As an Italian who lives in Haarlem and has a serious passion for food I always feel embarrassed when friends come over and would like to have a little dining out in the town. The food scene in this city is inversely related to its beauty: “appalling” is the word which comes to my mind. And I believe it has to do with the customers: as long as they’ll keep cherishing the “all-you-can-eat” over “it’s food, it goes inside me, it turns into me! I’d better select what I’m going to let into my mouth” the restaurants here will be as follow:

-“Fried air&decor”, like the “Het Diner” by Herman Koch explains very well: much ado about nothing, pretentiousness at its best, hungry belly while leaving the premise not to mention quite lighter wallet and a head full of question marks: “did i truly have a “culinary epiphany”?”, “was it truly an “unforgettable experience”? Most (but not all) of the michelin-starred restaurant of the area belong to this category: m&l, cheval blanc, chapeau, de bokkedorns, de vrienden van jacob, etc etc most of these truly charge a lot for very little, quite skillfully presented and quite pretentiously put forward. Not for me, if I’d like a “caprese salad” (mozzarella and tomatoes sliced together, dressed with olive oil and basilico) I’ll make it myself at home, thank you very much, I will not pay 18 euros to be served one.

-“Decent cooking mismatched for top-of-the-pop”: here you have the various Lambermont, Willendorf, Truffles, etc. Good food, decent ingredients, correct cooking, but nothing else! No fanciness, no inventiveness, no nothing, nada. Again, the bill tend to be a bit on the high side for something I can also cook at home, with a bit of effort! Which goes most in being able to find the right ingredients, for those who don’t know about that (counting the millions, still) the meat they serve you is not from AH, and it tastes better, doesn’t it? But it’s not purchased in Brasil and air-freighted during the night, try the Lindenhoff in Abcoude! One note for you, Truffles people: nobody wants to wait 40 minutes between “gewoon” dishes, and if you’re going to serve me chantilly creme with strawberry for dessert after an endless night of waiting for my food, do expect me to be pissed off.

-to be continued-