My first time in a two-star Michelin restaurant!

Review: Librije’s Zusje Amsterdam

It is not a secret that I love food. I don’t consider myself the most adventurous eater in the world but going to a Michelin star restaurant was on my wish list for a long time. For our 3 years anniversary, Vittorio took me to Librije’s Zusje – a two-star Michelin restaurant in Amsterdam. I’ll share my experience!

Librije’s Zusje is part of the beautiful and prestigious Waldorf Astoria hotel, which is located at the Herengracht. When entering the doors, they offered to take our coats and a friendly woman accompanied us to the restaurant. You immediately get a cosy feeling, because it is not too overly fancy. Fancy in a welcoming way, let’s say. We went for the full-on chef’s menu with accompanying wines for me, and beer for Vittorio.

I am not an official restaurant reviewer – let me state that first. I just want to share my experience from a rookie point of view. I do think that you can intensely enjoy a night like this, even when you know nothing about wine or haute-cuisine. I was really blown away by the combinations of flavours!

And yes – of course it involves a lot of storytelling and sometimes getting a 2 minute story about an appetizer that is in fact a seaweed cracker the size of a chips but it fits within the experience. I only took pictures of the main dishes, and I forgot of some what they were so I will just post them with the menu and you can guess what is what 😉

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I indicated upfront that I don’t like coriander (cilantro) so sometimes I got a different or adjusted dish. I really like that they take your personal flavours into account to make this dinner experience really unforgettable. And even though I am not a wine expert, I am happy I took the wine arrangement because the wines were DIVINE!

I still remember the first glass I had – it was a very buttery white wine, with a not too sharp flavour. Personally, it was my favourite of the evening.

A funny anecdote: at the begin of the evening there was a white-ish thing under a glass cover on the table. We were wondering what it could be: decoration, butter,…? A bit later, someone of the staff came and poured a green substance over it. And a bit later again. Turns out, it was a type of mushroom (tremella) that would be used for our dessert later! A nice touch of mini-entertainment at the table.

Another nice touch were the chocolates we got with our coffee/tea. The were infused with all the flavours the chef used in the menu. Peculiar, but not bad at all and a very nice touch to it!

After we finished everything and paid, we were escorted to the elevators and upstairs there was someone waiting with our – heated! – coats. We walked out the door with a warm and fuzzy feeling – and it was not only because of the wine 😉

Of course, this type of dinner is not something an average-earning person like me does weekly. But it was on my bucket list already for so long, and Vittorio helped me cross it off.

Is this something that is also on your bucket list? Let me know!