Top of the Pop-ups: Part 2 – Baut

Last week, I was waxing lyrical about Foyer – a temporary restaurant in the Felix Meritis building, from the same people who brought us Repéré last winter. A longer-term contender on the temporary restaurant scene, however, is Baut – this week’s top pop-up on the opposite side of town. Well, I say pop-up, but Baut has been around for a couple of years now, making use of Het Parool’s former building on Weesperzijde. I’d tried to book a table there half a dozen times before (on the recommendation of Dutchman Doorn) but to no avail. I suspect that half the problem is the constant threat that they’re about to close: everyone wants to get there (and then get there again) while they still have the chance. But Baut has been playing this game since 2012, and the clock that was cited to stop ticking at the end of 2014 has now been wound up for another 90 days until the end of March 2015. So, with my reservation firmly booked in for the past two months, I was all geared up for my first visit to this famed restaurant (the late Johannes van Dam gave it a 10 – talk about high expectations!). It has that sort of warehouse-chic vibe that you’ve come to expect from these places – I guess it all adds to the here-today-gone-tomorrow atmosphere. And they do have a great sign outside.

We kicked off with the house aperitif (slowly, slowly Amsterdam restaurants are starting to get better at selling me a drink before I even look at my menu… really, they should all be doing it – I am such easy money). It was a little sweet, but in an orange-peel-and-vanilla kind of way that wasn’t overpowering. The dinner menu was organised according to geography: France, Italy, the Netherlands, and (somewhat inconsistently) Asia. There are four dishes in each area, and they’re sized somewhere between a starter and a main course – i.e. get two and let the kitchen decide which order makes most sense to eat them in. Alternatively, you can opt for a chef’s surprise menu of varying numbers of courses.

I started with a French classic: steak tartare – the steak part was delicious, as were the dressed baby lettuce leaves it came with. I was disappointed to find my egg boiled rather than raw – but I guess that’s the fault of the Health & Safety Police. (Vive la France, I say!) I also ordered risotto with asparagus (served curiously out of season) and a buttery piece of pan-fried cod from the Italian department. All very tasty; all very classic.

We worked our way through a bit of cheese and a lot of wine, and ended up spending about €70 each – but really, that was mostly due to the wine. Still, had it been €50 each, I think my overall verdict would have been the same: it was nice – pleasant, well executed, but all rather safe. It lacked whatever it was that Foyer had last week – the vibrancy, the creativity, the risk factor. Maybe it’s because Foyer’s temporary residency is still much younger, so it hasn’t learnt to tone itself down. Maybe it’s because Baut’s kitchen is headed up by the same chef who ran IQ Creative’s empire for 12 years. But maybe – after all – it’s about time for Baut’s clock to stop ticking.