Please note that since writing this blog post, Lieve has closed down
I’d never actually heard of “Belgian Baroque” until I called Belgian restaurant Lieve last week to make a reservation, and was offered three different ambiences for my dining pleasure… The first, known as “Gastronomical,” involved five courses and sounded altogether too grand for what was supposed to be a pre-cocktail-bar dinner. The last, “Living Room,” sounded more casual, but lacked any kind of interactive element. Belgian Baroque, on the other hand, seemed like a good compromise: the same menu as the Living Room, but with a sharing concept that I figured would work well for a group of people who didn’t all know each other.
I can only assume, having now experienced Lieve’s concept, that the Baroque period in Belgium involved enormous standing lamps looming precariously out from the wall, semi-plastered bricks and the odd stuffed animal. It was more endearing than I’m making it sound.
Given that there were six of us and only so much on the menu, choosing a couple of dishes each per course to share didn’t seem to make much sense, so we asked the kitchen to make the selection for us. To start, around a dozen dishes duly arrived, perched on top of a Not-So-Lazy Susan. (I ask you: what is the point of having a spinny platter thingy that doesn’t spin?) Highlights started and ended with a sort of stew in a ramekin that was hearty and warming, and smoked mackerel with a glass of smoked eel soup. The other end of the spectrum was… dry. Just unnecessarily dry. Goose rillettes that seemed to be devoid of goose fat; salmon cakes that lacked dairy products, and something called “cauliflower cous cous” – if the texture of cauliflower resembles cous cous, it’s not a good thing. You just have to trust me on this one.
The mains were better: the steak was simple but tasty, and the jus full of flavour; another stew (Lieve does do stews quite well, admittedly) involved game and Brussels sprouts – always a wintry winner; and both fish dishes were decent, especially the whiting with a tomato sauce that definitely tasted more August than November. Sadly, the whole chestnut/mushroom savoury pumpkin pie affair fell back into the “dry” category, while the shrimp dish was more Asian than Belgian (stick to the stoofpot). The chips (Vlaamse frieten, if ever I saw them) were – predictably – one of the best bits. And I just love the way they come in those red and white paper cones.
Dessert was another mixed bag: we liked the mandarin clafoutis; the pannacotta was textured like a parfait (a mistake in what we were told we were eating, or a sign that the chef didn’t know the difference?), and I slightly lost the will to take notes after that point.
All this being said, with the right company (I was out with four Irish peeps and one American of Irish descent – the gift of the gab does not even begin to describe it), Lieve is still a charming, quirky venue for an evening out. And its longevity in Amsterdam is testimony to the Dutch love affair with Belgian cuisine – especially, it seems, of the Baroque variety.
