Taste
These culinary hotspots are worth a visit
Brace your taste buds for a culinary world tour. From extravagant opulence in London to the sustainable sophistication of PRU in Thailand. These hotspots are more than worth a visit.
Restaurant of excess
Bacchanalia, which opened in November 2022, has set the bar in gastronomy sky high. Seated under ceiling paintings and between sculptures of winged horses, you will be served the most beautifully presented dishes by waiters in toga, ranging from 'Roman flatbread with gorgonzola and black truffle' to one of the heartier Bacchus Feasting dishes, such as lamb prepared on a wood fire or risotto nero . Tanya from the series The White Lotus would love this restaurant of excess. The door behind the bar of Bacchanalia leads to Apollo's Muse, with space for up to five hundred members 'most private or private members' clubs'. No other members' club in the world compares to this. The room feels like a place where you pay respect – a chapel or museum. At the same time, there's no reason not to sip an Apollo's Martini here – the bartenders tried more than a hundred olives to select the right ones for this drink – or sample a jacket potato stuffed with beluga caviar or a Wagyu burger with melted cheese.
Zeeland Nordic
No à la carte choice, but a well-considered menu at Hof Aan Zee in Koudekerke. Located in a historic Scandinavian farmhouse, surrounded by nature. Here they dry, ferment, harvest and smoke the ingredients themselves and of course follow the seasons. The style of the kitchen can be described as 'Zeeland Nordic': the use of techniques from the best restaurants in Scandinavia, applied and translated in Zeeland. The interior also has a Scandinavian vibe. Spending the night on site is possible in one of the hotel rooms, farm house or wooden cottage.
Westlander in Thailand
Westlander Jim Ophorst started in 2016 as chef of PRU (Plant, Raise and Understand) at the luxury resort Trisara in Phuket, Thailand. Vegetables, herbs and edible flowers are grown on the own farm. In addition, the chef only uses line-caught fish and when working with meat, only free-range. Sustainability and respect for nature go hand in hand and all the ingredients he uses in his kitchen come from Thailand. It is not without reason that Michelin has now awarded him a regular star and, as the first restaurant in Thailand, a Green Star.
Always good
The new restaurant Troef in Amsterdam East is one of those places that you can recommend to everyone, because: great food, nice atmosphere and excellent value for money. It is an initiative of Raymond Plat (kitchen chef 212**), Niels Leijssenaar (manager at Ron Blaauw's restaurants), Willem Alberts and Roderick Kunst (co-owners Escobar in Amsterdam). The name is based on their vision of hospitality: always have an ace up your sleeve, so that you can always respond to unexpected situations. The dishes on the menu have a classic French base with sometimes a Mediterranean highlight: langoustine, scallop, monkfish, ravioli... The dishes are prepared in the open kitchen in the middle of the restaurant. The wine room offers space for three thousand bottles with a price range from 30 to 900 euros. You can walk in and pick one out yourself. In short: accessible business without complicated hassle.
LXRY List 2024
LXRY List 2024, the annual wow magazine with innovative items and surprising addresses, a list that inspires and points to the future. A future in which the physical world threatens to get stuck and the virtual world is increasingly finding its feet. Digital initiatives are popping up everywhere, from works of art painted with data to Louis Vuitton's first sellable NFTs. Fortunately, there are also plenty of initiatives to protect the physical world from worse. Such as the production of plant-based cheese by a stainless steel cow and the exhibition Space farming in the Evoluon, which heralds the start of a food revolution. The barricades are also being climbed in the field of climate. For example, artist TINKEBELL uses Tata fabric to make negative prints of the flora that is doing its best to survive in the heavily polluted area around this factory. A horrible story, beautifully depicted. There is also plenty of attention for this in this edition of LXRY List beautiful stories. Such as that of Reinier Kempenaar, who, convinced that the way of farming his parents and grandparents did is not future-proof, transformed the family farm into a restaurant. This is how De Dyck was born, where 95 percent of what is served comes from its own vegetable garden and orchard. Celebrating life is also possible without leaving too deep a footprint in the clay. Be inspired by the carefully selected 186 addresses and items in this LXRY List 2024.
