Whether at home or outside the door, there is a lot of eating out in the city at Christmas. After two silent corona years, the restaurants are fully booked again and AT5 gets a look behind the scenes.
Chef Julius Busscher and hostess Amy Delorme started preparing for Boxing Day early today. The couple owns Restaurant JA in De Pijp, which is completely full tonight. They have no other staff and are serving a six-course dinner tonight, so it’s a lot of work.
“Actually, it’s just thinking as little as possible and working as hard as possible,” explains Busscher while busy with some caviar.
Christmas atmosphere
The restaurant opened its doors four months before the first lockdown. A false start, Delorme calls it. “We have done the necessary things to keep it going, to survive. We went to live privately outside the city. But now that we can open again, we will just run with full energy.”
Busscher: “The whole vibe was also gone at some point when we were able to open again with the one and a half meter. I notice that people are acting normal again now. So the atmosphere is back and I really like that.”
And although the restaurant is fully booked, they are struggling with high energy prices this year. The consequences of this can be overseen for Restaurant JA. “Because we work without staff ourselves, we can switch very well. And Julius tries to work with the barbecue as much as possible and we cook on induction. We try to do everything we can to keep those costs as low as possible,” explains Delorme.
After the Christmas rush, the two will also enjoy dinner themselves. “We’ll open a bottle of champagne. And hopefully there’s some caviar left.”