Please note that since writing this blog post, Gustafson has closed down
Please note that since writing this blog post, The Movies Restaurant TAVENU has closed down
Date Night. This was a new one on me. Sure, I’d been on hundreds of dates (mostly to tapas restaurants circa 2008). But those dates with new people – guys you’ve met on the internet, or speed dating, or just good old-fashioned blind dates set up by your mates – are something different.
The Westerpark’s drinking and dining spots seem to reinvent themselves quicker than I can say “Neighbourfood Market”. No sooner than I thought I’d reviewed all that my beloved park had to offer (Mossel & Gin, Pizza Pazzani, InStock, Rainarai), half of them had closed and another god-knows-how-many venues had sprung up in their place. Those of you who live in Oost: you can blame the West’s speedy restaurant turnover for my pathetic-ness at leaving my own neighbourhood.
So, Date Night was at newly opened Gustafson – a temporary restaurant that’s housed in the big building that used to be the gemeente and was then THNK (and probably several other incarnations in between). It was pretty empty the night we were there, which wasn’t too surprising given that it had only been open about a week. What was more surprising, however, was that despite being sat at one of only three tables actually filled with people, I still had to get up and go to the bar to order. Amsterdam Foodie Rage 1; Customer Service 0.
Gustafson apparently has a “sharing is caring” philosophy, so we ordered a few small dishes between the two of us. Crispy sushi was good if hard to pronounce (go on: try it), while the pulled beef and pork were ultra-smoky (in a good way – I think) though a little dry. Dry was my abiding adjective for the gevogeltje (probably best translated as poussin), as well. It came with kimchi, supposedly, but it tasted like lightly pickled cabbage and carrot. Not unpleasant, but definitely not kimchi.
The cheeses on the kaasplankje were tasty, but the plate itself had presumably just come out of the dishwasher: the heat released the oil from the Gouda and it slid greasily around under the pressure of my knife. The Honey Badger said I was being too critical, and that he’d go on strike if I gave Gustafson anything less than three stars. I countered that I was being perfectly fair, and that three stars would be my absolute maximum. So, three stars it is. This, my friends, is what Date Night has come to.
Afterwards, we popped over to Wester Wijnfabriek for a drink. With four pages of wine menu to choose from, it’s a great option for a pre- or post-dinner tipple. And then we spotted the food menu: with charcuterie, rillettes, octopus and variously topped pizza bianca, we wished we’d come to Wester Wijnfabriek for dinner instead. Needless to say, it’s now on my Date Night To-Eat List.
When I say old faithful, we’re talking 100 years… The Movies claims to be the oldest cinema in Amsterdam, first founded in 1912 as Tavenu and later as Hollandia – but it’s not changed function in over a century. It’s also my favourite cinema, with its plush interior, small and cosy screenings, and (not unimportantly) an older crowd who seem to know how to sit quietly and not crackle sweet wrappers and throw popcorn everywhere.
The Movies’ Restaurant, however, was one of those places I’d managed to walk past a million times and yet never eaten at. Fittingly, they offer pre- and post-film dinners, and the restaurant has the same old-fashioned atmosphere and menu as the rest of the cinema. We’d reserved tickets to The Wolfpack at 21.30, so we decided to make a night of it (or rather, a Date Night of it) and head in for dinner a couple of hours earlier.
Unlike 90% of other restaurants in Amsterdam, the service was fast. A little too fast, as it happened, as we were done with our three courses long before the film started. My guess is that they’re used to people having a limited amount of time in which to eat pre-screening, so the kitchen actually shows some signs of efficiency. This is all to their credit, of course – except when you’re used to the usual speed of service in Amsterdam and wildly misjudge your eating schedule.
My starter was a sweet-savoury chicory tarte tatin with a Mr Whippy-sized swirl of creamed goat’s cheese on top. It came with toasted walnuts, pomegranate seeds and parsnip crisps for extra crunch, and more of its own caramelised syrup drizzled around the plate. It wasn’t quite as I’d envisaged it (in my mind, the goat’s cheese was more solid and more in the tart), but it was nonetheless delicious.
Wild duck with blackberries was as gamey and autumnal as it sounds, and the accompanying duck sausage was coarse-textured and comforting. It came with a sort of filo roll, stuffed with wintry greens that were well seasoned as well as seasonal. It all went splendidly with our bottle of Montepulciano that we ordered with a nod to our holiday in Abruzzo two years ago.
Dessert called itself a carajillo parfait, which was a surprise to me as I had no idea what carajillo was. Having eaten it, I’d guess it was some kind of coffee, and Wikipedia now tells me it’s “a Spanish drink combining coffee with brandy, whisky, anisette, or rum” so I guess I wasn’t far off the mark. It was decadently creamy with fresh and dried fig and a dulce de leche sauce. It put me straight into a sugar coma that meant I slept through half the film. Hey-ho.
Three courses and a bottle of wine later, we got 10% off our restaurant bill and a euro off our cinema tickets because we’d unwittingly got a film-dinner package. The Nederlander in me was, of course, elated. The Movies may not be pushing too many creative boundaries when it comes to its restaurant, but for a good old-fashioned dinner-and-a-movie Date Night, it can’t be beat.