Zampone is a beautiful traditional Italian dish. Born out of poverty, it has become a holiday specialty – perhaps because it is so laborious and… nonnas didn’t feel like making it every weekend. It consists of a carefully hollowed out pig’s leg, which is filled with a tasty farce of minced pork and bacon fat, sewn up again and then gently cooked and served in slices. You rarely see something like this in a restaurant, let alone on the à la carte menu.
The zampone at Markant restaurant in Breda is a technically perfect slice of tender and juicy, springy compact, fine minced pork in a wonderfully sticky, meltingly gelatinous ring of softly cooked rind. The stewed baby romaine lettuce underneath is a bit bland and snotty and the beurre blanc as thick as hollandaise. But it is difficult to criticize a chef who has the courage and the skill to serve a good zampone – at least with regard to this dish.
We are dealing with a skilled chef, who can also construct good dishes, as evidenced by the amuse of a rustic-grained ajo Blanc, strong in garlic, but not too much, with fruity, slightly acidic white grape foam, and nice quality roasted almonds and segments of sweet white grape, so that the dish offers the same taste experience twice in a different appearance.
Or the vegetarian starter of enoki mushrooms and maitake (see inset) with orange (segments, candied peel and in the vinaigrette) with pecan and black garlic cream. It looks fabulous: the finely chopped mushrooms neatly cut from a stem, with alternating dots of cream and orange and enoki’s protruding from them in a capricious way. It is generously endowed with oak tenderloin (perhaps the tastiest mushroom), it is layered, nutty and umami, the orange is serving, not festively fruity. It just might be missing something creamy or an egg yolk to bind it. However, that role is fulfilled with verve by the buttery aligoté from Burgundy, which has enough body to stand up to the mushrooms, but also the acidity to connect with the orange.
‘Striking couple’
Because it must be said, the service is exceptionally good and surprising (including wines from Slovenia, Lebanon and Belgium) by hostess and hostess Demi and Martijn Struijk-Hendriks, who were awarded silver last year by Star Wine List in the category ‘best international small wine list’. They call themselves a “striking couple” on the website – hence the name of the restaurant. That’s a pretty apt description; they host the evening in a way that is as flamboyant as it is skilful – they seem to have stepped straight out of the Peter van Straaten prints that adorn the toilets.
For example, there is always at least one table preparation on the menu, for which they have had a special cart custom-made. Today the Roscoff onion ring is burned off live and the fried palm cabbage in front of us is deglazed with onion stock. Both are served with a celeriac-onion cream and grated Belper Knolle, a spicy, umami-rich aged Swiss cheese in a pepper crust. In all its cheese and onion glory, an attractive and complete vegetarian dish. The same can be said of the meaty, beautifully brown roasted cauliflower with savory spinach cream and chic, nutty macadamia cream and a well-aimed dill flower, and again a striking light-oxidative wine pairing.
Unfortunately, not everything turns out well. The biggest point of attention is that a lot of it is very cool tonight. The cauliflower is again accompanied by a beurre blanc as thick as mayonnaise. The parmesan and egg yolk cream on the toasted brioche beforehand had also been so greasy and heavy that it was reminiscent of rusk with a thick layer of margarine. The tuna dish is also greasy: lots of oil in the vinaigrette, thick dollops of mocha cream, alternating with full-fat crème cru. The dish has too little acid. And despite a great marriage between tart German chasselas and the coffee, the whole thing is completely dominated by that greasy coffee cream, which makes it taste mainly like a mocha pastry from HEMA.
The chicken liver cream is also quite cumbersome, the wine so syrupy sweet and floral and dusty that it gives me acute hay fever. It’s not a bad wine, but this combination is so old-fashioned, it’s a kind of wormhole to the time when the snooker players sat next to the table at the world championship with cigars and vodka juice.
The whole thing is completely dominated by that greasy coffee cream, which makes it taste mainly like a mocha pastry from HEMA.
Huge breath of air
Very good, plump, meaty salted anchovy fillets and perfectly al dente beans are covered under a technically beautiful potato mousseline and a huge breath of air in the form of a pecorino foam – I get the niçoise idea, but that doesn’t make it a dish.
The ray wing is perfectly cooked, tender and juicy with a crispy edge, with a nice thin, runny beurre blanc with carrot juice (so he can do it!). However, the artichoke heart next to it is topped with barely raw balls of carrot and zucchini, rather uninspired.
Technically the cooking is good. But not all dishes are correct. The attentive reader has already seen the word ‘cream’ ten times. That oiliness makes the evening a bit cumbersome. On the other hand, there are a number of tasty vegetarian dishes and very well-chosen, interesting glasses of wine. And the striking entertainment. The evening ends with flair with a sabayon freshly whipped at the table with cinnamon stick liqueur, to go with a puff pastry dessert with candied apple and very good vanilla ice cream. With a hint of candied lemon in a balanced sweet and sour Chateau Simon 2022 from the Sauternes. Classic. Technical. Extravagant. And just very tasty.
