Fine Dining

How did it start?

There is really only one person I can blame for this: Fernand Schrijvers. At the time I worked at Microtron in Oosterhout, the company he owned, and he always kept the Michelin guide in his car. Whenever we were going out to eat, that guide would appear and a restaurant would be booked. Dinners with a supplier or a customer were allowed to be "up to standard" as well. That is how I once organised a day for us Product Managers at Landgoed Wolfslaar followed by dinner there. We enjoyed it so much that my wife Stephanie de Klerk and I started visiting restaurants like that in our own time too.

Our first visit as a couple to a restaurant with a Michelin star was on 12 June 2013, to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. That was at restaurant De Zwaan (review) in Etten-Leur. After that we really got a taste for it and went to eat closer to home at restaurant Wolfslaar (where I later organised that PM day), and where, thanks to the review I wrote about it on eet.nu I was invited back for a free lunch with my wife.

By now we are more than ten years and a great many dinners further on. It is a fairly pricey hobby (a bill of 500+ euro for the two of us is nothing unusual), but I am still grateful to my old boss for introducing us to it. We are many wonderful experiences richer!

Fine Dining vs "all-you-can-eat"

When you go to a restaurant at the higher end, you may expect "a bit more". And not only where the food is concerned. More expensive ingredients are (often) used, of course. But that is not all of it! And what about those "small portions"? Isn't 35 euro for an all-you-can-eat concept, where you can eat until you can barely move, a far better deal?
If that is what you are after, that is absolutely fine, and it can be done really well. Danny's Eeterij & Tapas (review) is one of those restaurants that pulls the concept off beautifully: for your money you get good food, friendly service and no time slot or anything of the sort. But sometimes you want more... Where the all-you-can-eat concept is a "long weekend at a holiday park", every now and then you need two weeks on a private beach in the Maldives or some other tropical spot.

Fine dining: an experience

Many people still associate fine dining mostly with small portions, a lot of money, stiff service and so on... And until a good ten years ago we were no different. Happily, we have grown wiser since. Stiff service? Not at all: the staff will normally read the mood at your table and play along with it. These ladies and gentlemen will do everything they can to make your experience — because that is what it is — as good as it can possibly be. Small portions? Perhaps if you judge it plate by plate. But at all those more exclusive restaurants where we have eaten, we have never once walked out hungry. And we are big eaters. Add up the amuses, the bread, the various courses, the desserts and the friandises and you get more than enough to eat. Besides, there is more to it than quantity: the quality of the dishes and the ingredients is so much higher at these restaurants. So are the surprising flavour combinations you are served. Chips with satay sauce you can eat anywhere. But how often have you seen four preparations of a single kind of meat, fish or vegetable on your plate? Perfect combinations of sour, sweet and umami? Small and large explosions of flavour? Purée as smooth as silk. Luxury ingredients such as lobster, caviar or wagyu?
And then there is the setting: look at restaurants like Kasteel Heemstede, Sense of De Blauwe Camer. The beauty, the calm and the luxury these places radiate.

Experiences & tips

We can only recommend that others try it for themselves. By now we have saddled several friends with this "addiction". If you would like to take up the hobby too, here are a few small tips:

• ⭐ Go for a lunch some time: it is often even quieter, and you don't go to bed on a full stomach.
• ⭐ Try a wine pairing and be surprised by how much it adds.
• ⭐ Let the chef surprise you instead of going à la carte.
• ⭐ Take your time. We happily spend four and a half hours over a lunch or a dinner.
• ⭐ Make it a hotel and restaurant combination.
• ⭐ Don't be afraid to try a dish or ingredient you don't know, or think you don't like.
• ⭐ Be careful with social deals, restaurant weeks and the like... you often get a stripped-down menu.
• ⭐ If you have questions, ask the staff: they are there for you!
• ⭐ Go all out once. Simply because you can...

We would wish the experience of eating out like this on everyone.