» Food & Drink: Two lips
Andrew Kay heads north for nine days in the Netherlands and finds a warm and exciting welcome
“When it’s spring again, I’ll bring again…“ Sorry, forgive me, but I am just back from my annual trip to the low countries. This year a week in Amsterdam and two days in Arnhem. Arnhem is rather pretty but the highlight was a trip to a Robbers & van den Hoogen’s wine cellars, where the delightful Bonnie took us on an excellent guided tour and showed us a lot of wine that I can only dream about drinking.
In Amsterdam my time was divided between two hotels. First up: the very smart and luxurious Amsterdam American, which was conveniently a five-minute stroll from most of the great museums and galleries. The hotel is of international standard and stylish, slick and efficient. The dining room, though, is of museum quality, a grand affair in the Art Nouveau style, a fin de siecle masterpiece, with a painted brick vaulted ceiling, beautiful glass and huge arched window overlooking the Leidseplein. Sitting there for a rather grand Dutch breakfast was an excellent experience.
My second hotel was an amazing contrast. The Lloyd started life as a dormitory hotel for Eastern European emigres heading for South America. Later it became a remand school for naughty Dutch boys (insert your own jokes here, I understand).
‘‘Picking the meat off a chicken carcass in near darkness is like asking a heart surgeon to perform a triple bypass, while wearing mittens’’
A vast tiled edifice, it has recently undergone a complete design makeover and is now a boutique hotel of particular style. I say particular as this is not a hotel like any I have ever stayed in. The rooms, all different, have been created by some of the country’s most cutting-edge designers. Mine was a vast semi-basement space, tiled in graduated shades from white through grey to black on the floor, with walls to match. It was huge, but at first sight there was no bed; just a simple table and two chairs made of recycled timber and a couch and dressing stand – again built of found objects. It was only as I flicked light switches that I revealed a huge bathtub concealed in one alcove, another housed a wet room with WC, twin sinks and shower. Finally, through a gap in the wall, I found a bed, huge, luxuriously comfortable with fabulous crisp white linen. Created as part of a design exhibition it has remained as a testament to the Lloyd’s commitment to modern design. The theme runs throughout with some rooms weird and wonderful, like mine, and some luxurious, in a very modern way. The common areas are smart and a gathering place for Amsterdam’s über-cool art community.
Breakfast at the Lloyd, like most places in Holland, is a buffet. You get used to eating sliced cheese and salami after a few days, but at the Lloyd the quality was sublime. A platter of sliced rare beef was magnificent and the mozzarella of the highest quality – meltingly soft and creamy. You could quite easily eat breakfast here and not need food again until the early evening. Three tram stops from the Central Station it was also easy to get in and out of the city. Especially with my 72-hour I Amsterdam card, which gave me travel and museum entrance for free and excellent discounts at many other attractions.
The Rijksmuseum houses a lot of Dutch masters, but I was drawn to see For The Love Of God, the controversial diamond-encrusted skull by Brit Damien Hirst. I was impressed, it seems magically powered, and is mesmerising. Equally impressive is his selection of paintings from the collection and his commentary, which supports the exhibit. There is no doubting the man’s intellect or his sense of wit when you look properly.
The Van Gogh Museum is equally impressive, but far too busy to really enjoy some of the artist’s lesser-known, but often better, work and I suggest getting there as the doors open. Lunch at that museum was good and well priced. Beware though, with a weak pound and raising food prices, Amsterdam can be an expensive place to eat these days.
Having done high art for a day I decided to treat myself to a foodie moment and visit the Bols Genever and Liqueur exhibit. What a joy, a small but brilliantly designed display allows you to discover some history, a little science, but lots about the pleasure of their products. At the end you stand at a computer screen and fill in a questionnaire about your personal drinking tastes. Moments later a machine dispenses a paper slip on which is the name of a cocktail and the recipe. This you take to the mirrored bar where mixologists make the drink for you, all included in the ten euro price – seven with my card. It was a good hard drink too, well worth the money and certainly made it a very pleasant episode. I actually got chatting to the barman, who was English, and knew many of Brighton’s bars and barmen and he gave me an extensive sampling of Bols Genever. After that I staggered about for a while.
That night, exhausted from my arty day, I retired to the hotel and decided to have dinner there. Back at the Lloyd the place was throbbing with activity. A large conference was taking place and the dining room was rammed. Now I normally wouldn’t bat an eyelid, but I was not in the mood for noise, so I slipped into the bar, a very red affair, and ordered a drink. Sated by ice cold beer I asked if I could dine in the bar and the barmen said of course and brought a menu. It was blooming cold in Amsterdam and I wanted warmth and comfort, so after a little deliberation I chose coq au vin, with a side order of mashed potato. The coq au vin was close to perfection, rich, sticky, packed with flavours and fine vegetables and not over priced either. The mash was impeccable, rich, smooth and creamy, with bags of flavour. It was, however, a little top end at five euros a portion. The only mistake was my own and that is not realising how difficult coq au vin is to eat in very subdued lighting. Picking the meat off a chicken carcass in near darkness is like asking a heart surgeon to perform a triple bypass while wearing mittens.
On another evening I arrived back at the Lloyd peckish and ordered a sandwich which was called ‘Cannibal‘. Well some things just have to be done. It was in fact a fine steak tartare spread on rustic bread with shallots and capers, really delicious with one of those heady dark beers and I tucked in as the American election results came in.
So ultra smart and uber-cool, Amsterdam so far was keeping me very entertained. More Dutch capers next issue.
Robbers & van den Hoogen Wijnen en Wijnkelders, Velperweg 23, 6824BC Arnhem www.robbersenvandenhoogen.nl (026) 4455912
Eden Amsterdam American Hotel, Leidsekade 97, 1017 PN Amsterdam
+31 (0) 20 556 3000 edenamsterdamamericanhotel.com
Lloyd Hotel and Cultural Embassy, Oostelijke Handelskade 34, 1019 BN Amsterdam
+31 (0)20 561 3636 www.lloydhotel.com
