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PART III EAT, DRINK & CHIC
EATING OUT
Our top dining options, from firm favourites to precocious newcomers.
text Karin Engelbrecht
BOUGAINVILLE Perched over Dam Square in Amsterdam’s plushest new hotel, the city’s most talked-about opening offers globally inspired gastronomy, perfectly-paired wines and seamless service. With a kitchen led by Executive Chef Pascal Jalhay (once the youngest two-star chef in the Netherlands), the talented Chef Tim Golsteijn, and the award-winning Wine Director, Lendl Meinheimer, they’ve certainly assembled a top team. In a setting rich in Rubelli silks and velvets, dripping with copper and gold, you’d expect heavy food with a lot of truffle and foie gras, but extravagance may just as easily come from exclusive products such as Miral duck (cooked sous vide, spiced with powdered liquorice, and served with a sauce of dried red beet and cherries, a rejig of a Jalhay-classic at Vermeer*) as it does from meticulous methods of preparation. ‘At Bougainville, the accent is on finding the best (local) ingredients,’ says Jalhay, ‘searching for tones instead of flavours, creating an emotion.’ Imagine, if you will, a porcelain cloche being lifted to reveal a sliver of slightly scorched red mullet sitting in a clear fennel broth on a blue and white porcelain plate with perfectly plump mussels and a single saffron-scented raviolo, so slight you can see through it. Alongside, 100% Viognier served in a stemless glass, so your hands gently warm the wine as you drink it. Add to that some of the best service we’ve ever experienced in Amsterdam, and you know it’s a winner. So does it live up to its hype? While it’s early days yet, we think it’s safe to say that Bougainville has a starry future ahead of it.
Dam 27 restaurantbougainville.com
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eating out