It’s a sound owned by the action movies: that of cars screeching around a bend in a covered garage. Not necessarily a sound you’d associate with a night out, much less a great night at a restaurant. But this is the sound, and it was so convincingly out of a movie, that I'm finding I start my stories with.
I found out about Citroën via Rijsel and so considered
the place already blessed by the cooking gods that so often seem to look beyond
Amsterdam. Another blessing was the lack of PR, website and Facebook page and
the rumour that this was the golden child of Hotel de Goudfazant. Fast forward
to the night itself and did I mention the
screeching cars?
Turns out that the restaurant is, together with Sander Louwerens, the joint venture of Niels Wouters,
founder of Hotel de Goudfazant; the restaurant people thought to be an epic adventure because of its location all
the way out in… Noord. Now one ‘only’ needs to venture to Stadionplein for that
sense of frontier but you won’t be disappointed: this doesn’t feel like
Amsterdam.
A print-out taped to a concrete pillar points the way
up a winding car ramp, opening into a space with a square meterage (16,000) that swamps the 20 odd tables, set, ready for service. At one end you
have the (turquoise) bar and open kitchen, the other, a view over a socialist
landscape; the pinnacle of efficient housing - Amsterdam School - at the time of
the 1928 Olympics for which the surrounding stadiums were built. BAUTZUID has
also earmarked this as the next cool neighbourhood and, recently re-opened,
might feel a little deflated to have such a neighbour towering over the fence.
Especially a neighbour with a telescope trained right at it in case you’re into
a bit of voyeurism between courses.
Just like Goudfazant, Citroën encourages you to get up and wander. The smoking area is waaay over by the telescope (and next to the
vegetable garden) and the staff seemed to love that a kid was kicking around a
football. For the adults looking for games, the restaurant has a drinks trolley
and yes – they will wheel it to your
table and ask what you’ll be having. You’ll sit on pastel pink chairs that
match the pink tablecloths, the suggestion being that time all your white laundry came
out pink because of that rouge pair of red knickers.
After (2) aperitifs, we started with a sashimi of sea
bass and tuna and a gingerly-sipped aquavit, and the white asparagus with a
poached egg. Both tasted as you’d expect. Next was a risotto with a ‘pesto’ of wild
garlic and pistachio (the rice was a littttle overcooked but otherwise a
bright, spring dish) and the roasted lamb that arrived on a small boulder of
cumin-mash potato, morels and broad beans. We drank an interesting wine from
Hungary, a smuggled, small-batch liquor with an illegal alcohol percentage and
a home-made mix of vodka and elderflower. There was no need for desert.
This is a great use of a warehouse even if it’s only
for a year. You feel very close to the person you’re eating with despite the size
of the place, and things like the pink tablecloths and the drinks trolley give
you the feeling that you’ve been let in on a joke – with everyone around you
obviously enjoying watching how it pans out. The obvious attention someone’s
paid to detail makes you fantasise about what your own place would look like
but, deep down, you know it wouldn’t have turned out like this. I mean, would
you have planned a restaurant where you can drive right in, turn around, and
out?
