Café de Ceuvel is a restaurant on a mission: the menu carefully articulates there is a wider vision to deliver an eco-friendly and low environmental impact. There is a rough and ready feel; a reflection on the increasing trend towards sustainability and authenticity at the...expense perhaps of comfort and, perhaps, the basic proposition.
So with very high praise and reviews, we came here for lunch.
Both the inside and outside decor give the feeling of an American style summer camp assembled by a shipwrecked crew with nothing to make shelter with other than washes ashore in the island with its mismatched tables and seating, home-made decorations and deliberately contrasting use of panel colour.
If a small group of dreadlocked hippies revealed themselves slouched onto patchwork beanbags wielding archaic musical instruments and lamenting the tax dodging, well-heeled patriarchy: I would have asked them where I could purchase the nearest fair trade, organically grown cold brew.
So we find ourselves at a school desk ordering from a concise lunch menu during a semi busy Saturday service. Oh, and it’s vegan bang on trend with most restaurants I went to in two weeks of grazing around Amsterdam. To be clear, there’s some excellent vegan food out there but...
Much like the decor, the food was a bit cobbled together and didn’t make much sense. Our oyster mushroom croquette with mustard greens over sourdough (it’s an open face sandwich) was less croquette and more suppli sized mushroom flavoured dough with a crust. It is a ‘croquette’ in the style of the local Dutch bitternballen which would work if it was the same size - the texture would make the dish better but still not take it over the line. The open face sandwich proposition is pointless. This dish would be better conceptualised as a starter oyster mushroom bittenballen with a dip.
The cheesy padron pepper toastie is gooey and cheesy but doesn’t rise above the level of a home comfort sandwich regardless of the padron peppers.
Vegan food is a hard sell for many people and there are restaurants fighting to change paradigms and perceptions about vegan food making it exciting, winning hearts and minds.
This is not that place. There’s a lot here with a good location and the shabby chic is on trend but the core proposition of paying for food for enjoyment collapses.More