Dining with the stars

It is again this time of the year in the Netherlands!

Not Christmas, not yet at least, but dining with the stars.

What is dining with the stars (DWTS)? In brief, since it is a quite well known initiative, it is an event participated by many Michelin starred restaurants in the Netherlands that for a limited number of days and sits, offers meals at a fixed price. Mind you, I did not say popular prices.

It is a great initiative, in my view, but one will end spending a good amount of money never the less.

Dinner (in 2017) is 59.50€ per person (excluding drinks and other optionals), but every additional Michelin star “costs” 15€ more. For example a two Michelin stars restaurant will cost basically 75€ per person plus drinks. You can probably already imagine that a dinner for two people can easily reach 180-190€, but no restaurants will force you do drink fine wines or costly cocktails.

Dining with the stars 2017 starts on June 19th and ends on July 6th, but it is already possible to book tables, actually it may be too late for your favorite restaurant.

Finally let me get into the point of this blog post: some suggestions for the people interested in DWTS.

• Always check the restaurants websites/menus to make sure that the DWTS price actually saves you money. Some restaurants have lunch-menus or other offers of their own that already cost less than the DWTS price. With DWTS you would get an additional course, most probably, to justify the price, but if I could I would go for the cheaper option.
• No room left? No panic! Do you really want to go to that restaurant but there are no week-ends nights available anymore? Been there. Search for week-end lunches, or weekdays evenings, it is usual to find a spot free there. Be flexible, this is for the greater good!
• If you can afford it, go for the 2 stars restaurants. Although I have no math supporting this idea, I believe that you get more value for the price.
  • Additional tip: go only for the michelin starred restaurants, for the other restaurants there is the “restaurant week” event, but honestly I do not find it very interesting.

Are you not already booking restaurants like crazy? Ok, so these are the restaurants that I tried, which you can find on the website:

• Aan the Poel, 2 michelin stars. Possibly the best dining experience I had in the Netherlands. I was there in 2014. The restaurant is well worth its 2 stars, the menu – I remember – is very experimental anddiverse, and it does not give any deja vu, as other restaurants do. I usually drive to go there so I cannot tell much about wines, but I remember an impressive list. I had the house wine, which in 2014 costed 5€ per glass and that was the real bargain of the night. Strongly recommended.
• Bridges, one michelin star. In the center of Amsterdam, open since few years, very – very – nice decorations and location. Very elegant restaurant, you may want to check the lunch menù prices as well, which are very affordable. I went last year, and I did not regret it. I remember that the main course (an halibut-like fish) was not at the level of the other courses, but not disappointing either.
• And then I went to another one, which – unfortunately – I cannot remember, even digging in my email archives I cannot find any confirmation. And it is a pity, because I remember very well what I had and how it was.

Enjoy your michelin starred meal, I will report back in July after I had mine.