BOARDING PASS
Foodie alert: Sergio
Herman’s hypercreative Oud Sluis is just a
quick jaunt from Brussels, to which United
offers nonstop service from its U.S. hubs in
Chicago, New York/Newark and Washington
Dulles. Or, if a culinary trip to Amsterdam is
what you have in mind, fly United nonstop to
the Netherlands’ capital from Chicago, Hous-
ton, New York/Newark and Washington
Dulles.
For detailed schedule information or
to book your flight, go to united.com.
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FOOD&DRINK
FARAWAY, SOCLOSE
A colonial feast that brings
everything to the table
The
rijsttafel
,
or “rice table,”
is Amsterdam’s most
famous feast, as
emblematic of the
city as bike-riding
grannies. Yet its
foods don’t come
from the Nether-
lands at all. The
concept is a holdover
from the Dutch colo-
nial era, when plantation
honchos in Indonesia,
eager to impress visiting
dignitaries, would introduce
the many exotic tastes of their
adopted home in one fell swoop.
The spread included a mound of
rice and up to 40 small dishes to
go with it—iconic recipes from
across the islands such
as
gado gado
(
veg-
etables with peanut
sauce),
sates
(
skewered meats),
sambals
(
chutneys)
and
rendangs
(
coconut beef).
These days most
of Amsterdam’s many
Indonesian restaurants,
catering to a Dutch
audience, serve some
MANSEMACABRE
This Amsterdam eatery offers
an arty take on a grim history
Opening restaurants in old commercial,
institutional and industrial spaces is big
everywhere these days, but nowheremore so
than in Amsterdam, where former factories,
warehouses, schools and banks have all been
transformed into places to eat. And among
these recycled venues, none is quite as off-
beat as Lab 111, a café, bar and restaurant in a
decommissioned pathology lab.
“
The bodies used to come in through tun-
nels,” says restaurateur Otto Groeneveld,
who opened the place a few years ago as a
for-profit arm of the nonprofit arts group
that holds screenings and performances
elsewhere in the
building (dinner cus-
tomers help offset
artist rents).
Lab 111’s décor puts
a playful spin on
the space’s ghoulish
past. Metal cabinets
that once housed
specimens in jars now
stock bo les of wine.
Vintage operating-
room lamps hang
above the enormous
green table where
dishes like braised
lamb with savoy cab-
bage, pancetta and
veal-oregano sauce,
and quinoawithpumpkin, mushrooms, beets
and chickpeas are served.
Groeneveld didn’t extend the thememuch
beyond the décor, though. “We didn’t want to
take it too far,” he says. “We don’t want to be
a circus act.” —J.C.
THE LURID LARDER
Old medical paraphernalia
is juxtaposed with fake-
pantry wallpaper at Lab 111
SPREAD ’EM
Puri Mas’ take
on the
rijsttafel
HOWDOES THEWORLD’S
largest coffee chain shake off its one-
size-fits-all image? For Seattle-based Starbucks—which is looking to
move into newmarkets in Europe andAsia—the answer is to replace
its gangbusters Starbucks-upon-Starbucks expansionmodel with a
hyperlocal approach. The company’s newflagship in Amsterdam is
the ultimate expression of this corporate about-face. “Just because
you have a huge footprint on the planet doesn’tmean you have to do
the exact same thing wherever you go,” says Liz Muller, Starbucks’
Dutch-born concept design director.
Built in the former vault of the historic Amsterdamsche Bank on
Rembrandt Square, theAmsterdamStarbucks is the company’s first
European concept café and its largest outpost on the continent. “This
is the most iconic Starbucks in the world right now,” says Muller.
The 4,500-square-foot space features the work of some 35 local
artists and artisans, as well as some ingenious recycled design ele-
ments. Old bicycle inner tubes function as soundproofing along one
wall. Stools crafted like bike seats, withworn leather stretched over
springs, line the counter at the “slow coffee theater,” where reserve
Star Cra
Sea le’s coffee giant does the indie thing in Holland
