Zuid Zeeland is an established Amsterdam restaurant serving a mix of modern French and Dutch food. I’ve eaten here a couple of times, most recently during De Diner Dagen (The Dinner Days), the first edition of a dining deal week organised by restaurant review site IENS.

Like Restaurant Week, De Diner Dagen is an opportunity for Amsterdam restaurants to showcase themselves, albeit with a limited menu. Unlike Restaurant Week, however, where restaurants charge a standard €25 for a three-course dinner (some of the really top spots may add a surcharge), the restaurants taking part in De Diner Dagen were grouped into price categories.

Zuid Zeeland was in the €25 bracket (the lowest being €15 and the highest €35). A good discount, given that the restaurant's standard price for three courses is €47.50.

The starter of scallops with chive cream, frisée salad, a tangle of chuka wakame seaweed and a parmesan crisp was a lovely combination of understated and bold, western and eastern flavours.

In comparison, the main dishes seemed uninventive and not representative of Zuid Zeeland’s culinary talents: guinea fowl with roast potatoes, and an overly salty mushroom risotto.

For dessert, R. chose a hefty chunk of port-infused Stilton, which was accompanied by crackers and discs of rye bread. As usual, I couldn't keep away from the dessert containing chocolate: bread and butter pudding with chocolate chips, served with a scoop of chocolate/espresso ice cream.

I still bears the scars of school dinner bread and butter pudding, but this version was the perfect example of what it can be like. The bread was more like cake, and a far cry from the stale crusts softened in milk dished up at school. Although it had a good coffee kick, the ice cream helped to lighten what is in effect lunch repackaged as a dessert.

I stuck with the white house wine throughout the meal, a well-balanced Château Miraval from Provence. The owner, Gijsbert Bianchi, recommended an organic red 2008 Domaine Philippe Gilbert Menetou-Salon to accompany R.’s guinea fowl. It was complex and fabulous, but we were surprised when the bill arrived to see that it cost €12 a glass, almost half the price of R.’s meal. It would have been courteous to tell us that when we ordered.

Zuid Zeeland’s interior has a cosy, living-room feel - a low ceiling and wooden beams, typical of Amsterdam canal houses - and the service is similarly unpretentious. Having said that, as the Amsterdam restaurant filled up, service went down. We heard a glass smashing somewhere at the back of the restaurant, and our waiter was distracted by the ringing telephone a few metres away from us in the lobby.

Zuid Zeeland works better as a full-priced eatery, when the chefs are not worrying so much about profit margins and the full menu is on offer.

Restaurant info

Opening hours:
lunch Mon-Fri 12.00-14.30; dinner daily 18.00-23.00

Price indication:

Our rating:

eat amsterdam