Please note that since writing this blog post, Cinema Paradiso has closed down
I have made a very rash decision. For various reasons, I stupidly set myself the challenge of not drinking any alcohol for the month of January. It’s not a detox, nor a diet, so don’t panic peeps. Nor is it in any way some kind of New Year’s resolution that I expect to extend past the 1st February. Still, a decision is a decision, and so far I’ve made it through a week. The first few days were ok: I deliberately cooked meals that don’t lend themselves to wine – like curry. But then Friday came and my first big test: a bar followed by an Italian restaurant, with four people I’d never met before. And no friendly Tempranillo to keep me company.
So, when it comes to Cinema Paradiso (the unlikely name of the Italian that witnessed the Amsterdam Foodie’s first tee-total dinner in this chilly city), I can’t comment on the rather expensive bottles of wine that the rest of my party were drinking. I can, however, remember everything I ate, without the least bit of hangover-inducing blurriness. Restaurants of Amsterdam, beware!
It wasn’t the most auspicious of beginnings: on one of the coldest nights of the year, customers were left to wander through the bar, figure out whether they were supposed to hang up their own coats in the freezing cloakroom, find their way through the velvet curtains to the restaurant and hope someone might appear to locate their table on the other side. Luckily for us, soon after this ordeal our very own real live Italian arrived (Mediterranean-ly late, of course), and was able to spout charming-sounding utterances to the waiters, all the time gesticulating wildly. Whilst it all sounded very jovial, I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on; but somehow we managed to score some freebies so I guess the excessive hand movements worked…