On the 19th of March a new famous chef (already very well known in London) took over the restaurant on the ground floor of the ‘MANDARIN ORIENTAL CONSERVATORIUM’ hotel in Amsterdam. Yotam Ottolenghi is his name.
He’s known for his middle-eastern dishes, mostly made of vegetables and of course always fresh. Because of his cook books he’s well known all over the world. Over the years he wrote eight cook books. He has become the full owner of 6 restaurants and several deli’s in Londen, one in Geneva and now one in Amsterdam. In 2025 the partnership with Sami Tamimi stopped.
In 2011 I met Yotam Ottolenghi in bookshop ‘Blankevoort’
in Amstelveen during a book signing of his book ‘PLENTY’. Yotam is born on the 14th of December 1968 in Jerusalem from Jewish parents. In the same year I was born.
Between1995-1997 Ottolenghi lived on the Herengracht in Amsterdam because of his study philosophy and his study comperative literature.
The Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group has been fully acquired in 2026 by Jardine Matheson:
Jardines (company) – Wikipedia
On the 31th of March I could have lunch in his restaurant in Amsterdam. It was said they were fully
booked untill July.
Because of my job as a culinairy journalist I got a table for two.
The number of dishes on his menu are limited, but that’s a good sign.
As a starter we had:
Grilled mammole artichoke walnut tarator (tarator is often made of walnut or
sesame seed. And for mammole I found: Guida articokes are basically typicall romaneschi artichockes, the cimaroli, also called mammole fried
Roasted aubergine, golden raisin caponata, spiced croutons. Caponata is a Sicilian disch with chopped fried egplant, tomatoes, onions, celery seasoned with olive oil tomatao sauce, olives and capers. Oftens with vinegar and sugar
As a main course:
Brased carrots, Swiss chard, lentiles, pickeled kumquats
Chickens skewers, coffee rub, doukon salad, toum. Coffee rub is a seasoning that includes coffee, cacao, paprika, cinnamon, salt and sugar. And toum is a Lebanese garlic sauce
The dessert was:
Preserved Lemon Pavlova (meringue based dessert), lemon curd, mascarpone cream
Apple mille feuille, calvados butter, grains of paradise. Grains of paradise is a West African spice.
And last but not least a Miso sweet (fermented paste made from soybeans)
It are fresh, simple and honest dishes you not often eat and find in restaurants in The Netherlands. If you are a Michelin star or a Gault & Millau kind of person this restaurant is not that kind. The wine was not of my liking because the red wine was to warm and and because of that a little bit bitter. The white wine was a little bit plain and the bouquet didn’t open so much.
But the lady that served our meal was so perfect, accurate and whitty. She had worked seven years for Ottolenghi in London.
https://www.mandarinoriental.com/en/amsterdam/conservatorium
Jiri W. Penders, member of FIJEV (International Federation of Wine and Spirit Journalist and Writes)