For on the greener restaurant list: Choux in Amsterdam. Fine dining focusing on nature, local and seasonal food. In short, pure indulgence and an evening you won't soon forget. We enjoyed the six-course menu. Satisfied, yes! But it also tasted like more.
Sustainable food in Amsterdam at Choux
Choux is a restaurant experience that is hard to put into words, we find. Choux is different on all fronts. Forgotten vegetables, lesser-known fish species - hello brook trout -, herbs you had never heard of, cooking techniques you don't come across every day (fermentation!). And then they also make (too) crazy and, above all, surprising combinations. There is nothing we can compare it to. So we won't even try. Take the dessert. That sums up our struggle: ‘a plate - work of art? - of strawberries in spruce syrup, unripe strawberries in pineapple spice oil, candied pine and spruce cones, a sauce of almond milk and lady's bedstraw, and a refreshing sorbet of sorrel and spruce!’ Are you still following it? Don't need to, you just have to go and taste it.
Choux is a restaurant with sustainable ambitions, not to be confused with a plant-based restaurant. The six-course menu, which changes with the seasons, includes sustainable - not industrial - fish. On request, a vegetarian or vegan menu can of course be served. That is no problem at all.
Sustainable gastronomy, but relaxed
Behind Choux is chef Merijn van Berlo. He is on a mission to master ‘sustainable gastronomy’ to perfection. And so you can go and experience that for yourself in his restaurant a stone's throw from the central station - well served by public transport, in other words. Great! If you choose Choux, you choose a restaurant experience with all the trimmings. A real night out. But it is certainly not stiff there. Thankfully.
The strawberry dessert with sorbet ice cream of sorrel and spruce. And ‘the garden’ of Choux, a small green oasis in Amsterdam with central station in the background.
Eating out at Choux
As soon as you make your entrance, two things stand out. Wine. Lots of wine bottles. And weck jars! See if you can decipher everything floating in those jars. All the glassware is not only part of the interior, it is also intertwined with the menu. All those wines are from wine shop Pure Wines with whom the premises are shared and who have taken charge of the wine list with natural wines from Europe. Very cool: they have a number of Eastern European wines on the menu that you are very unlikely to have come across anywhere before. If you prefer to keep it alcohol-free, they also offer a special pairing With juices.
The story behind the weck pots comes from 621 Ferments. They provide the natural flavouring by fermenting and upcycling. Now do you see why Choux cannot be pigeonholed? Choux does not yet have a Michelin star, but we won't be surprised if they get one soon. Maybe even two, because as far as we are concerned, they deserve a green star too! Because Choux works with produce that grows in season, you always have a good reason to get pampered more often.
See more about this special restaurant.
Their Instagram is also a picture!
Address: De Ruijterkade 128, Amsterdam.
More greener restaurant tips in Amsterdam
- Sustainable food with a Michelin star at Restaurant de Kas.
- Roasting, smoking, stewing pickling in a green oasis at restaurant Puff in Amsterdam North.
- Perhaps the tastiest hummus and cauliflower in Amsterdam: Mana Mana restaurant.
Photo credits: thegreenlist.nl.
