Mazzo

Six years after Mazzo club closed its doors, the party people have gone and the building on Rozengracht has reopened as a stylish Italian restaurant and bar.

Bert van der Leden, the man behind a growing number of Amsterdam restaurants including Nevy, Nomads and Brasserie Witteveen, has brought his signature, larger-than-life style to Mazzo.

Image of Mazzo restaurant Amsterdam The enormous space is filled with convivial, communal tables. Spindly black light fixtures hang from the ceiling like metallic spiders, and one wall is covered with open shelves that serve as an extension of the restaurant’s larder.

Mazzo’s menu is mainly Italian, with a focus on simple, tasty dishes. We started with a basket of crusty sourdough bread with three dips: olive and sun-dried tomato tapenades and chunky artichoke. The latter was gorgeously creamy but needed more seasoning to bring out the flavour.

Dips at Mazzo restaurant amsterdam The pasta dishes at Mazzo can be ordered as small or large portions, and these, the secondi and dolci are available all day. Whether you'd want tagliatelle carbonara or tiramisu first thing is a different matter. Pizza is served from midday.

Next up was spaghetti salsiccia: fat strands of pasta lightly tossed in tomato sauce and chopped pork sausage (the eponymous salsiccia). The dish was perfectly seasoned with woody rosemary and fennel seeds, but the paucity of pork made the name seem overblown.

The white house wine, a Chardonnay according to the menu, was served in a stumpy wine glass. It's a look I personally find inelegant, but the wine was also too sweet and warm to accompany food. The Tuscan Chianti was better, but at €5.50 a glass, expensive for what we got.

Image of Mazzo on Rozengracht Service was attentive and friendly, but with only two other tables occupied on a Wednesday afternoon, the waiter seemed happy to have something to do.

Dishes at Mazzo are generally tasty and affordable, and the laidback surroundings and free WiFi mean you can happily while away a few hours here. But like Bert van der Leden’s other ventures, the attention to detail and flair in the restaurant’s design isn’t carried through to the food and drink. The result is that Mazzo is so-so.