Mr A and I chose to have lunch in Bord’Eau, the 2 Michelin starred premium restaurant in Amsterdam’s five star De L’Europe hotel, before heading off to Schiphol airport for our return flight to London on 6th June 2018.

The restaurant hosts about 30 covers in a square-shaped, roughly 10×10 metre room with full height windows overlooking the Amstel river and canals.  We were the only diners when we arrived at 12 noon, so we had a free choice of tables and naturally we chose one by the window so we could make the most of the canal views on a beautifully sunny June day.

As well as a la carte, one can choose to eat three to six courses from a “Natural Lunch” menu formed of signature dishes and a la carte highlights. We chose to have 5 courses at €85 pp and some accompanying wines by the glass. And we began in a decadent and celebratory mood with a glass of Krug each, at €40/glass.

Our first Amuse bouche was a very tasty piece of cured mackerel with a chilled basil sauce 8/10 and then there was an interesting little dish with a crisp black crust on it which revealed tender octopus and turnips 8.5/10 and finally there was a small bowl containing crayfish in a verbena mayo, which was nice and tangy to amuse my bouche!  At this point we were served some brioche with three home-made butters: a rich and creamy Guernsey milk butter (9/10), an interesting and light goat’s milk one (9/10)and a superb chicken skin and fat butter (10/10).  We asked if we could take some of the chicken butter away with us and at the end of the meal were were given two little boxes containing vacuum packed rolls of the silky butter, which were delicious at home on some toast for a light snack.

 

Our first course was an interesting twist on ceviche, using raw red mullet and a refreshing pomegranate tiger’s milk.  The fish was high quality sashimi standard. 9.5/10

Our 2nd dish was a single but plump and sweet scallop with a garnished prawn cracker on top. The waiter poured over a “Thai” soup which he described as Tom Yam, but it wasn’t; it was a nice light shrimp soup with yuzu and green papaya flavours, rather than chilli and lemongrass.  But the flavours all balanced very well together; it was a lovely dish. My only bug-bear was that the menu used the plural of scallop, but only served one of the beauties. 9/10

Our third course consisted of a beautifully cooked langoustine tail, presented with a pumpkin tortellino (not the plural tortellini on the menu), and a curry sauce. The dish was delicious, but I found the curry sauce somewhat overpowered the sweet ‘fresh from the sea’ flavour of an heroic langoustine. The pasta contained langoustine tartare and orange as well as pumpkin, and was very nice. 8.5/10

Our main course was billed as “Kamper Lamb” and I was curious if it would be camper than Mr. A!  It turns out this was inspired by a middle-eastern dish from another restaurant, using roasted loin and stewed neck. But asian spices had been replaced with a light lamb and herb jus and a hemisphere of citrus gel which made this a superbly light and summery expression of lamb. 8.5/10

Dessert was a Bord’Eau signature dish: a beautiful red rose formed from thin beetroot slices, a lychee ice within and nesting on a light goat’s cheese.  This was a very fine and original dessert, not laden with sugar, but the lychee ice was still a little too frozen.  My eyes enjoyed it more than my palate did. 8/10

Our coffees were served with the most imaginative presentation of petit fours: an artifice ‘rock’ made from chocolate was encrusted with some chocolate ‘sea-snails’ and ‘clams’ and there were ‘pebbles’ of different chocolates and ganaches.  It looked far more impressive than this photo suggests.  The chocolates had good flavour too, (not of seafood!) so it wasn’t a matter of style over substance. 10/10

We thoroughly enjoyed our lunch at Bord’Eau. The food was very good, the kitchen showed imagination and precision, service was good and friendly, the ambience relaxed and the view and location were wonderful on a lovely sunny day.  Overall I score it 9/10

Including tip, my bill was €600 for two people. Quite a lot, but it kind of felt worth it. But it was only a week later that I studied my bill and saw that the glasses of wine we’d been served were very expensive (like €65 a glass expensive!).  I often just leave my wine selection to the Sommelier in a restaurant, and usually they offer reasonably priced wines, or at least offer me the choice of splashing out. But I think Bord’Eau took the p*** a bit.