Complex simplicity at Café Remouillage
By Andy Fenner
Trompenburgstraat 111, 1079 TV Amsterdam
BOOK NOWThere is a rare level of confidence on offer inside these walls. And one that is deserved.
The faith in one’s ability – and the faith in the produce itself – to cook, assemble and serve food with as little interference as possible is much, much harder than it sounds.
This is because, with true simplicity, there is simply nowhere to hide.
No foams.
No gels.
No smoking cloche. No food served on pine cones, or a piece of driftwood, or a salvaged tile from Grandma’s house.
No gimmicks.
None.
Instead, chef Jonathan Sparber pulls off something extraordinary by plating dishes that have three (sometimes two) ingredients on a plate. He pulls this off with an uncanny ability to balance big flavours, but also with various flavour touch points that have been prepared long before the plate arrives at your table. (Flavoured oils, for example, feature throughout the meal and add complexity to so many bites.)
What makes this even more remarkable, is the fact that Jonathan cooks and plates everything himself, on the night, while also serving wine and interacting with every table. He remains charming and utterly unflappable through this all. Again, this is due to so much prep having taken place pre-service. In a lot of the courses, Jonathan is simply plating up. Still, that takes nothing away from the careful and skillful conceptualisation of the dishes.
Small, sweet Spanish prawns are steamed and served with citrus sauce and oil, made from the discarded shells. Puntarella is offered up with salty quark and a wild garlic oil and embodies that skill to balance bitter greens with salt and fat. Raw halibut is paired with pickled rhubarb and lovage. Raw lamb (yes, raw lamb is delicious and deserves more air time) is stuffed into shallots and torched until they blacken, before being tossed through warm butter. Served with a room-temp egg yolk, this one is a sledgehammer of flavour. Chanterelles have been braised in walnut sauce and combined with fresh peas and a tiny hint of rosemary. Dessert is pumpkin with macerated strawberries and reduced cream.
It’s food that leaves you smiling. Food that leaves you scratching your head, trying to figure out how combinations that seem to make no sense…just seem to make total sense. It’s brilliant and it’s clever and it’s memorable.
With an absolute slam dunk of a wine list, this unassuming restaurant is punching way, way above its weight. It’s a fairly random site, with functional furniture and very little decor to speak of. But it contains a menu packed with flavour, centered around seasonal produce that has been expertly sourced and expertly prepared. It somehow carries the rarest ingredient of them all. That one we all look for, when we walk into a dining room. It carries soul. And it carries buckets and buckets of it.
Café Remouillage
The Place: Warm. Functional. Quirky.
The Base: €50 – 70pp
The Face: IYKYK crowd.
The Ace: The kombucha pairing is an excellent way to enjoy the complexity of the food, without alcohol, if you feel like keeping things tidy but still having an experience.
The Veg: Plenty. Clearly, the chef has a deep respect for seasonality and I am sure if you asked he would prepare a veg only menu.
Opening Hours: Thurs-Sat 18:30-23:30, Sun-Wed Closed
Images from @cafe_remouillage, Café Remouillage
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