Top crowds for restaurants in Brabant. At least, for the restaurants that are open at Christmas. For example, that is the only two-star restaurant in our province De Lindehof in Nuenen. Chef Soenil Bahadoer has already finished the first Christmas lunch on Sunday afternoon. “I love working at Christmas.”
Bahadoer already started putting together the menu in September. “We often take the top dishes of this year. We have experience with that and then we start working on it.”
That is also the first tip for home cooks at Christmas. “Never make what you have never made before. This is often where people go wrong.” Bahadoer especially likes the Langoustine on the Christmas menu. He makes it with phulauri, a Hindu snack made from chickpeas. Still, he made a simple chicken roulade for the Christmas menu at his home. “I always like that better than those tough, dry turkeys. A chicken always remains tender.” That Christmas dinner at home has already taken place, because of course there is work to be done at Christmas.
“I’m not used to anything else.”
The star chef doesn’t mind working during the holidays at all. “I even think it’s fantastic. I’m not used to anything else. And after New Year’s we have a few days off, which is nice. Everyone comes back rested, because these are tough months.”
But first let’s have a blast. Three days of lunch and dinner. Seventy place settings per day. Three days of top sport, but that is the case every day in a restaurant with two Michelin stars.