Marc-Marie Huijbregts has no pleasant memories of chef Freek van Noortwijk, who ended his marriage to Katja Schuurman in November. “He was really, really unkind.”
Freek van Noortwijk is currently enjoying some media attention because he has opened a restaurant in Amsterdam with the daring name Satan’s Anus. The chance that Marc-Marie Huijbregts will eat there is in any case not very great, because he has met the chef once and that did not go well.
Freek from the kitchen
What exactly happened? “I was eating at Freek’s once. That was a while ago,” says the comedian in his podcast Marc-Marie & Aaf Find Something† “It was in his restaurant Breda. I was there for dinner, so a long time ago, huh? I went to eat and he came to the table to talk. Very nice, fine, and then I ate a duck breast.”
A duck breast never quite fits in with Marc-Marie. “A duck breast always has such a skin – I don’t like it that much. It tastes good when it’s very crunchy. Well, then again… Anyway, I usually don’t eat it. So I had eaten it so well, the waiter comes to get it and then he comes out of the kitchen a little later.”
“As if I was being punished!”
Freek came out of the kitchen, and then what? “Then he says, ‘I saw that you hadn’t eaten the sheet.’ I say no.’ It really was like being punished. I say, “Oh, no, I don’t like that.” “Yes,” he said. ‘It is of course not chicken breast from Albert Heijn.’ Well… There I was kind of put in my place like I’m a culinary barbarian.”
An unkind suggestion, Marc-Marie thinks. “Maybe I am, but he’s already opened Satan’s Anus, so let’s not talk about culinary barbarians. But I also thought… I got such a twitch… No, I didn’t get a twitch, but I [had zoiets van]: ‘Sorry, daddy, I’m going to eat it.’ haha. It indeed seemed that way.”
Very hard
Co-host Aaf Brandt Corstius is also a bit shocked. “I would find this very difficult.”
Marc-Marie: “Oh, I don’t like that. But I thought it was so stupid that he said: ‘It is not chicken breast from Albert Heijn.’”
Aaf: “Yeah, he shouldn’t have said that.”
Marc-Marie: “That was really a bit…”
Aaf: “In the context of fun and jovial, he could have said: ‘Ah, eat that sheet, it’s so delicious! I’ve been grilling that especially for you!’ That’s still nice jovial, star chef-like, but saying: ‘That’s not a bonus chicken’, that’s just dissing.”
broiler chicken
It was a bit condescending, Marc-Marie thinks. “Yes. “It’s not a broiler, of course.” ‘Of course it’s not chicken with fries and applesauce!’ “Oh no, haven’t you?” Yes really, I really thought that… That was really unkind.”
Aaf: “You still remember that.”
Marc-Marie: “But I always have, which is also nice for Özcan to know: I don’t forget something, but I do forgive something. Only I can’t forget.”
