The original walls of the otherwise modern interior reveal the past of hotel and restaurant Broederenklooster in Zutphen. This goes back to the thirteenth century, when it served as a monastery for monks. These attractive walls connect the different rooms as silent witnesses to a long history.
Restaurant Broederenklooster is led by chef Niels van Dooijeweert and hostess Marieke Löhr. Now in my previous review I wrote about the pleasure of eating alone in restaurants, something I always do when traveling alone, but rarely in the Netherlands. I decide to try it out in Zutphen and get a nice table at the back from where I can have a good view of the restaurant. Very good, because if you are alone, you don’t want to be placed in the middle of the restaurant as a curiosity.
The lunch starts with a number of lovely appetizers, including a linseed cracker with fresh dried lemon cream, an invigorating gazpacho with watermelon, tomberry (a very small tomato), seeds and herring. A creamy soft hazelnut madeleine with poultry foam and Japanese plum gel and then a small dish of hamachi with deliciously chewy goji berries, crispy puffed black rice and soft kiwi. All very promising.
A warm brioche with whipped butter, basil mayonnaise and olive oil is also served on the table. The kitchen is not economical, I like that. The restaurant has an à la carte menu and a set lunch menu of three (46 euros), four (56 euros) or five courses (66 euros). For dinner, the menu starts at four courses (77 euros).
Fish and cheese are possible
There is an elegant tone-on-tone dish of roasted sea bass with ajoblanco sauce, pine nuts, parmesan cheese and thin, almost transparent slices of red grape.
Ajo Blanco is a cold Spanish soup based on bread, almonds and garlic. Only here the almonds have been replaced by pine nuts. Fish, nuts, grapes, cheese; a beautiful snack board translated into a light starter.
It looks like a still life with different shades of creamy white and the green of the watercress. The combination of fish and cheese is not an obvious choice. I believe that the Italian chef Giorgio Locatelli writes in one of his books that you should not combine the two (which is fine on a pizza, by the way). But it works surprisingly well here, because all the components are soft in taste and keep each other in a delicate balance.
A vegetarian dish with artichoke and epoisses sauce stands out because of the crispy fried and super soft inside gnocchi that are as fluffy as fried bread. Autumnal, rich, without becoming powerful.
The salt-crusted turbot is proudly presented at the table, or at least an attempt is made to do so. The fat grains of salt fly around as the hostess struggles with them. I find it touching. Eventually she goes back to the kitchen for help; there the gently cooked fish undergoes a metamorphosis and I get a battered piece of fillet chastely covered by a layer of hollandaise sauce, with cream and crispy potato. Thick grains of salt have escaped with it, making the fish broom salt. A little later I see how a colleague at another table smoothly removes the salt crust.
Soft as a cloud
The pre-dessert is also served at the table: a small spoon of delicious ice cream made from lavender from our own garden with lemon balm from the same garden that you can look out at from the window. I would like a container full of this in the summer.
It turns out to be a perfect prelude to the dessert, which is a banana extravaganza. Now I know there are people who really hate bananas, but this is delicious: fresh banana, banana mousse, white chocolate and banana cake and lemon ice cream with banana in different layers in one bowl. Soft as a cloud, subdued sweet. The ice cream is delicious. Lemon and banana can clash, but here the two embrace each other tenderly. If chef Van Dooijeweert ever starts an ice cream parlor, I will drive to Zutphen without hesitation.
What a nice place. Hospitable, generous. I find it all the more remarkable when I don’t get asked with my tea if I would like friandises with it (I’m curious, especially when the food is good). But nothing, there isn’t even a dry biscuit with the tea. That is quite incomprehensible, especially for a kitchen that has been attentive from start to finish and has paid attention to the details – home-made peppermint with the bill. The few misses affect the number of balls, but do not detract from the very successful meal in a pleasant atmosphere with friendly service and good value for money.
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