DaarZijnWeWeer

De Bijenkorf in Amsterdam is busy refurbishing some things and among those was the restaurant. It used to be called La Ruche and be located on the second floor. But now it has been renamed Kitchen and it’s located on the top floor, in the roof. Now the top floor of De Bijenkorf has always been a bit problematic, because not a lot of people went there. Lots of things have been tried there, but nothing quite worked. Putting the restaurant here is a good idea I think.

So you have to go all the way upstairs up the escalators and then some more escalators and then you arrive at Kitchen. The decor is not really my taste. It is very dark, everything is black with steel details. It is very disorienting and confusing. Luckily the other side of the restaurant is painted white for the transition to the small terrace they have now. Actually the terrace is the best part of the restaurant giving you a view of a part of the Amsterdam skyline. So we headed to the white part just to get our bearings and then dive into the dark self service part to grab something to eat. Fortunately they didn’t change the assortment from the La Ruche days, so there is the wok stand for wok meals, a sandwich bar, fresh juices, coffee and sweets. We decided just to take a muffin, another interesting looking pastries and a couple of lattes.

Then we had to look for the cash register to pay. Now the layout of Kitchen is very open so you are not really directed to the cash register by the shape of the self service area. They are strategically placed at either side of the self service, but somehow they don’t stand out much, just like the service points with the utensils and napkins and stuff.

Anyway after we paid, we took a place on the terrace. As I said it’s the best place, but it’s not so big. One big table, a couple of small ones and a bench with some tables on one of the walls. The weather was not so good though, so there was plenty of space The interesting pastry (I still don’t know what is was) was very nice as was the coffee as usual from La Ruche.

Kitchen is a good replacement of La Ruche at De Bijenkorf, only the black decor is a bit of a turn off.

 Kitchen
Dam 1
0900 0919
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