Mud, sludge or clay. That’s what lutum means in Latin. In Dutch it is used to indicate soil particles smaller than 2 micrometers. The lutum content determines whether we speak of sand, sand or clay. The lutum particles determine the fertility of the soil. Learned something again.
I bring it up because Lutum is the name of a restaurant in Wijk bij Duurstede (since last year it has had a Michelin star and a green star). Nice name for a restaurant that is completely inspired by the region. They work together two vegetable gardens and a food forest, a freshwater fisherman and hunters; meat and dairy come from organic farms, all local. You won’t find a lemon there. Lots of fermentations. In doing so, they roughly follow the principles of (although they do use soy sauce and olive oil), without being coquettish about it. Lutum does Lutum, and that has already earned them a nice accolade.
A lot is going well at Lutum. The story is correct, also on the plate. The beautiful old building in the historic center has been decorated with respect and stylishly lit. The pace is nice, the atmosphere is serene. The operation is correct in a pleasantly relaxed manner. There are also some extra-curricular niceties in the menu, from the popcorn-scented spray with the first amuse to the edible gel QR code at the end with which the menu can be digitally called up as a souvenir.
Beautiful products are treated with respect. Like the dry aged pike-perch, which becomes firmer and meatier in taste and structure as it matures and is beautiful flaky but juicy is served with a carrot cream and crispy fried scales. Chimichurri from carrot tops is a nice idea in the context of residual processing, but carrot tops actually don’t taste like anything, and it is wet and fibrous. Meh, no big deal otherwise.
Fair of ‘last raspberries’
Two things are going terribly wrong tonight. First of all: the non-alcoholic juice package. This consists largely of drinks that . The heavily perfumed jasmine-fennel flower infusion with elderflower syrup really has nothing to do with the subtly salty, mineral chablis that has been carefully selected for the pike-perch – which completely defeats such a dish. This especially applies to the fair of “the last raspberries of the year” with water mint and shiso. Raspberries with red pepper, I can imagine that, but you can’t serve such a sweet all-inclusive Torremolinos mocktail with a gastronomic dish.
Secondly, the bread: it has not risen properly and is therefore not cooked. It has a compact, sticky structure and a floury taste, a bit like semi-raw cake.
Vegetable dishes are in the right place at Lutum. That starts with a steamed bao bun with a rich, spicy pointed cabbage stew, warm and layered with spice through a cumin cream, a gel of juniper berries and a coriander flower on top. The vegetarian main course is a custard-like chawanmushi (Japanese savory custard) with oyster mushrooms in a kimchi liquid vinaigrette, and an oyster mushroom XO. And the latter is quite brilliant.
XO is a sauce from Hong Kong, based on chili and garlic and extremely sweet-savory and umami-rich from small pieces of dried seafood and aged ham. When something is presented as an ‘XO of…’ you usually end up with a variation of crispy chili oil. Very tasty, but rarely comparable to XO, because it lacks that luxurious, meaty depth. But this oyster mushroom has been treated in different ways: smoked over coals, salted, dried. Because of this combination, the mushroom (which is also quite umami) approaches the layering of a real XO. Very nicely done. Freshly cut raw spring onions complete the Chinese style.
The oyster mushroom XO approximates the layering of the original Hong Kong sauce
On the other hand, there is a somewhat dull dish of kohlrabi and buckwheat tempeh. Rutabaga is one of the most difficult vegetables to make tasty, but we succeeded here – in a beautiful sweet cream and a sweet and sour celery salad (but made from rutabaga). But the tempeh just isn’t that tasty. It lacks that sour hint and the fluffy coat and perhaps should have fermented a little longer for more flavor development (and to better mask the cardboard taste of the buckwheat).
The duck breast with mushroom lacquer in duck gravy with lemon thyme is well prepared, nothing wrong with it. A bit nice. But for a small additional charge you can choose to drink a Châteauneuf-du-Pape from Château la Nerthe with it – and that together is extremely worth it.
Lutum is the nicest when they let go of the good behavior a little – like sweet red pepper full in your face and plump crayfish tails with a nice charcoal hint with some spicy arugula, finished with a subtle ginger flower perfume. They should do that a little more.
At the end of the evening it will cost us a lot. That’s not even the most extensive menu, with only half a wine arrangement and limo. So if you go all out on the organ, you can quickly reach six hundred for the two of you. In return you will receive a particularly well-organized, enjoyable evening (including pumpkin dessert with warm honey served on a Halloween pumpkin with a candle as a rechaud) with top-quality original dishes. So I’m definitely not going to advise you against it. But for that money, I think there are still some wrinkles that need to be ironed out.
NEW: Give this item as a gift
As an NRC subscriber you can subscribe every month 10 articles give as a gift to someone without an NRC subscription. The recipient can read the article directly, without a paywall.