh.
Are we going to see ‘CHEF On Tour’ more often?
Nestlé’s vision on this subject: “If ‘CHEF On Tour’ is appreciated by the chefs and their teams, then we will definitely consider visiting other chains and/or individual hospitality organisations with this concept. We might even show up at some other hotel and/or restaurants events in 2016.”
Gastkok.nl: working at a professional kitchen for one day
5-11-2015
Through the Dutch initiative Gastkok.nl hobby cooks can work side by side with a star chef for a day at restaurant Amarone (* Michelin). The chef of restaurant Amarone, Gert Blom, is the ambassador for this initiative the coming year. ‘I genuinely like to allow amateur cooks to take a look at what we do and how much love and dedication we put into our work.’
A glimpse into the culinary world with Gastkok.nl
Gastkok.nl is an initiative of Hans Zwart. Many amateur cooks secretly do have the desire to work in a real restaurant and turn their love for cooking into a profession for one day. Gastkok.nl makes this wish come true. Through their website they offer the possibility to work at a professional kitchen in one of the fourteen affiliated restaurants, restaurant Amarone (in Rotterdam) being the only restaurant with a Michelin star. Under the guidance of a professional chef the hobby cooks (possibly in a duo) will work in a professional kitchen, where they can learn some tricks of the trade.
Restaurant Amarone
The award-winning restaurant Amarone is run by star chef Gert Blom. The cooking style of Gert Blom is deeply rooted in, a lighter version of, the French cuisine. From the moment Gert was asked by Gastkok.nl, he viewed it as a great opportunity to give people a glimpse into his culinary world. As amateur cook you will get the opportunity to learn some of his tricks and apply it to your own cooking.
Catch your own fish at restaurant chain Zauo
4-11-2015
The chain of Zauo restaurants in Japan serves fresh fish at the next level. Fresher is not possible, since guests can choose to catch their own fish.
Pricing policy at restaurant chain Zauo
It is even cheaper if the visitor catches his or her own fish. For example, the regular price for a red snapper is ¥ 3.360 (€ 25,=), but if the fish is caught by him- or herself, the guest only pays ¥ 2.499 (€ 19,=). The guest benefits in three ways: it is cheaper, it is fun and the fish is as fresh as possible. The fish can be prepared in various ways amongst others as sushi, tempura, pan fried and as soup. Restaurant Zauo has several locations in Japan and is very popular amongst residents and tourists.
The catching process at Zauo
The guest buys the bait at the restaurant at a price range between 100 and ¥ 200 (€ 0,75 and € 1,50) , and the fishing rods can be borrowed. Then you decide which fish you would like to catch and eat. You have to choose among others between sea bream, red snapper, flounder and lobsters. If the guest has problems catching the fish, employees are always willing to give advice. There is no such thing as a ‘catch and release’ here, once the fish is caught, he is bought. If the guest really doesn’t want the fish, the fish can be released for ¥ 200. If the fish is caught, the guest will hand it over to an employee so it can be prepared. Moreover, it can even be prepared in two different ways. If the fish doesn’t bite or if the guest fails in catching the fish, you can order from the menu. However this guest will not receive any discount! For guests who prefer anything but fish, there are alternatives, like fried chicken, chicken meatballs, fries and more.
Inspiration
Of course we are all familiar with the lobster aquariums which are sometimes even filled with fish. Or think about those fish ponds where you go to catch your own fish. They even sometimes have a restaurant located at these ponds where you can have your freshly caught fish prepared. Check out the video above to see the difference with the restaurant chain Zauo.
